“Want a truffle dog, or a pig,” he muttered; and then he pounced upon a tuber about twice as large as a walnut, thrusting it proudly into his basket.
“Where one is, there are sure to be others,” he said; and he resumed his efforts, finding another and another, all in the same spot.
“Why, I shall get a basketful,” he thought, and he began to dwell pleasantly upon the satisfaction the sight of his successful foray would give the doctor, who had a special penchant for truffles, and had often talked about what expensive delicacies they were for those who dwelt in London.
Encouraged then by his success, he went on scraping and grubbing away eagerly with more or less success, while the task grew more mechanical, and after feeling that his bottle was safe in his breast-pocket, he began to think that it was time to leave off, and go on his mission; but directly after, as he was rubbing the clean leaf-mould from off a tuber, his thoughts turned to Distin, and the undoubted enmity he displayed.
“If it was not such a strong term,” he said to himself, “I should be ready to say he hates me, and would do me any ill-turn he could.”
He had hardly thought this, and was placing his truffle in the basket, when a faint noise toward the edge of the wood where the sun poured in, casting dark shadows from the tree-trunks, made him look sharply in that direction.
For a few moments he saw nothing, and he was about to credit a rabbit with the sound, when it suddenly struck him that one of the shadows cast on the ground not far distant had moved slightly, and as he fixed his eyes upon it intently, he saw that it was not a shadow cast by a tree, unless it was one that had a double trunk for some distance up and then these joined. The next moment he was convinced:—for it was the shadow of a human being hiding behind a good-sized beech, probably in profound ignorance that his presence was clearly shown to the person from whom he was trying to hide.