Laocoön-like, flanked on either hand by a writhing youthful figure,
Reginald Sawyer called aloud:
"Hi!—Stop, there—pray, stop."
Darcy Faircloth lighted down out of a ramshackle Marychurch station fly, and advanced towards the rather incomprehensible group.
"What's happened? What's the matter?" he said. "What on earth do you want with those two youngsters?"
"I want to convey them to the proper authorities," Sawyer answered, with all the self-importance he could muster. He found his interlocutor's somewhat abrupt and lordly manner at once annoying and impressive, as were his commanding height and rather ruffling gait. "These boys have been engaged in robbing a garden. I caught them in the act, and it is my duty to see that they pay the penalty of their breach of the law. I count on your assistance in taking them to the police-station."
"You want to give them in charge?"
"What else?—The moral tone of this parish is, I grieve to say, very low."
Sawyer talked loud and fast in the effort to assert himself.
"Low and coarse," he repeated. "Both as a warning to others, and in the interests of their own future, an example must be made of these two lads."
"Must it?" Faircloth said, towering above him in the pale bewildering mist.