Hiram did as he was bid, with many a grumble by the way; then stood and watched the lads go racing over the pastures, the dogs running fast in front of them. "There's bahn to be trouble, choose who hears me say 't," he muttered. "Ay, I knew how 'twould be when I see'd young Maister fly-by-skying wi' yond Ratcliffe wench; 'tis a judgment on him, sure. Ay, 'tis a judgment; an' hard it is that we should be killed i' our beds for sake of a lad's unruliness.—What, th' dogs is gi'eing tongue already? Well, I'd hev liked to see th' sport, if my legs war a thowt less stalled wi' wark."
Hiram had been asleep a good two hours before the chase was over. Pasture after pasture was drawn, the lads' zest waxing keener with each fresh kill, until they had more hares than they could carry.
"Look at the moon, lads! She's nearing Worm's Hill already, and half a league from home," panted Griff, as he tried to add the last hare to his load.
"Ned will have somewhat to say to this," laughed Rob; "but faith 'twas worth all the scolding he can cram into a week."
"Ay, was it, but we'll put the best foot forward now. Let's leave half the hares under the sheep-hole in the wall yonder, or we shall never get back to Marsh till midnight.—There. They'll keep till morning safe enough, unless some shepherd's dog should nose them."
They set off at a steady trot, stopped at the Low Farm to close the yard gate on their borrowed dogs, and then took a straight course for Marsh. But breath failed them as they neared the homestead; their pace dwindled to a walk, and not even noisy Rob could muster speech of any sort. The moon was out of sight now behind the house, leaving the field that hugged the outbuildings in a grey half-light—a light so puzzling to the eyes that Griff, when he thought he saw the dim figure of a man crossing from the peat-shed to the yard, told himself that fancy was playing tricks with him. But Rob had seen the figure, too, and he clutched his brother's arm.
"What is that moving yonder?" he whispered.
A second figure, and a third, came shadowy-vague through the low doorway of the shed, and Griff could see now that each man carried an armful of peats, or ling, or bracken—he could not tell which. Fetching a compass up the field-side, the four of them turned and crept under shelter of the house, and so on tip-toe across the courtyard till the hall-door showed in front of them. The light was clearer here, though they were hidden altogether in the shadows, and they could see a tall fellow piling a last armful on the heap of ling and bracken that already mounted to the doorway-top.
"They mean to fire the house!" muttered Griff, and felt for his brothers in the dark and drew them about him in a narrow ring.
"There were three of them—what has come to the other two?" whispered Rob.