“Why, same as usual—across the big mead, from our place, and up-along by top side o’ the park.”
“Jist what I did fancy. You do seem to use your eyes wonderful well, Jim—jist so well as ever. D’ye mind how I used to tell ’ee ‘some folks has eyes and some has none’?”
“Why, what be amiss?”
John, without speaking, put his hand in his pocket, and drew forth a number of rabbit snares, sticks and all, which he had picked up and secreted in the copse before-mentioned.
“Oh!” said Jim. “Humph! I wonder who could have put them there?”
“Why, Branstone folks what be always a-hangin’ about seekin’ what they can pick up.”
“Well, ’twas a good job ye did chance to come along, Mr. Guppy. I d’ ’low they didn’t have time to catch nothin’. There weren’t no rabbits in ’em, was there?”
“There was a rabbit in one of them though,” retorted John triumphantly; “I’ve a-got en here i’ my pocket.”
“Oh, and have ye?” queried John, eyeing the pocket in question somewhat askance. “Well, it’s lucky I’ve a-met ye—ye can hand en over to me i’stead o’ going all the way up to Sanders.”
“I can hand en over to you, can I? Thank ye kindly, Maister Jim; ‘findins’ is keepins’—or used to be i’ my day. Well, of all the cheek! ‘Hand en over,’ says he to I what has been his maister, I mid say, for fifteen year and more. Hand en over, indeed!”