Henry scanned him with the eye of a lynx, or detective. There was now the prospect of something to reward him for his long watching, and the strain of sitting upon the elm.
As was expected, Doggy took his way across the open expanse, where several nests had been “noted.” He still kept to his cat-like tread—crouching, and now and then looking suspiciously around him.
This did not hinder him from flushing a pheasant. One rose with a sonorous whirr; while another went fluttering along the sward as if both its wings had been broken.
The hen looked as if Doggy might have covered her with his hat, or killed her with a stick. He did not attempt to do either; but, bending over the forsaken nest, he took out the eggs, and carefully deposited them in his game-bag!
Out of the same bag he took something, which Henry saw him scatter over the ground in the neighbourhood of the nest. This done, he walked on in search of another.
“Come,” thought Henry, “one brood is enough to be sacrificed in this sort of way—enough for my purpose.”
Throwing away the stump of his cigar, he dropped down from the tree, and rushed after the nest-robber.
Doggy saw him, and attempted to escape to the Whibley covers. But before he could cross the fence, the fingers of his pursuer were tightly clutched upon the collar of his velveteen coat; and he came to the ground, crushing the eggs within his game-bag. This being turned inside out, the spilt yolks and shattered shells gave proof of the plunder he had committed.
Henry Harding was at this time a strapping youth, with strength and spirit inherited from his soldier father. Moreover, he was acting with right on his side.
The keeper had neither his weight nor his inches, and was further enfeebled by his sense of wrong-doing. Under these circumstances, he saw the absurdity of making resistance. He made none; but permitted the irate youth to cudgel him with the Malacca cane until every bone in his body seemed about to be shattered like the egg-shells late carried in his game-bag.