"What a beast!" they said. "But p'raps he'll think better of it."
Mr Williams shook his head.
"Not he," he said. "I've seen him this morning. 'I'll give you a pension,' he says, 'and I'll give you a good character. But that wood's forbidden ground,' he says, 'and I'll have nobody going into it.'"
Mr Williams rose and began to collect the young partridges, and put them away into the various hen-coops.
"Well, I must be getting along," he said, "and next month you'll have to make friends with a new keeper."
After he had gone, Marian and Gwendolen sat thinking of all the good times that they had had with him, and of poor Mrs Williams, who would have to turn out of her cottage—the gay little cottage that she was so proud of. Their cheeks were quite red, and there was a hot sort of prickly feeling at the backs of their noses, and they felt as if they would like to go to the great house and shoot Lord Barrington dead.
"Dog in the manger," said Gwendolen, "that's what he is, with that great big house and no wife or children. And he's always going into his old wood himself. I know he is, because Percy told me."
"Yes, I know," said Marian, "and half his time he never lives at the Park at all. He's judging people and sending them to prison, or travelling about and enjoying himself."
"P'raps he doesn't know," said Gwendolen, "what a nice man Mr Williams really is."
Then she suddenly thought of something.