Griff cursed a little under his breath, then laughed.
"As it happens, I am as free as can be till the daylight comes. Gad, Will, I feel the old stuff working in me! Do you care to take me with you?"
"Ay, and proud to do it, sir! Just like thy father—just," he muttered approvingly, as he bundled his net together and took the hares in his left hand. "It'll be close on th' time, I'm thinking. Let's get a squint at Cranshaw."
Will scrambled to the top of an adjacent knoll, used the church as a guide to other matters than that for which it was primarily intended, and intimated that they might as well be setting off. Cringle Wood lay half a mile west of Wynyates—a steep-sided crack in the moor face, sparsely set with oak and birch, and a favourite haunt of such pheasants as had grown tired of the preserves further down the valley. Kershaw and Dan o' Smick's were there before them, and Jack o' Ling Crag was not long in putting in an appearance. Jack's face, when he espied Lomax, left no doubt as to his satisfaction touching the addition to their little shooting-party. It was a marvellous night; just a touch of frost, but not enough to whiten the masses of ruddy brown bracken that grew between the dotted tree-stems; here and there a fat old pheasant-father, standing out clear against the sky as he perched on his branch of oak. Pop-pop went the guns. Griff did not trouble about the fact that he was unarmed; the mere potting at sitting birds was dull sport in itself, and the adventure was all that he cared about.
"The keepers have been pretty quiet lately, haven't they?" said Griff to Jack o' Ling Crag, as the latter picked up a bird.
"Oh, ay, sir, quiet as church mice. There's noan so mony pheasants i' Cringle Wood as there war, an' they've enough to do to look after th' regular preserves down below. 'Tain't worth while, th' Squire thinks, to meddle wi' Cringle Wood. It warn't allus so, though, by a long chalk, as you an' me mind, I'll warrant. Dost recall that neet——"
He stopped. Five shouts came from five different quarters of the wood. Dan o' Smicks and Ned Kershaw came running downhill to join their comrades, and five men converged towards them at a steady run.
"No shooiting, lads!" cried Jack, getting the hang of the situation in a moment. "At 'em wi' th' butt-end, but doan't shooit. Fair fight, an' a race for home after ye've settled 'em. Blazes! but there's Squire hisseln!"
His last item of information was lost to all but Lomax, who was nearest him. They were all at close quarters now, and the tussle began in earnest. As luck had it, the four keepers and Griff's three allies were well to one side when the fight was fairly started. Griff was aware of a big, rough-hewn man fronting him; his face showed knotty in the moonlight, and he laughed a great, hearty laugh from his belly upwards. It was the Squire of Saxilton.
"You've no gun!" cried old Roger Daneholme.