“Done this! Has anybody done this?” faltered Dick, while Tom turned quite white.
“Yes; don’t you understand?”
“No, father,” cried Dick, looking at him vacantly.
“The poor beasts have been houghed—hamstrung by some cruel wretch. Here, quick!”
He hurried across to the lodge where a favourite cow and the bull were tethered, and as he saw that these poor beasts had been treated in the same barbarous way—
“Did you hear or see anyone, Dick?” he cried, turning sharply on his son.
“No, father. I was asleep till Tom woke me, and told me that the beasts were uneasy.”
“It is too cruel, too cruel,” groaned the squire huskily. “What is to happen next? Here, go and call up the men. You, Tom Tallington, go and rouse up Hickathrift. We may be in time to catch the wretches who have done this. Quick, boys! quick! And if I do—”
He did not finish his sentence; but as the boys ran off he walked into the house, to return with his gun, and thus armed he made a hasty survey of the place.
By the time he had done, Dick was back with the men, and soon after, Hickathrift came panting up, with Tom; but though a hot search was carried on for hours, nothing more was found, and by breakfast-time five reports had rung out on the bright morning air, as Squire Winthorpe loaded his old flint-lock gun with a leaden bullet five times, and put the poor helpless suffering brutes out of their misery.