"I think it's nothing but the wind rustling the branches."
"Oh no, Githa! It is somebody! Do stop and listen. I can hear voices, and they're coming towards us. Suppose they're poachers! Let us hide quickly behind these bushes, and let them pass without seeing us. I wish we'd brought Rolf."
Since the midnight adventure at school Gwethyn was disposed to be much alarmed at all doubtful characters, and would have gone considerably out of her way to avoid a tramp. She seized Githa's arm, and drew her aside now, in nervous haste, and together the pair crouched behind a thick sheltering group of bramble bushes. In the dim light they were just able to distinguish the features of the wayfarers who advanced; one was unmistakably Bob Gartley, and the other they recognized as a carter whom they had sometimes noticed hanging about the "Dragon". The errand of the two men seemed of a doubtful nature, and might well justify Gwethyn's suspicions. They stopped opposite the very bush where the girls were concealed, and taking various pieces of wire and string out of their pockets, commenced to set traps with much care, and a skill worthy of a better cause. They were so near that the unwilling listeners behind the brambles could overhear every word that was spoken.
"Things aren't the same as they used to be," remarked Bob Gartley sulkily. "It's hard work for a poor man to get even a rabbit nowadays. Look out, Albert, you're spoiling that noose!"
"It was very different when I was a boy," returned Albert. "Mr. Ledbury didn't own the shooting in these woods then, and they weren't so strictly kept. One had an easy chance of a pheasant or two."
"Aye, it all belonged to the Grange, and it always went with the house in those days."
"Pity it's changed hands."
"Yes; old Mr. Ledbury never used to trouble much, and if one took a walk in his woods there was no particular questions asked."
"This lawyer chap's too sharp."
"He got more than his share. When the old man died, everyone in the village said it was a shame those two Hamilton children should have been overlooked and left nothing. Some folks went so far as to say there must have been a later will, and gave Mr. Wilfred the credit of suppressing it. There was a lot of talk at the time. It seems there was a big sum of money, thousands of pounds it was, that old Mr. Ledbury was known to have received only a day or so before his death. It had been paid over to him in notes. He hadn't put it in the bank, and after his death it never turned up. He was a queer chap was old Ledbury; fond of gambling, and the tale went that he must have lost it at play."