“I’ll not, then!” cried the other angrily. “Get out o’ this, you old meddler, or I’ll report you to the Squire!”
“You did ought to thank I for not reportin’ of you,” returned John firmly. “The Squire do think a deal o’ I—a deal; but I’d be sorry to get a man into trouble as do seem to be meanin’ well. You mind my words, keeper, and you’ll find as they’ll come true—ye’ll have a bad season this year, and maybe ye’ll be a bit more ready to take advice from them as knows more nor you do. ’Tis the first year, so I’ll not be hard on ye.”
He had now recrossed the wire, repossessed himself of his stick, and with a nod of farewell at his irate successor, turned his steps homewards.
He spent the rest of that day lamenting the direful changes which had taken place since his own withdrawal from active life, and privately resolved to be astir early on the morrow in order to proceed further with his tour of investigation.
With the first dawn, therefore, of a lovely spring morning he left his bed cautiously, dressed in silence, and made his way out of doors. The cottage which he had occupied since his resignation of the keepership was situated at the very end of the village, and as he glanced up the quiet street he could detect few signs of life. No smoke was yet stealing upwards into the still air, no cows lowing in the bartons; the pigeons, indeed, were astir, preening themselves somewhat sleepily, and cooing in a confidential undertone, and the clucking of hens was audible here and there, while more musical bird-voices resounded from trees and hedgerows. The dew lay heavy on the long grass by the roadside as John set forth. The morning mists had not yet disappeared, and the glamour of dawn still enfolded the world. The dew-washed leaves seemed to be on fire, as they caught the rosy rays of the morning sun; every little wayside pool gleamed and glittered. The air was full of sweet scents, the delicate, distinctive odour of the primrose being predominant, though here and there a gush of almost overpowering perfume greeted the old man’s nostrils, as he passed a wild apple-tree. A kind of aromatic undertone came forth from damp moss, trunks of fir-trees, springing young herbage, yet the exquisite fragrance of the morning itself seemed to belong to none of these things in particular, but rather to emanate from the very freshness of the dawn.
Old John, however, plodded onwards, without appearing to take heed of his surroundings; once, indeed, he paused to sniff with a perturbed expression; a fox had passed that way. His eyes peered warily into the undergrowth, over the banks, beneath the hedgerows; he paused in traversing a copse, stooped, uttering an exclamation of astonished disgust, and some few moments later emerged from the brake with a bulging pocket and an air of increased importance.
Jim Neale, the under-keeper, had not long started on his morning beat when he was hailed by a familiar voice, and turning beheld his former chief.
“Hullo, Maister Guppy, I be pure glad to see you on your legs again. You be afoot early.”
John surveyed him for a moment with an air of solemn indignation.
“’Tis jist so well I were afoot a bit early, Jim. You do want I at your back, I d’ ’low. Which way have you been a-goin’?”