So the Squire's son and the poacher's son became fast friends. All the Squire's efforts to separate them had failed. They were kindred spirits, and there was no mischief or devilry ever set afoot, either in the school or the village, in which they did not participate. All the rules and laws that were ever invented failed to keep them within bounds.
Their three great enemies were, Dr. Birch, Old Click, the keeper of Hawk Woods, and Beagle, the village constable. The first had thrashed them a score of times, the second had threatened to bring the penalties of the game laws upon them, if they did not desist from their depredations, whilst the third had once put them in the stocks, and threatened them with the lock-up for the next offence.
Thus it happened, on this glorious afternoon in the early summer of 1757, when the school bell was calling its unwilling pupils to their lessons, that these two boys were robbing the nest of a humble-bee, in a meadow below the school, extracting the wild honey from the combs, when the bell suddenly ceased ringing.
"There goes!--that confounded bell has stopped ringing, Jamie."
"So it has. Now we're in for it again."
"The second time this week, too," and Jack sat down and began to whistle, "There's nae luck aboot the house," while a look of grim despair settled on the countenance of his friend.
"And my back's still sore with that last thrashing. What shall we do, Jack?"
"Let's go trouting in Hawk Woods."
"And what about Old Click? He said that the next time he caught us, he'd take us before the magistrates."
"Oh, hang the magistrates and Old Click too! Why shouldn't we fish there if we like? Shall we go?"