“Well?” cried my uncle.
“Tied a lanthorn to a cat’s neck, and sent her out in the open, to make belief as it were a dog driving the partridges.”
“Well?”
“And we’ve been a-hunting it for long enew, and Ponto ketched her at last.”
“Well?”
“And this was only to get us outer the way, for I heard a gun down Bunkin’s Spinney.”
“Well?” shouted my uncle.
“And I’ve come to know what’s right to be done.”
“Done,” roared my uncle; “why run down to the Spinney, or there won’t be a pheasant left. Here, my stick—my pistols—Here, Dick—Confound—Scoundrels. Look sharp.” And then he hobbled out of the room after the keeper, when warm with the excitement of perhaps having a brush with the poachers, I was following, but a voice detained me on the threshold.
“Richard,” whispered Jenny; and there was something in the earnest eyes and frightened look that drew me back in an instant. “Richard, you won’t go—those men—danger—Oh! Richard, pray! There, don’t. What would your uncle say?”