“They’ll come over the common from Woodstay way, Sir John, through the fir wood, and down at once into the long meadow, safe. We’ll take one side, the major the other, and Captain Rolph the bottom of the meadow. We’ll let them get well to work, and then when I whistle all close in, and get as many of ’em as we can. We shall be sure of their nets anyhow, but when I whistle they’ll scatter, and I don’t suppose we shall catch more’n one or two.”
“Capital plan,” said the major. “Why, you would have made a good general, Morton.”
“Thank ye, sir,” said the keeper, touching his hat. “All ready there? Long Meadow.”
It was a soft, dark night, with not a breath of wind to chase the heavy clouds that shrouded the sky. There was no talking—nothing to be heard but the dull tramp of feet, and the rustling noise made by the herbage and heather brushing against the leather leggings worn by the men who followed the lead of the keeper and his dog.
There was about half a mile to go to reach the indicated spot, and the blood of both Rolph and the major seemed to course a little more rapidly through their veins as the one hailed the prospect of a bit of excitement with something like delight, and the other recalled night marches and perilous episodes in his old Indian campaigning life, and then sighed as he compared his present elderly self with the smart, dashing young officer he used to know.
“Halt here!” said Sir John, interrupting the musings of his brother; and from where they stood, they could dimly make out the extent of the long open space, with fir plantations on either side, a patch of alder in the damp, boggy space where they stood, and about two hundred yards away, right at the top of the slight slope, there was something black to be seen against the sky—something black, that by daylight would have resolved itself into a slope of tall firs.
This was the part that the poachers were expected to traverse, and the three parties were therefore stationed according to the plan, and for three hours they waited in utter silence, hidden in the plantations and the alder clump.
Sir John had begun to mutter at the end of the first hour, to grumble at the end of the second, and he was growling fiercely at the end of the third, when the keeper suddenly started up.
“What is it?” said Sir John, as the dog uttered a low whine.
“They’ve circumvented us, Sir John,” replied the keeper, angrily. “They’ve trapped me into the belief that they were coming here to-night, and they’ve been netting Barrows, I’ll be bound.”