And he sed, “It is; but if things go rite, and we are made of the propper stuff for buckeneers, we’ll make England wring yet.”
Then it began to rain rather hard, and I found that a wood isn’t really a dry place by night if it rains, and Bailey lighted a match, and sed it was nearly nine.
“That’ll mean ‘lights out’ at Merivale,” he sed; “but for us it’ll mean the begenning of the night.”
I sneazed just about then, becorse water from the fir-tree was dropping down my neck rather fast, and Bailey sed if I was going to get annything the matter with me I had better go back at once, becorse no buckeneer ever had a cold, being men of steel and iron. And I sed a sneaze was nothing.
Then we started very corsiously through the wood, and Bailey cocked his pistell, and I asked him kindly to walk in front, feeling a curious sensashun when he walked behind me with his pistell cocked. I told him, and he sed it was fear, but I sed it was kaution.
Sometimes he whispered, “Cave!” and we sunk down and got fritefully dripping in the wet, but nothing happened, and we were getting well on through the wood when Bailey sed, “Cave!” again, and this time, when we had sunk down, we distinkly herd a footstep, and Bailey sed it was our first adventure, and I sed I wished it had come by daylight, becorse it wants grate practise to face adventures in the dark at first.
Anyway the noise got nearer and got louder, and Bailey and me both cocked our pistells, and he sed, “Reserve your fire to close range,” and I sed, “Yes.” Then he sed, “I see the thing. It’s bigger than a beast you would expect in an English wood”; and I sed, “I have got a sort of fealing it is something out of the menaggerie”; and he sed, “Then it will be a real adventure, and I wish we were up trees.”
But it was to late, and something went quite close. I sore a red spark, and Bailey sed, “Fire!” which we did. At leest my pistell went off with fereful effect; but Bailey’s didn’t, and he sed afterwards that he’d make the pistell man biterly rew the day he sold him a treecherous weppon.
But after I fired we herd a human voice, and it sed, “Hell!” Then it sed other fearful words, which Bailey sed we ought to remember because they were buckeneering words curiously enuff. And then the man dashed towards us, which showed I had not slain him, or even hit him in a vittle spot; and we fled, and soon we found that we had distanced him, though we had a squeek for it.
“He was a keeper,” sed Bailey, “and he will think we were poachers, and raise a hue-and-cry. We must keep on and get into Oakshott Woods, or we shall very likely have to yield to supereer force.”