“A Radley boy,” growled George,—“one of the cussed Radley boys at last,—and a pheasant snared took in his very hand!”
“You don’t mean it!” cried his wife; and the small children yelled and jumped. “What’ll be done with him, dad?” cried the eldest of them.
“I’ll put him in fowl-house to-night,” said Big George, “and up he’ll go afore Sir Henry fust thing to-morrow. Clear off, young uns, and let me run him in.”
Bertie looked up in Big George’s face.
“I had nothing to do with killing the bird,” he said, in a firm though a faint voice. “You quite mistake. I am Lord Avillion.”
“Stop your pipe, or I’ll choke yer,” swore Big George, enraged by what he termed the “darned cheek” of a Radley boy; and without more ado he laid hold of the little Earl’s collar and lifted him into the fowl-house, the door of which was held open eagerly by his eldest girl.
There was a great flapping of wings, screeching of hens, and piping of chicks at the interruption, where all the inmates were gone to roost, and one cock set up his usual salutation to the dawn.
“That’s better nor you’ll sleep to-morrow night,” said Big George, as he tumbled Bertie on to a truss of straw that lay there, when he went out himself, slammed the door, and both locked and barred it on the outside.
Bertie fell back on the straw, sobbing bitterly: his feet were cut and bleeding, his whole body ached like one great bruise, and he was sick and faint with hunger. “If the world be as difficult as this to live in,” he thought, “how ever do some people manage to live almost to a hundred years in it?” and to his eight-year-old little soul the prospect of a long life seemed so horrible that he sobbed again at the very thought of it. It was quite dark in the fowl-house; the rustling and fluttering of the poultry all around sounded mysterious and unearthly; the strong, unpleasant smell made him faint, and the pain in his feet grew greater every moment. He did not scream or go into convulsions; he was a brave little man, and proud; but he felt as if the long, lonely night there would kill him.
Half an hour, perhaps, had gone by when a woman’s voice at the little square window said, softly, “Here is bread and water for you, poor boy; and I’ve put some milk and cheese, too, only my man mustn’t know it.”