“Pheasant?” asked Saurin.
“Yes,” was the reply. “And there’s another roosting there, and another yonder, and another—”
“I see them,” replied Saurin in the same whispered tones. And raising his air-gun he got the roosting bird in a line with the sights, which was as easy to do pretty nearly as in broad day, and pressed the trigger. The black ball came tumbling down with a thump on the ground, and Marriner, pouncing upon it, put it in his sack. A second, a third were bagged without stirring from the spot. A few steps farther on another, who had been disturbed by the whip-cracks of the air-gun, had withdrawn his head from under his wing. But he did not take to flight at once, being comfortable where he was and the sounds not very alarming, and while he hesitated he received a violent shock in the middle of his breast, which knocked him off his perch powerless and dying. A little further on another, and then yet another were bagged: it was a well-stocked coppice, and had not been shot yet. Lord Woodruff was reserving that part for some friends who were coming at Christmas, and with the prospects of whose sport I fear that Saurin somewhat interfered that night. The sack indeed was pretty heavy by the time they had gone through the wood, and then Marriner thought that it would be more prudent to decamp, and they retraced their steps by a path which traversed the coppice. Once back at the wood-stack they were to separate, so before they left the coppice Marriner put down his now heavy sack, and Saurin handed him the air-gun, which he stowed away in his capacious pocket. Then they went on, and just as they were on the edge of the wood came suddenly upon a man.
“Hulloa! young gentleman,” exclaimed he to Saurin, who was leading, “what are you up to? What has the other got in that sack?”
Marriner slipped behind the trees.
“I have got you, at any rate,” said the man, seizing Saurin by the collar.
The latter would not speak lest his voice should be recognised afterwards, but he struggled all he knew. The man soon overpowered him; but Marriner came to the rescue. Throwing down the sack of pheasants, he had taken from his pocket an implement of whalebone with a heavy knob of lead at the end, and coming behind the man, both whose hands were holding on to Saurin, he struck him with it on the head as hard as he could. The keeper’s grasp relaxed, he fell heavily to the ground, and Saurin was free. The man lay on his back with his head on the path, and the moonbeams fell on his face.
“Simon Bradley,” muttered Marriner. “To be sure he lives this way, and was going home after the alarm on t’other side.”
Saurin was seized with a violent shivering from head to foot.
“He isn’t, I mean to say you have not—eh?” he said.