‘Of course I do. Great polecats! do you think I’ve got nothing better to do than mess about here all day picking up a few rotten grains of corn or green acorns?’
‘You ran fast enough on the day you and I got shot at,’ I retorted, rather annoyed at his insinuations.
‘A precious pair of young idiots we were!’ he returned scornfully. ‘I take jolly good care they don’t see me nowadays.’
‘How do you manage that?’
‘Why, in the first place I go at dawn, before any one is about; in the second, I don’t cut across the lawn, but round to the right of the house. Are you game to come to-morrow morning?’
A longing to see the old place once more came over me. I was also anxious to find out what Rusty was about, for I did not believe for a moment that the attraction lay in the cob-nuts. I hesitated.
‘Very well,’ said Rusty, taking my silence for consent. ‘Meet me at sun-up by the pool at the other end of the wood.’
I won’t describe how we reached the Hall, except to say that, instead of working down the road-hedge to the left, as we had done on the previous occasion, we struck boldly out down the right-hand side to the large meadow. Rusty guided me round to the home farm-buildings, which lay some quarter of a mile to the right of the Hall. The farm and rick-yards were surrounded on two sides by a stone wall, outside which was a strip of laurel shrubbery.
‘Now, you wait here,’ said Rusty with a patronizing air which I could not help resenting. ‘I’m going over the wall for my breakfast. You needn’t watch if you don’t like.’