Plucky as the girl was, she felt her heart beat a little quicker as she gazed. There was something so very piercing in their scrutiny.
Suddenly one of them stepped forward, and Peggy saw, to her astonishment, that she knew him. More astonishing still, the man was trembling and whitefaced as if in alarm at something.
It was Morgan, the butler at Mrs. Bancroft’s.
“Why, Morgan, whatever are you doing here?” exclaimed Peggy as she breathed more freely.
The man hesitated. His companion, whom Peggy could now see was an employe about the Bancroft stables, came to his rescue.
“Why, miss, we’ve been doin’ a bit of trapping in the woods there.”
“Yes, miss, that’s hit,” struck in Morgan, a stout, puffy-faced Englishman with “side burns.”
“A bit o’ poaching, as you might say, miss. I ’opes you won’t tell on hus.”
“Good gracious, no,” laughed Peggy, immensely relieved to find that the two men were not strangers. “I thought you looked scared when you saw me, Morgan.”
“Yes, miss. You see, I haint used in hold England ter see young ledies a flyin’ round like bloomin’—bloomin’ pertater bugs, hif you’ll pardon the comparison, miss. But ’as yer ’ad han h’accident?”