But the keeper’s wife insisted; and presently Dick confessed that there were a good few socks lying by at his lodgings in sore need of repair.
On the morrow he brought them, with the addition of a large basket of “scroff,” or chips, for firing.
Keeper Jim was much amused at this exchange of civilities; but was so far moved with compassion for Tuffin’s lonely wife that he contributed a couple of nice young rabbits to the little packet of comforts which Betty sent her when Dick went home for his brief holiday; and he was both touched and gratified when little Mrs. Tuffin sent a return tribute of new-laid eggs and fresh vegetables to the woman who had befriended her Dick.
Autumn came, scarcely perceptible at first in this sheltered spot; little drifts of yellow leaves strewed Betty’s threshold of a morning; there was a brave show of berries amid the undergrowth; maple bushes lit cool fires here and there; and travellers’ joy and bryony flung silver-spangled tendrils or jewelled chains across a tangle of orange and crimson and brown. The delicate tracery of twigs, the gnarled strength of boughs, became ever more perceptible as the leafage thinned; Jim could see more of the thatch of his house as he tramped homewards, and could mark through the jagged outline of the naked boughs how the blue smoke-wreaths blew hither and thither as they issued from his chimney.
There was a growing sense of excitement in the woods; their silence was often broken by startled cries and the whirring of great wings. Soon the glades would echo to the sound of the beaters’ sticks; dry twigs would crack beneath the sportsmen’s feet; shots would wake the slumbering echoes; and then a cart would come and bear away the rigid bodies erstwhile so blithe. Betty almost cried as she thought of the fate that awaited the pretty birds which she had so often fed with her own hand and which the baby had loved to watch; but Jim chid her when she said she hoped many of them would escape.
“Tell ’ee what,” he remarked sternly, “if the gentry don’t find more pheasants nor in the wold chap’s time they’ll say I bain’t worth my salt. There, what be making such a fuss about? ’Tis what they be brought up for. D’ye think folks ’ud want to be watchin’ ’em an’ feedin’ ’em an’ lookin’ arter ’em always if ’twasn’t that they mid get shot in the end? They must die some way, d’ye see; and I d’ ’low if ye was to ax ’em, they pheasants ’ud liefer come rocketin’ down wi’ a dose o’ lead in their innards nor die natural-like by freezin’ or starvin’ or weasels or sich.”
Jim grew more and more enthusiastic as the time drew nearer for the big shoot, which was, as he expected, to establish his reputation. This was not to take place till late in November, so as to allow time for the trees to be fully denuded of their leaves. The keeper often talked darkly of the iniquities of certain village ne’er-do-weels, who, according to him, thought no more of snaring a rabbit than of lying down in their beds.
“If they only kept to rabbits,” he added once, “it wouldn’t be so bad; but when those chaps gets a footin’ in these woods there’s no knowin’ where they’ll stop. But they’ll find I ready for them. They’ll find I bain’t so easy to deal wi’ as wold Jenkins.”
“Dear, to be sure, Jim, I wish you wouldn’t talk so!” said Betty. “You make me go all of a tremble! I shall be afeard to stop here by myself when you’re away on your beat if you ’fray me wi’ such tales. I don’t like to think there’s poachin’ folk about.”
“There, they’d never want to do nothin’ to a woman,” said Jim consolingly; “’tis the game they’re arter. They’ll not come anigh the house, bless ye!”