“Let go of him—let go at once, I say,” shouted the indignant parent. “Who gave you leave to interfere? The lad’s my lad, and it’s none o’ your business to go meddlin’ with him. Come here, Philip-James; go in to your mother, boy. He’s mauled you fearful.”
“Well, you must be a soft fellow,” ejaculated John in a tone of deep disgust. “I couldn’t ha’ believed it! If I had a-caught a bwoy a-trespassin’ i’ my woods when I was here, I’d ha’ thrashed him well for ’t—let him be my son twenty times over.”
“Trespassin’ indeed! You’re a trespasser yourself,” cried the keeper. “You’ve no business in these woods at all; you’ve no business to come near the place. I’ll summons you, see if I don’t.”
“Well, that is a tale!” exclaimed John, leaning against the gate-post that he might the better indulge in a kind of crow of ironical laughter. “Trespass—me trespass; me what was keeper here for nigh upon farty year. Lard ha’ mercy me! What’ll ye say next?”
“Well, but it be trespassin’, you know, Maister Guppy,” remarked Jim, thrusting his head round the lintel of the door; “it be trespassin’ right enough. If you was head-keeper once, you bain’t head-keeper no more. You ha’n’t got no call to be here at all. It be trespassin’.”
“You hold your tongue, Jim Neale,” retorted John fiercely—“hold your tongue! Who asked you to speak—you as did ought to be ashamed of yourself for neglectin’ the ferrets same as you do. The big dog-ferret have a-got the mange terr’ble bad. You bain’t the man to give a opinion, I d’ ’low.”
Jim, incensed at this sudden home-thrust, uttered a forcible exclamation, and proceeded with much warmth: “You’ve a-got a wrong notion i’ your head altogether, Maister Guppy; you be a-trespassin’ jist the same as you was a-poachin’ t’other marnin’.”
“Poachin’!” cried John, his face purple with wrath and his voice well-nigh strangled—“poachin’! Dall ’ee, Jim, I’ll not stand here to be insulted. There, I’ve a-passed over a deal—a deal I have. I’ve overlooked it on account of the many years as we’ve a-worked here together, but this here be too much. I’ll report ye, Jim Neale, see if I don’t; and I’ll report you too, Maister Sanders, for insultin’ of I same as you’ve a-done. There’s things as a body can’t overlook, let him be so good-natured as he mid be, and there’s times when a man’s dooty do stare en i’ the face. I’ll report ye this very hour.”
“That’s pretty good,” laughed Sanders. “Upon my word, that’s pretty good. Maybe Jim an’ me will have something to report to the Squire too. You’d best come along with me, Jim, and we’ll see who the Squire listens to.”
“Come along then,” cried John valiantly, before Neale had time to answer. “Come along; we’ll see. I bain’t afeard o’ the Squire. The Squire do know I so well as if I was his own brother. Come on, if you be a-comin’.”