‘Come on, Scud. We must cross the road,’ called Rusty at that moment; and with a fine jump he was across the ditch and out on the white, dusty surface.
Recovering myself, I followed, and found that, though my head was singing, I could still run as well as ever.
Luckily there was not a soul in sight, so we crossed the road in safety, plunged through the opposite hedge, and found ourselves in a plantation of young larches about twenty feet high. Through these we went as hard as ever we could pelt, until, quite exhausted, we came to rest somewhere in the thickest depths, and, climbing into one of the largest trees, lay panting and tired out on an upper bough. For a minute neither of us could move; then suddenly Rusty, glancing at me, exclaimed:
‘Why, Scud, you’re hurt!’
‘Yes, something hit me,’ I answered faintly.
In a moment the good fellow was licking my wounded head. A pellet of shot, it seemed, had glanced along my skull, cutting the skin and going right through one of my ears. The wound bled a good deal, but it was not a serious one, and after I had got my breath back, and after my heart had ceased thumping as though it would burst, I felt very little the worse, and announced that I was quite ready to start home. But Rusty, more cautious, refused to move.
‘That fellow with the gun may be waiting in the road for us,’ he said. ‘Much better stay here a bit. The shadows are still short, and we shall have plenty of light for our journey home.’
His advice seemed good, so we waited where we were for an hour or more. My wound stopped bleeding, but my head was very sore. It was not, however, so badly hurt as my feelings. That I should have been shot at and nearly killed in the garden of the Hall seemed beyond belief, and what made it worse was that I had impressed on Rusty over and over again that whatever the dangers in our coppice, the Hall grounds, at any rate, were a safe refuge. One thing I was deeply grateful for—that he had not been harmed. With all the intensity of my squirrel nature I hated the intruders who had put the insult upon me. How I longed that Jack might have been there to take vengeance on our persecutors!
