“Who? what?” cried my uncle, upsetting his coffee.
“Some on ’em—Ruddles’s, I s’pose,” said Browsem. “Don’t b’leeve there’s a tail left out’er scores,” said the man.
“There, go down and wait, and I’ll come directly after breakfast.”
But to all intents and purposes my uncle had finished his breakfast, for nothing more would he touch, while his face grew purple with rage. Gout—everything—was forgotten for the time; and half an hour after, Browsem was pointing out the signs of the havoc made on the preceding night in the fir-plantation. Here and there lay feathers, spots of blood, gun-wads; and many a trunk was scarred and flayed with shot. In one place, where the trees were largest, the poachers seemed to have been burning sulphur beneath the boughs, while twice over we came upon wounded pheasants, and one dead—hung high up in the stubbly branches, where it had caught.
My uncle looked furious, and then turning in the direction of the scene of the last night’s adventures, he strode off, and we followed in silence.
On reaching the wood, we very soon found, from the trampled underwood and broken twigs, traces of our chase; but the birds seemed plentiful, and no feathers or blood-stains were to be found.
“They didn’t get many here, at all events,” muttered my uncle.
Both Browsem and Todds shook their heads at me, and looked ghosts.
“Strange thing, though,” muttered my uncle. “What do you think of it, Browsem?”
The keeper screwed up his face, and said nothing.