Presently one of the drawing-room French windows was pushed open, and a third person appeared on the scene—a boy about Jack’s age, but how strangely different! He was short, like the elder man, and had the appearance of having but just stepped out of a band-box. His cord riding-breeches were as immaculate as his white cuffs and tall white collar; his brown boots quite gleamed in the autumn sun, and he wore new dogskin gloves. Strolling over towards his father, he began to talk, but we were too far away to hear what they said. After a short time they both turned and came across the lawn towards the kitchen-garden door.
‘I say, Scud, hadn’t we better hook it?’ suggested Rusty. But I was so interested in these new people, who seemed to have usurped the place of my dear Fortescues, that foolishly I replied:
‘No; they’re not coming near us. Keep still, and they’ll never see us.’
The pair had nearly reached the garden door when I heard the boy exclaim something, and they changed the direction of their walk in the direction of the hazels. A swish of bent branches shortly followed.
The distance from the garden door down to the angle of the garden wall was not more than thirty yards, and I knew very well that, thick as the bushes were, there was not a ghost of a chance of our remaining undetected if they came poking about in this fashion.
‘Come on, Rusty!’ I muttered, and we at once made off as quietly as we could. Unluckily for us, while the stout man was poking his head among the branches, puffing and blowing as he did so like a broken-winded horse, the boy had walked on down the path, and next moment his shrill voice rang out:
‘I say, father, here are two beastly squirrels stealing nuts. Keep an eye on ’em while I get my gun.’
He was off across the grass at a pace one would not have credited him with, and we, aware that any attempt at further concealment was useless, went off also at top speed.
What we both dreaded was the long open space at the bottom of the kitchen-garden wall, where it abutted on the park. However, there was no shirking it. If we stayed where we were we would be caught like rats in a trap. It was Rusty who made the jump first out of the bushes and down the sunk fence, and as I followed him I heard the fat man shouting hoarsely: ‘Quick, they’re running away!’
How we scuttled! Even a terrier would have had his work cut out to catch us. There was no cover at all until we reached the far end of the long line of wall, and we strained every nerve to gain the hedge which ran at right angles from the end of it, separating the park from the road. The distance was not much more than seventy yards, but it seemed like a mile as we tore along. Fresh shouts behind us spurred us to almost super-squirrel efforts. Hardly five yards were left when suddenly—bang, and a sound like hail pattering on the ground behind us. Next second, and with simultaneous bounds we were in the hedge, but before we could get through it and into shelter on the far side the sound of another shot rang through the calm autumn air, and this time with better aim. Leaves flew in the hedge, and a sharp blow on the head sent me staggering, nearly causing me to lose my foothold.