Bill was not hurt; but he lay quiet, still hoping to escape discovery. The owner of the voice, however, to whom the boot also belonged, was not likely to be so easily satisfied.
"What's up?" repeated he, facing about, and seeing to his infinite astonishment a somewhat unkempt figure sprawling at the bottom of the ditch.
Finding concealment impossible, Bill scrambled to his feet with a sheepish grin.
"What are you after?" asked the stranger.
He was dressed in a suit of dark-coloured tweed, and had under his arm what looked like a bundle of deal sticks and a flat, square package buckled up in a shiny black case. Bill's rapid survey satisfied him that he did not belong to the neighbourhood, and that it was therefore safe to tell as many lies as ingenuity could invent.
"Rats," answered he promptly. "Got a hole here; and they steals the eggs."
"Ah!" observed the gentleman. "And you get so much a head for them, eh?"
Bill nodded.
The gentleman turned on his heel, laughing to himself at the idea that any rat should be so unwary as to come out of his hole when somebody was by to knock him on the head. A minute later, he had forgotten the whole thing, and relapsed into his former attitude, looking away across the fields to the right. He was an artist, and had come down by rail to make the best of the mild spring day; for there was an open view of the church from that point before the leaves were thick.
Bill, not knowing all this, stood at the bottom of the ditch staring at his back, and wondering what spirit of contrariness could possess him that he must choose that very spot to loiter on. He was just thinking whether it would be safe to leave him out of the question altogether, and proceed to the business of getting through the hedge, when the gentleman faced about again.