“Go and see what he wants, dear,” said his mother to Archie.
It was a beautiful clear moonlight night, with just a few white snow-laden clouds lying over the woods, no wind and never a hush save the distant and occasional yelp of a dog.
“Bob Cooper!”
“That’s me, Master Archie. I couldn’t rest till I’d seen ye the night. The hare—”
“Oh! that’s really nothing, Bob Cooper!”
“But allow me to differ. It’s no’ the hare altogether. I know where to find fifty. It was the way it was given. Look here, lad, and this is what I come to say, Branson and you have been too much for Bob Cooper. The day I went to that wood to thrash him, and I’d hae killed him, an I could. Ha! ha! I shook hands with him! Archie Broadbent, your father’s a gentleman, and they say you’re a chip o’ t’old block. I believe ’em, and look, see, lad, I’ll never be seen in your preserves again. Tell Branson so. There’s my hand on’t. Nay, never be afear’d to touch it. Good-night. I feel better now.”
And away strode the poacher, and Archie could hear the sound of his heavy tread crunching through the snow long after he was out of sight.
“You seem to have made a friend, Archie,” said his father, when the boy reported the interview.
“A friend,” added Mr Walton with a quiet smile, “that I wouldn’t be too proud of.”
“Well,” said the Squire, “certainly Bob Cooper is a rough nut, but who knows what his heart may be like?”