“That the boys must be severely punished, sir,” said Mr Hasnip, who looked quite startled.
“Punished! I should think so indeed. If I were not a magistrate, I’d give the wretched young poachers a severe trouncing. How dare you, eh?—how dare you, I say, come trespassing on my grounds and poaching my rabbits?”
The only answer that I could find was, “I’m very sorry, sir. I did not think; and I’ll never do so any more;” but it seemed so ridiculous as I thought it, that I held my tongue.
“Pretty scoundrels, ’pon my word!” cried the General. “Gentlemen’s sons, eh? nice gentlemen’s sons. They’ve both got poacher written in their face, and I can see what the end will be—transportation, or hung for killing a keeper. That’s it, eh, Hopley?”
“Well, sir,” said Bob, giving us each a pitying look, “I wouldn’t go quite so far as that.”
“No, because you are an easy-going fool. You let people rob me right and left, and you’d stand still and let the young scoundrels shoot you. There, take them away, the pair of them. You two, I mean—you pedagogues. I’ll come and see the Doctor myself to-morrow morning, and I’ll have those two fellows flogged—soundly flogged. Do you hear, you boys?—flogged. How many rabbits have you got?”
“Only this one, sir,” I said.
“What? You dare to tell me only one?”
“There was another, only Magglin put it in his pocket.”
“Got a dozen hid somewhere,” cried the General. “Where have you hid them, you dog? Stuffed in some burrow, I suppose. Where are they, sir?”