“So I started at a trot,” pursued Thady, “and I sang out, ‘Gentlemen, I’m yer man,’ and I gave a bow and then away, as hard as I could make the pace, and they followed on, like two mad bullocks, or fox-hounds in full cry, and away we tore, over the fields, up the lanes, along the high-road where need be. On, on, I headed ’em like a young he-goat. I’m allus in training, and they followed. I gave ’em a splendid lead over field and fallow, and whenever the fat ’un panted bad, I told ’im to cheer up, for the fern owl and the great hawk’s nests were just ahead.
“At last they began to get a bit rusty. Like enough, by the twinkle of my eye, they began to fear as their cases would never get filled. So I shouted out, as if I were leading the king’s army. ‘Keep up your peckers, misters, a field more and yer’ll see the great hawk hisself,’ and so on up a sharpish pull. I looked back, and saw ’em fair sick—the lean one coming on, but the fat sandy ’un fit to burst. I stopped to catch the breeze, and in the pause I shouted out, ‘Yer’ll find the nest with old Bolas, or where folks says the crows fly at nights,’ and I laughed; and then, begorra, I ran like the best Jack-hare that ever I set eyes on. And when they guessed I had had a bit of a spree, they didn’t take it kindly, not at all, at all, but called out no end of bad words—words,” said Thady, sanctimoniously, “that I never could repeat in your leddyship’s hearing, and that shocked even poor me. So I kept at a proper distance, for the stick that the lean gent had was a right nasty one, and,” added Thady, “a wise man only stops to argue with men of his own size. But I did hear they went up to the station that evening, those two poor gentlemen with never an egg or a grub in their cases, and the porter did say that they made tracks to Manchester like two bears with sore heads. ’Tis wonderful how some folks can never see a joke.”
THE NATURALISTS GO EMPTY AWAY
“Few of us can do that when the joke goes against us,” I answered laughing. “But I am glad, Thady, that you played them a trick. Naturalists of that sort are a pest. In the name of science, they rob our woods, and exterminate all our rare birds and butterflies. Every honest man’s hand should be against them.”
At this Thady grinned all over, “Indade,” he said, “I’ll remember yer leddyship’s words of wisdom to my dying day, and never let go by a chance of honest amusement.”
So speaking we reached the old Abbey Farmery. Hals and Bess, drowsy from their long expedition, were lifted off the pony half asleep. We all had a standing meal, which, as Bess said, was much better than sitting down, because you never eat what you don’t want; and then the young life vanished—Bess and my little guest to bed, and Thady into the silent fields, and only Mouse was left to keep me company. I agreed that evening with the children, that it is very nice sometimes to have no dinner, and to return to simple habits, because the sense so of wood and field lingers longer with you.
CHAPTER VII
JULY
“As late each flower that sweetest blows,
I plucked the garden’s pride;