Dr. Jolliffe's Boys Part 8

CHAPTER NINE.

THE POACHERS.

Buller was not the only Weston boy who broke out unlawfully that night.

From Mr Cookson's house as from Dr Jolliffe's an adventurer stole forth. But Saurin's object was not so innocent as Buller's, neither was it so unpremeditated. For he nursed felonious designs against Lord Woodruff's pheasants, and the project had been deliberately planned, and, as we know, the key which was to open the yard door cunningly manufactured, a long time beforehand.

Edwards, as a result of talking about the expedition, and his friend's glowing antic.i.p.ation of the fun of it, became quite anxious to join in.

But Marriner did not think this advisable when Saurin put the matter to him. They only had one air-gun, and two were quite enough for a stealthy excursion of this kind. A third could take no part in the proceedings, and would only be an extra chance of attracting observation. As a matter of fact, Marriner would rather have been quite alone, as his custom was on these predatory occasions, and it was only his desire to make Saurin an accomplice, and so seal his mouth, which induced him to depart from his ordinary custom now. And to tell the truth, when the time actually came, and Edwards saw his friend steal along the yard, unlock and open the door at the further end, and close it behind him, he was glad in his heart that he was not going too. Not because it was wrong: he had got his ideas so twisted that he thought it an heroic piece of business altogether, and admired Saurin for his lawless daring. But he felt conscious of not being cast in the heroic mould himself, and actually shuddered at the thought of gliding about the woods at dead of night, thinking that someone was watching him behind every tree, and might spring out upon him at any moment.

Especially when he curled himself up in bed, and pulled the blankets snugly round him, did he feel convinced that he was far more comfortable where he was than he would have been in Lord Woodruff's preserves.

Saurin had no compunctions of this sort; _he_ did not flinch when the time came; on the contrary, when he found himself out in the fields he felt a keen thrill of enjoyment. There was just enough sense of danger for excitement, not enough for unpleasant nervousness. To be engaged in what was forbidden was always a source of delight to him, and here he was braving the rules of his school and breaking the laws of his country all at once: it was like champagne to him. Yet it was the very height of absurdity to risk expulsion, imprisonment, perhaps penal servitude for _nothing_, literally for _nothing_.

He had no earthly use for the game when it was stolen, Marriner would have it and sell it, but the question of Saurin's sharing in the profits had not even been mooted. To do him justice he had not thought of such a thing, the sport was all that tempted him. The field of their operations was not to be near Marriner's house, but in a part of the estates a good bit nearer Weston, and on the other side of it. Marriner had learned that there was to be a poaching expedition on a large scale that night at the other extremity of the preserves, a good three miles off. He knew the men and their method. They used ordinary guns, killed off all they could in a short time, and got away before the keepers could a.s.semble in force, or if they were surprised they showed fight.

He never joined in such bold attacks, but when he knew of them took advantage, as he proposed to do on the present occasion, of the keepers being drawn away, to do a little quiet business on his own account in another direction. The place appointed for Saurin to meet Marriner was a wood-stack reached by a path across the fields, two miles from Weston.

Closing the yard door behind him, but not locking it, he started off at a sharp walk, keeping in the shade whenever he could, though all was so still and noiseless that he seemed almost to be the only being in the world, when he had once got quite out of the sight of houses. But no, a night-hawk swept by him, so close as to make him start, and a stoat met him in the middle of a trodden path across a ploughed field; showing that there were other game depredators besides himself abroad. The way seemed longer than it was in the daytime, but at last he got to the wood-stack, where he saw no one, but presently a figure stole round the corner and joined him: Marriner with the air-gun and a sack.

"It's all right," he said, "I heard the guns nigh half-an-hour ago.

There's never a watcher nor keeper within more nor a couple of miles off, and we have a clear field to ourselves."

Saurin took the gun, for it was an understood thing beforehand that he was to have all the shooting, which indeed was but fair, and Marriner, carrying the sack, led the way to a coppice hard by, indeed the wood forming the stack had been cut out of it. He crept on hands and knees through the hedge and glided into the brushwood, Saurin following, for some little distance. Suddenly he stopped, laid his hand on his companion's arm, and pointed upwards. Perched on the branch of a tree, and quite clear against the moonlit sky, was a round ball.

"Pheasant?" asked Saurin.

"Yes," was the reply. "And there's another roosting there, and another yonder, and another--"

"I see them," replied Saurin in the same whispered tones. And raising his air-gun he got the roosting bird in a line with the sights, which was as easy to do pretty nearly as in broad day, and pressed the trigger. The black ball came tumbling down with a thump on the ground, and Marriner, pouncing upon it, put it in his sack. A second, a third were bagged without stirring from the spot. A few steps farther on another, who had been disturbed by the whip-cracks of the air-gun, had withdrawn his head from under his wing. But he did not take to flight at once, being comfortable where he was and the sounds not very alarming, and while he hesitated he received a violent shock in the middle of his breast, which knocked him off his perch powerless and dying. A little further on another, and then yet another were bagged: it was a well-stocked coppice, and had not been shot yet. Lord Woodruff was reserving that part for some friends who were coming at Christmas, and with the prospects of whose sport I fear that Saurin somewhat interfered that night. The sack indeed was pretty heavy by the time they had gone through the wood, and then Marriner thought that it would be more prudent to decamp, and they retraced their steps by a path which traversed the coppice. Once back at the wood-stack they were to separate, so before they left the coppice Marriner put down his now heavy sack, and Saurin handed him the air-gun, which he stowed away in his capacious pocket. Then they went on, and just as they were on the edge of the wood came suddenly upon a man.

"Hulloa! young gentleman," exclaimed he to Saurin, who was leading, "what are you up to? What has the other got in that sack?"

Marriner slipped behind the trees.

"I have got _you_, at any rate," said the man, seizing Saurin by the collar.

The latter would not speak lest his voice should be recognised afterwards, but he struggled all he knew. The man soon overpowered him; but Marriner came to the rescue. Throwing down the sack of pheasants, he had taken from his pocket an implement of whalebone with a heavy k.n.o.b of lead at the end, and coming behind the man, both whose hands were holding on to Saurin, he struck him with it on the head as hard as he could. The keeper's grasp relaxed, he fell heavily to the ground, and Saurin was free. The man lay on his back with his head on the path, and the moonbeams fell on his face.

"Simon Bradley," muttered Marriner. "To be sure he lives this way, and was going home after the alarm on t'other side."

Saurin was seized with a violent s.h.i.+vering from head to foot.

"He isn't, I mean to say you have not--eh?" he said.

"Dunno, and don't much care, curse him!" replied Marriner. "It would be laid to t'other chaps if he is."

"But we ought to do something; get him some help," urged Saurin, who had not become sufficiently hardened to like such devil's work as this. "If he is living he will be frozen to death lying out such a night as this."

"Oh, he will be all right!" said Marriner. "He's only stunned a bit.

He will come to in ten minutes and get up and walk home."

"But can't we leave word at his house, and then be off?"

"That would be a fool's trick, that would. Why, it would bring suspicion on us, and if he is a gone c.o.o.n--it's impossible, you know, almost--but _if_ he is, we should get scragged for it. Come, I didn't think you was so chicken-hearted, or I wouldn't have brought you out.

Let's get away home at once while we can, and don't go a putting your neck in a halter for nowt."

Fear overcame compunction, and Saurin turned and fled. How he got home he did not know, but he seemed to be at the back-door of the yard immediately almost. Then he steadied himself, went in, locked the door, and stole up to his room and to bed. _He_ did not sleep that night.

The face of the gamekeeper lying there in the moonlight haunted him. He wished, like Buller, but oh, much more fervently, that the whole business might turn out to have been a nightmare. But the morning dawned cold and grey, and he got up and dressed himself and went in to school, and it was all real. He could not fix his attention; his mind would wander to that coppice. Had the gamekeeper come to, tried to struggle up, fainted, fallen back, perished for want of a little a.s.sistance? Or had he got up, not much the worse, and had he seen his face clearly, and, recognising that it was a Weston boy, would he come to the school and ask to go round and pick him out?

"Saurin!"

It was only the voice of the master calling on him to go on with the construing, but he had so entirely forgotten where he was that he started and dropped his book, which caused a t.i.tter, for Saurin was not habitually either of a meditative or a nervous turn. He felt that he really must pull himself together or he would excite suspicion.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said; "my hands are numb, and I dropped the book. Where's the place?" he added _sotto voce_ to his neighbour.

"I think your attention was numb," said the master.

Saurin had the chorus in the play of Euripides, which was undergoing mutilation at his fingers' ends, so he went on translating till he heard, "That will do. Maxwell!" and then he relapsed into his private meditations. After all, he had not struck the blow, Marriner's trying to drag him into a share of the responsibility was all nonsense. They might say he ought to have given the alarm, or gone for a doctor, but nothing more. And yet he fancied he had heard somewhere that to be one of a party engaged in an unlawful act which resulted in anyone being killed was complicity or something, which included all in the crime.

One thing was clear, he must keep his counsel, and not let Edwards or anyone know anything about it, because they might be questioned; and he must guard against showing that he was at all anxious. And why should he be? A man did not die for one knock on the head; he was probably all right again. And he could not have seen his face so as to recognise him; it was quite in the shade where they had been struggling. It was all nonsense his worrying himself; and yet he could not help listening, expecting a messenger to come with some alarming intelligence, he could not define what. After school Edwards came up to him and drew him aside confidentially, full of eagerness and curiosity.

"Well," he said, "was it good fun? How did it all go off?"

"It was a regular sell," replied Saurin, smothering his impatience at being questioned, and forcing himself to take the tone he was accustomed to a.s.sume towards his chum in confidential communications.

"How! did you not meet Marriner?"

"Oh, yes! I met him all right; but it was no good. There were other poachers out last night, and we heard their guns, so of course we could not attempt anything, because the gamekeepers would all have been on the look-out. You were well out of it, not coming, for it was precious cold work waiting about, and no fun after all."

"What a bore! But you will have better luck next time, perhaps."

"I hope so, if I go; but the fact is, I have lost confidence in Marriner rather. He ought to have found out that those other fellows were going out last night, don't you see? At least he always brags that he knows their movements. And it will be some time before the moon serves again; and then the Christmas holidays will be coming on; and by next term the pheasants will all have been shot off. The chance has been missed."

"Well, at all events, you have got all right and not been discovered.

Do you know, when one comes to think about it, it was an awful risk,"

said Edwards.

"Of course it was," replied Saurin; "that made all the fun of it.

Rather idiotic, though, too, since one hopes to preserve game one's self some day. It would be a better lark to go out to catch poachers than to go out poaching."

"A great deal, I should say. Not but what that is risky work too.

Those fellows do not flinch from murder when they are interrupted."

"What makes you say that?" cried Saurin quickly, turning and catching him sharply by the arm.

"I don't know!" replied Edwards, astonished at the effect of his words.

"I have read about fights between gamekeepers and poachers in books, and heard of them, and that; haven't you? How queer you look! Is there anything the matter?"

"Not a bit of it," said Saurin, regretting his imprudence; "only, I was frozen hanging about last night, and when I got back I could not sleep for cold feet, so I am a bit tired. And I think I have caught cold too.

And you know," he added, laughing, "having enlisted in the ranks of the poachers last night, at least in intention, I feel bound to resist any attacks on their humanity.