Immediately afterwards I heard the Squire ask in a loud, angry voice, “Why did you halloo?”
“Because I viewed the hunted fox, sir,” replied Ned, touching his cap deferentially.
“Where?”
“At the bottom of the ride, sir.”
“And you standing at the top,” returned the Squire, “when you must hear that the body is well settled to him, halloo them away. What could be your object?”
“I thought the stragglers——”
“Would rather fly to their tongues than to your foolish halloo,” interrupted the Squire, “or you ought to have thought so.”
“You see,” added Trimbush, “I was right. But all young ’uns think they know everything, and the study and experience of the oldsters go for nothing.”
We had now given him such a dusting that he could hang no longer, and Tom, holding up his hat at the farthest end of the brake up wind, quietly announced that he had gone away.
Following Will, crashing through the furze, I heard Tom say to him, “He’s just crossed the road,” pointing with his whip to the exact spot.