Part 5

“I be jist come up-along to have a look round,” announced John. “I’m Mr. Guppy, what was here afore you. You be in my shoes now, I mid say, but I don’t bear ’ee no grudge for ’t--no, I don’t bear ’ee no grudge,” he repeated handsomely.

“Right,” said Sanders, who was a good-humoured fellow enough, if a little puffed up by the dignity of his position. “Glad to see you, Mr. Guppy. We’ve got a nice lot here, haven’t we?”

“’E-es,” agreed Guppy, with a note of reserve in his voice; “’e-es, a tidyish lot; but you’ll not bring up the half o’ them.”

“Won’t I, indeed?” retorted Sanders, somewhat warmly. “What makes you say that?”

“I could ha’ telled ’ee as this here weren’t a fit place for young pheasants,” returned the ex-keeper, not without a certain triumph. “If you’d ha’ come to I, I could ha’ telled ye. I’ve a-been thirty-nine year and nine month i’ this place, and I’ve never put the young pheasants here once--never once. What do you say to that?”

“Well, I say as every man has his own notions,” returned the other. “You might have a fancy for one place, as very likely I’d take agen, and, on the other hand, you seem to have some notion agen this ’ere place, as _I_ think most suitable.”

“Well, ye’ll find out your mistake, I d’ ’low,” said Guppy unflinchingly. “Done pretty well wi’ eggs this year?”

“Yes, pretty well on the whole. We had to buy a few hundreds, but, as I told Mr.----”

“Buy ’em! Buy eggs! You must ha’ managed wonderful bad. I’ve a-been here nigh upon farty year, and never bought so much as one--not one. Dally! ’Twill come terr’ble expensive for Squire if ye do carry on things that way.”

“Something had to be done, you see,” cried Sanders, who was now beginning to be distinctly nettled. “You seem to have been such a stick-in-the-mud lot--there was hardly any game about the place that I could see when I come.”

“Oh! and weren’t there?” retorted John sarcastically. “Ye must ha’ poor eyes, Maister Sanders. There, ’twas what I did use to say to a cousin o’ Squire’s as used to come shooting here twenty-five years ago, and couldn’t hit a haystack. ‘There don’t seem to be anything to shoot, keeper,’ he’d say; and I’d answer back, ‘Ye must ha’ wonderful poor eyes, sir.’ Ho, ho! he were a stuck-up sort o’ gentleman as were always a-findin’ fault and a-pickin’ holes, but I mind I had a good laugh agen him once. ’Twas a terr’ble hot day, and we’d walked miles and miles, and I were a bit done-up at the end, and thankful for a sup o’ beer. And he comes up to I, and says, laughin’ nasty-like, ‘Well, Guppy, you don’t seem much of a walker. Now, I could go all day.’ ‘’E-es, sir,’ says I, ‘and so can a postman. I d’ ’low your bags ’ad much same weight at the end o’ your rounds.’”

Sanders vouchsafed no comment on this anecdote, and John, propping his stick against the paling, proceeded with much difficulty to climb over it, and to hobble from one pen to the other, stooping stiffly to inspect the young birds and the arrangements made for their comfort.

“They big speckly hens is too heavy for these here delicate little fellows,” he remarked. “Game hens is the best--’twas what I did always have. ’Tis more in nature as the game hens should make the best mothers to young pheasants. They be a poor-looking lot, Maister Sanders. I did use to have ’em a deal more for’ard at this time o’ year. What be feedin’ ’em on?”

“Now look ’ere, I’m not going to stand any more o’ this,” thundered the keeper, fairly losing his temper. “I’m not going to have you poking and prying about this place no longer. You’ve got past your work, and I’m doing it now. If the Squire’s satisfied, that’s all I need think about. If he isn’t, he can tell me so.”

“Ha! no man likes bein’ found fault with,” returned Guppy sententiously; “but sometimes ’tis for their own good. Now you take a word o’ advice from I, what was workin’ here afore you was born or thought of very like.”

“I’ll not, then!” cried the other angrily. “Get out o’ this, you old meddler, or I’ll report you to the Squire!”

“You did ought to thank I for not reportin’ of you,” returned John firmly. “The Squire do think a deal o’ I--a deal; but I’d be sorry to get a man into trouble as do seem to be meanin’ well. You mind my words, keeper, and you’ll find as they’ll come true--ye’ll have a bad season this year, and maybe ye’ll be a bit more ready to take advice from them as knows more nor you do. ’Tis the first year, so I’ll not be hard on ye.”

He had now recrossed the wire, repossessed himself of his stick, and with a nod of farewell at his irate successor, turned his steps homewards.

He spent the rest of that day lamenting the direful changes which had taken place since his own withdrawal from active life, and privately resolved to be astir early on the morrow in order to proceed further with his tour of investigation.

With the first dawn, therefore, of a lovely spring morning he left his bed cautiously, dressed in silence, and made his way out of doors. The cottage which he had occupied since his resignation of the keepership was situated at the very end of the village, and as he glanced up the quiet street he could detect few signs of life. No smoke was yet stealing upwards into the still air, no cows lowing in the bartons; the pigeons, indeed, were astir, preening themselves somewhat sleepily, and cooing in a confidential undertone, and the clucking of hens was audible here and there, while more musical bird-voices resounded from trees and hedgerows. The dew lay heavy on the long grass by the roadside as John set forth. The morning mists had not yet disappeared, and the glamour of dawn still enfolded the world. The dew-washed leaves seemed to be on fire, as they caught the rosy rays of the morning sun; every little wayside pool gleamed and glittered. The air was full of sweet scents, the delicate, distinctive odour of the primrose being predominant, though here and there a gush of almost overpowering perfume greeted the old man’s nostrils, as he passed a wild apple-tree. A kind of aromatic undertone came forth from damp moss, trunks of fir-trees, springing young herbage, yet the exquisite fragrance of the morning itself seemed to belong to none of these things in particular, but rather to emanate from the very freshness of the dawn.

Old John, however, plodded onwards, without appearing to take heed of his surroundings; once, indeed, he paused to sniff with a perturbed expression; a fox had passed that way. His eyes peered warily into the undergrowth, over the banks, beneath the hedgerows; he paused in traversing a copse, stooped, uttering an exclamation of astonished disgust, and some few moments later emerged from the brake with a bulging pocket and an air of increased importance.

Jim Neale, the under-keeper, had not long started on his morning beat when he was hailed by a familiar voice, and turning beheld his former chief.

“Hullo, Maister Guppy, I be pure glad to see you on your legs again. You be afoot early.”

John surveyed him for a moment with an air of solemn indignation.

“’Tis jist so well I were afoot a bit early, Jim. You do want I at your back, I d’ ’low. Which way have you been a-goin’?”

“Why, same as usual--across the big mead, from our place, and up-along by top side o’ the park.”

“Jist what I did fancy. You do seem to use your eyes wonderful well, Jim--jist so well as ever. D’ye mind how I used to tell ’ee ‘some folks has eyes and some has none’?”

“Why, what be amiss?”

John, without speaking, put his hand in his pocket, and drew forth a number of rabbit snares, sticks and all, which he had picked up and secreted in the copse before-mentioned.

“Oh!” said Jim. “Humph! I wonder who could have put them there?”

“Why, Branstone folks what be always a-hangin’ about seekin’ what they can pick up.”

“Well, ’twas a good job ye did chance to come along, Mr. Guppy. I d’ ’low they didn’t have time to catch nothin’. There weren’t no rabbits in ’em, was there?”

“There was a rabbit in one of them though,” retorted John triumphantly; “I’ve a-got en here i’ my pocket.”

“Oh, and have ye?” queried John, eyeing the pocket in question somewhat askance. “Well, it’s lucky I’ve a-met ye--ye can hand en over to me i’stead o’ going all the way up to Sanders.”

“I can hand en over to you, can I? Thank ye kindly, Maister Jim; ‘findins’ is keepins’--or used to be i’ my day. Well, of all the cheek! ‘Hand en over,’ says he to I what has been his maister, I mid say, for fifteen year and more. Hand en over, indeed!”

Jim, temporarily abashed, pushed his hat a little to the back of his head, and stared for a moment or two in silence; then his features relaxed into a slow grin.

“’Pon my word, if it do come to cheek, be dalled if I could say which of us has the most of it! Ye bain’t keeper here no longer, Mr. Guppy, and I don’t know as Squire ’ud be altogether pleased if he was to catch you a-pocketin’ one of his rabbits.”

John laughed derisively.

“Squire ’ud know a bit better nor that,” he remarked, as soon as he had sufficiently composed himself. “Squire ’ud know better than grudge I a rabbit arter all them hundreds as I’ve a-had the years and years as I were here. Be ye a-goin’ on now?”

“’E-es I be,” returned Jim, somewhat sulkily.

“Then look sharp, else you’ll very like miss a good few more things what be under your nose.”

Jim walked away growling to himself that he wasn’t a-goin’ to have two masters if he knew it, and that it was enough to be at one man’s beck and call without being hauled over the coals by folks what had no right to be there at all.

John, leaning on his stick, watched the receding form, still with an air of lofty sovereignty, till it had disappeared, and then took his way homewards, feeling that he had done a good morning’s work.

It was marvellous how one so decrepit as he could manage to be as ubiquitous as he thenceforth became. His bent figure and wrinkled face were perpetually turning up in most unexpected quarters, to the wrath and occasional dismay of Mr. Sanders and his underlings, his small keen eyes frequently detecting some small error or omission which his quavering voice was immediately uplifted to denounce and reprehend. Matters reached a climax when, one sunshiny morning, he discovered the eldest hope of the Sanders family in the act of climbing a tree in search of a bird’s nest, and, not content with boxing the urchin’s ears as soon as he descended to earth again, hauled him off by the collar to the parental abode. The boy’s outcries brought his father to the door, accompanied by Jim, who had chanced to call in for orders.

“See here what I’ve a-caught your bwoy a-doin’ of. His pocket be chock-full o’ eggs--pigeon eggs. He ha’n’t a-got no right to go into the woods arter pigeons’ eggs. I’ve brought en to ’ee, Maister Sanders, so as ye may gie en a dressin’. I be too old to do it myself. Nay, nay, at one time I could ha’ fetched him a crack or two what ’ud ha’ taught en manners. But I bain’t strong enough for that now.”

“Let go of him--let go at once, I say,” shouted the indignant parent. “Who gave you leave to interfere? The lad’s my lad, and it’s none o’ your business to go meddlin’ with him. Come here, Philip-James; go in to your mother, boy. He’s mauled you fearful.”

“Well, you must be a soft fellow,” ejaculated John in a tone of deep disgust. “I couldn’t ha’ believed it! If _I_ had a-caught a bwoy a-trespassin’ i’ my woods when I was here, I’d ha’ thrashed him well for ’t--let him be my son twenty times over.”

“Trespassin’ indeed! You’re a trespasser yourself,” cried the keeper. “You’ve no business in these woods at all; you’ve no business to come near the place. I’ll summons you, see if I don’t.”

“Well, that is a tale!” exclaimed John, leaning against the gate-post that he might the better indulge in a kind of crow of ironical laughter. “Trespass--_me_ trespass; me what was keeper here for nigh upon farty year. Lard ha’ mercy me! What’ll ye say next?”

“Well, but it _be_ trespassin’, you know, Maister Guppy,” remarked Jim, thrusting his head round the lintel of the door; “it be trespassin’ right enough. If you was head-keeper once, you bain’t head-keeper no more. You ha’n’t got no call to be here at all. It _be_ trespassin’.”

“You hold your tongue, Jim Neale,” retorted John fiercely--“hold your tongue! Who asked you to speak--you as did ought to be ashamed of yourself for neglectin’ the ferrets same as you do. The big dog-ferret have a-got the mange terr’ble bad. You bain’t the man to give a opinion, I d’ ’low.”

Jim, incensed at this sudden home-thrust, uttered a forcible exclamation, and proceeded with much warmth: “You’ve a-got a wrong notion i’ your head altogether, Maister Guppy; you be a-trespassin’ jist the same as you was a-poachin’ t’other marnin’.”

“Poachin’!” cried John, his face purple with wrath and his voice well-nigh strangled--“poachin’! Dall ’ee, Jim, I’ll not stand here to be insulted. There, I’ve a-passed over a deal--a deal I have. I’ve overlooked it on account of the many years as we’ve a-worked here together, but this here be too much. I’ll report ye, Jim Neale, see if I don’t; and I’ll report you too, Maister Sanders, for insultin’ of I same as you’ve a-done. There’s things as a body can’t overlook, let him be so good-natured as he mid be, and there’s times when a man’s dooty do stare en i’ the face. I’ll report ye this very hour.”

“That’s pretty good,” laughed Sanders. “Upon my word, that’s pretty good. Maybe Jim an’ me will have something to report to the Squire too. You’d best come along with me, Jim, and we’ll see who the Squire listens to.”

“Come along then,” cried John valiantly, before Neale had time to answer. “Come along; we’ll see. I bain’t afeard o’ the Squire. The Squire do know I so well as if I was his own brother. Come on, if you be a-comin’.”

The three set out, walkin’ shoulder to shoulder in grim silence, the younger perforce accommodating their pace to the slow gait of the old man, who hobbled along between them, leaning heavily upon his stick, his face set in resolute lines.

They were kept waiting for some little time until the Squire had finished his breakfast, but were presently admitted into the billiard-room where they found him smoking by a blazing wood fire, for he was of a chilly temperament, and though the morning was sunny, the air was still sufficiently sharp.

“Hallo, Guppy!” he cried cheerily, as his eyes fell on the old man. “What! you’re about again, are you? You’re a wonderful old fellow! You’ll see me down, I’m sure, though there are twenty years or so between us.”

John pulled his forelock and then laid his gnarled hand in the Squire’s outstretched palm.

“You’re a splendid old chap,” said his former master, as he shook it warmly. “I must own I never thought to see you on your legs again after that stroke, coming as it did on the top of the rheumatics. How are the rheumatics, John?”

“Very bad, thank ye, sir. There, I can scarce turn i’ my bed, and when I do try for to walk my limbs do seem to go all twisty-like. I be fair scraggled wi’ it, Squire.”

“Well, men, what brought you here?” inquired their master, turning for the first time to the keepers, and addressing them with some surprise.

“Why, a rather unpleasant matter, sir, I am sorry to say,” returned Sanders respectfully, but a trifle tartly. “’Tis a bit difficult to explain, seein’ as you seem so taken up with Mr. Guppy here. I understood, sir, when I accepted your sitooation as I was to have a free hand. I didn’t look for no interference from anybody but you yourself, sir.”

“Well, haven’t you got a free hand? I’m sure I don’t interfere,” replied the Squire, with a shrug of his shoulders.

“’Tis Maister Guppy what be al’ays a-meddlin’, sir!” put in Jim, with a pull at his forelock. “He do come up-along mostly every mornin’, a-horderin’ and a-pickin’ holes here, there, and everywhere. Mr. Sanders and me do find it terr’ble ill-conwenient.”

“I was just going to say, sir,” resumed Sanders, “when Neale interrupted me”--here he paused to glare at his inferior--“as it was what I was never accustomed to--outside people comin’ and pokin’ and pryin’ and fault-findin’ and interferin’----”

“Oh, dear, how much more!” exclaimed the Squire, looking from one to the other in affected dismay, mingled with a little real vexation. “Guppy, what’s all this about?”

“Playse ye, sir, I couldn’t a-bear to see you a-treated same as ye be treated by them as ye puts your trust in. Everythin’ be in a reg’lar caddle all over the place--everythin’ be a-goin’ wrong, sir, and when I sees it, I tells ’em of it. I can’t do no different--’tis my dooty. You do pay I by the week reg’lar, and I bain’t a-goin’ to eat the bread o’ idleness--’t ’ud stick i’ my in’ards--’e-es, that it would. ‘So soon as I do get upon my legs,’ says I, ‘I’ll have a look round;’ and I did have a look round, and what did I find? Every blessed thing a-goin’ wrong--so I sarces ’em for ’t. I wasn’t a-goin’ to hold my tongue, and see you tricked and abused. I was easy wi’ ’em--a dalled sight too easy--I did ought to have reported of ’em before, but to-day I couldn’t stand it no longer; when I did speak to ’em they up and insulted me, both on ’em. ’E-es, they did. They insulted of I shameful.”

“I am sorry to hear that----” the Squire was beginning, when Mr. Sanders, losing patience, interrupted him.

“Begging your pardon, sir, ’tis more than flesh and blood can stand; ’tis got to be him or me--that’s all I can say. Nobody could put up with it. I found things in a very bad state when I came, and I’m getting them better gradual, sir, and doing my dooty in all respects as well as I can; but if Guppy is to be allowed to come pryin’ and spyin’ after me, and findin’ fault with all my arrangements----”

“He did call I a trespasser,” broke out John, who had been ruminating over his private woes, without taking heed of the keeper’s indictment. “He did call I a trespasser; he did say I was trespassin’ when I told en I’d a-been walkin’ through the Long Wood yonder where I did catch his little rascal of a son a-bird’s-nestin’ so bold as you playse. And Jim there, what did ought to know better, up and said I was poachin’ last week. _Me_ poachin’! Me what brought him back that very day a dozen o’ snares what I had picked up i’ the hedge as he went gawkin’ past without taking a bit o’ notice of.”

“’E-es, but you found a rabbit in one and popped it into your pocket!” cried Jim irefully. “Popped it into your pocket and walked off wi’ it, let I say what I would.”

“In course I did,” retorted John, with great dignity, “in course I did. ’Tweren’t very likely as I’d leave it wi’ you. As I telled ’ee at the time--says I: ‘Squire wouldn’t grudge me a rabbit now arter all the hundreds as I’ve a-had while I was keeper up yonder.’”

The Squire covered his mouth with his hand, but tell-tale wrinkles appeared about his eyes, and the points of his moustache curled significantly upwards. After a moment he recovered himself sufficiently to desire the keepers to withdraw, announcing that he would have a quiet talk with John Guppy, and that no doubt the matter could be arranged.

“So you had hundreds of rabbits while you were in my service, John,” he remarked, crossing one leg over the other, and looking at the old man with a smile. “Didn’t you get very tired of them?”

“Well, sir, my old woman be wonderful with the cookin’, and she did do ’em up in a-many different ways. ’E-es, we did use to have a rabbit for dinner four days out of seven.”

“Did you indeed?” returned his former master, much interested in these revelations. “Do you suppose, John, the other men had hundreds of rabbits every year, too?”

“Well, sir, it be a matter o’ taste. Some folks doesn’t fancy rabbit; but, of course, they can take so many as they do want.”

“Of course,” agreed the Squire.

“’E-es; keepers takes rabbits same as gardeners helps theirselves to cabbages. I knowed you’d never begrudge me that there little un.”

“No, to be sure; but we mustn’t be too hard on Jim. Jim was doing what he thought to be his duty. Now, you know, no matter how many rabbits a keeper may take for himself, he is not supposed to allow other people to take any.”

“Nay, sir, nay; I wouldn’t expect it--not other folks. But I d’ ’low it be different wi’ I, what was head over en for so many year. He didn’t ought to ha’ gone and insulted of I.”

“No, no, of course not; but then, you see, you had vexed him. He was too angry to discriminate between poaching and--just helping yourself.”

“And t’other chap, ’ee telled I I was trespassin’!” resumed John wrathfully.

“Well, my dear John, we must consider the point of view. Every man has his own, you know. As a matter of fact, I’m afraid, from Sanders’s point of view, you were trespassing.”

John’s face was a study.

“I never thought to live to hear you say that, Squire.”

“I only said from his point of view,” cried the Squire, hastily. “He’s naturally, perhaps, a little jealous; you were here so many years, you know, and of course, like all young men--young men will have foolish notions, John--he thinks his way is the best way. We old fogies must just give in for the sake of peace and comfort.”

“Noo ways,” agreed the old man, sorrowfully; “noo folks and noo ways.”

“As you heard me say just now,” resumed his master, “_I_ don’t interfere with him, and, upon my life, I think it’s better you shouldn’t interfere, John. I fancy it would be wiser if you could just keep away for a little bit--then no one could say you were trespassing, you know.”

“I’ll keep away, Squire,” said John. “No fear; I’ll keep away. Ye’ll not have to tell I that twice.”

“You and I are free to have our own opinions, of course,” urged the Squire, smiling, “but we’ll keep them to ourselves--these young folks you know----”

But John did not smile in return; his head, always bent, drooped almost to his breast, his lips moved, but uttered no sound. After a moment or two, he pulled his forelock, scraped his leg, and turned to depart.

“You’re not going, John?”

“’E-es, sir, I be goin’, I bain’t wanted here no more. As you do say, noo times----”

“Now, now, I can’t have you going away offended. Don’t you see how it is, John?”

“Nay, sir, I don’t see nothin’ but what you’ve a-gone and thrown over a old servant for a noo un. That be all as I can see. You didn’t check en for insultin’ of I, and you did uphold him and made little of I. I be goin’, and you’ll never be troubled wi’ I again. I’m fit for nothin’. I be a-eatin’ of your bread and a-takin’ of your money and doin’ nothin’ for ’t. Eatin’ the bread o’ idleness! I d’ ’low it ’ull fair choke I.”

The Squire, vexed and perplexed, in vain sought to soothe him, but he waved aside all attempts at consolation, and made his way slowly out of the room and out of the house.

The Squire watched him as he went tottering down the avenue. “What’s to be done?” he said to himself. “The poor old chap is past his work; it would be cruelty to allow him to attempt it. Sanders is an excellent fellow, on the other hand--more go-ahead than dear old John, and, it must be owned, a better keeper. He would certainly have given notice if I had allowed John to continue his visitations here. It is the only thing to be done, but I can’t bear to see the poor old fellow so cut up.”

As Guppy passed the keeper’s lodge the dogs ran forward, leaping upon him and whining. He patted them absently, and then pushed them off. “Down, Rover, down! There, Bessie, off wi’ you; you should learn a lesson fro’ your betters. Stick to the noo folks, and get rid of the wold. Poor beasts! they be fain to see I, I d’ ’low. Dogs bain’t like Christians. They don’t seem to know when a man be down. They be faithful, all the same; they haven’t a-got no sense, poor things.”

He was spent and trembling when he arrived at his own home, and sank down in his chair by the hearth.