"Won't you move, though? You old fox. You shan't stay there if you have tree'd us. Take that, and that," and as he spoke Jamie hurled with all his might a chunk of dead wood, which he had torn from a withered branch. "I'll teach you to call me names. My father was a better man than you, any day."
The missile hit the keeper on the knee, as he sat on the grass, and gave him a nasty shock. Up he jumped in a rage, and for a couple of minutes he fairly danced and limped around the tree, in spite of his determination a minute ago not to move. He clenched his fist and shook it at the youngsters.
"I'll have the law on ye--ye young jackanapes. What's that, Beagle, but 'battery and assault,' and what's the penalty for it?"
"Twenty strokes of the birch, Mr. Click, and ten years' imprisonment, or, more likely, transportation for life."
"Aye, that's it--transportation. Like your father got, you young gallows-bird."
This second taunt about his father made the blood rush to the lad's face, and he hurled another chunk of wood at the irate keeper, which narrowly missed his head, but hit the hound instead, which set up a frightful yell and bolted into the wood, and despite all the blandishments of its master refused to come anywhere near the zone of fire again.
The boys were as agile as monkeys aloft, and they quickly got several more pieces of dead timber ready for their captors. Things were turning out much better than they feared, and they were not having the worst of it, so far, at least. How it would all end it was impossible to say, but there was just this chance, that they might drive away the two men by their determined assault, until an opportunity occurred for them to slip down the tree; and once on the ground, with even a dozen yards start, they could easily leave their pursuers behind. As for the hound--well, another chunk of wood would about settle him.
Both the keeper and the constable were now very chary about showing themselves, after the narrow escape of the former, for the boys were so expert with the missiles, and so determined in their opposition that the two men kept behind the tree trunks, some twenty or thirty feet away. Both boys had their pea-shooters, with a plentiful supply of dry wicken-berries, and whenever their opponents showed so much as an inch of face they were mercilessly pelted.
"You young rascals. You shall pay dearly for this. Do ye know ye're insulting the law?" cried the constable, trying hard to dodge the pea-shooters as he spoke.
"Why don't you go home?" called out Jack. "If either of you come near the tree again, we'll break every bone in your body. We've plenty of wood here."