Ottley shook his head and pointed to the laughing boys beside him, saying, "These are his sons."
"No matter," they replied, with a dejected air. "We cannot get our gang together. Hal is down, and Lawford missing. We've been hunting a pig or two over Feltham's run, and we've brought 'em up to Farmer Lee. They are good 'uns, and they will make him three fat hogs by-and-by, if he likes to keep 'em. We have heard something of what that Lawford has been after, and we are uncommon mad about it, for fear the farmer should think we had any hand in it."
"He knows you had not," returned Edwin. "It is all found out. But I do not think Lawford will show his face here any more. I am sure my father will be pleased with such a present, and thank you all heartily." As he spoke he held out his hand, and received a true old Yorkshire gripe.
"There are three of us," he went on, glancing at Arthur and Cuthbert; "but can we get such gifties home?"
"And what will you do with them when they are there?" asked Arthur; "unless, like Paddy, you house them in the corner of the cabin."
Ottley, always good at need, came to the help, and proposed to lend his empty corn-bags for the transit.
Back they went in triumph, each with a sack on his back and a struggling pig fighting his way out of it.
The kicking and the squealing, the biting and the squalling, the screams and the laughs, broke up the conference within doors, and augmented the party at the supper, which Audrey and Effie were preparing from the contents of the panniers.
"The pack-horse train a realized fact!" exclaimed Mr. Bowen.—"Come, Arthur; that means for us the rest of our journey made easy. We must be ready for a start at any hour."
"If your time is to be my time," interposed Ottley, who was entering at the moment, "we shall all wait for the morning."