“Ah, I thowt so! Nay, you mustn’t goo.”
“Oh yes, let us go,” said Mercer. “There, I won’t touch an egg.”
“An’ you won’t touch the birds?”
“No.”
“Nor him neither.”
“Oh, I won’t touch them,” I said eagerly.
“You see the master says they do no end of good, killing the mice and young rats.”
“And I say they do no end of mischief, killing the young partridges and fezzans and hares,” said the keeper. “Better not let me get a sight o’ one down our woods.”
The man wiped his face again with his hand, and looked at us both attentively.
“Young master here said he’d stooff a magpie for me if you shot one, Bob Hopley.”