“I know as how they makes it so,” demurred the poacher’s son. “But dad said as how——”
“No one makes it so,” said Bertie, with a little righteous anger; “it is so: the birds are not yours, and so, if you take them, you are a thief.”
The boy put his thumb in his mouth and dangled his dead pheasant.
A discussion on the game-laws was beyond his powers, nor was even Bertie conscious of the mighty subject he was opening, though the instincts of the land-owner were naturally in him, and it seemed to him so shocking to find a boy with such views as this as to meum and tuum, that he almost fancied the sun would fall from the sky. The sun, however, glowed on, low down in the wood beyond a belt of firs, and the green downs, and the gray sea; and the little sinner stood before him, fascinated by his appearance and frightened at his words.
“Do you know who owns this coppice?” asked Bertie; and the boy answered him, reluctantly,—
“Yes: Sir Henry.”
“Then, what you must do,” said Bertie, “is to go directly with that bird to Sir Henry, and beg his pardon, and ask him to forgive you. Go at once. That is what you must do.”
The boy opened eyes and mouth in amaze.
“That I won’t never do,” he said, doggedly: “I’d be took up to the lodge afore I’d open my mouth.”
“Not if I go with you,” said Bertie.