Part 11

Mr. McNab lit his pipe, the better to resume his ordinary composure; and puffing at it with lips which now and then a convulsive movement almost compelled to laughter, he strode away through the wood to his own dwelling on the further side of it.

IV.

And now the wood was left once more in profound peace. Since old Oliver passed through it the shadows had grown still longer, and from the west there now came a flush of sunset through the boughs, turning the blue carpet into one of deeper purple; while against the fading light the great tree-trunks stood up solemnly, slowly blackening as their shadows died away. Here and there a wood-pigeon broke the stillness in the boughs, or a nightingale broke out into a flash of song, and ceased again as suddenly; but the owls in the old tree began to bestir themselves in soft silence, and reserved their hootings until they should have procured a meal for the downy nestlings in the deep warm hole. But beware, O ye owls and owlets, for the Philistines are at hand, and the warrant of the ladies is out against you!

As the last hues of sunset died away on the Cotswold hills there came through the wood unlucky little Mr. Weekes; small in person and small in acres; discontented with his dealings at the fair, and with things in general, and ready for any project that might put a pound or two into his pocket without actually endangering his limbs or his liberty. As he passed the great oak, a large creature flew noiselessly over his head in the direction of the tree, and woke up Mr. Weekes’ memory, which had been halting in the slough of his discontent.

“Ah, the owls!” he thought. “Half-a-guinea a-piece, did he say? Well, it might be, if there’s a run on ’em; and that fellow Pogson said he was coming here first thing to-morrow morning to shoot ’em; but I’ll be even with the prosperous fat brute.”

Mr. Weekes thought of the morning’s pig-driving, into which he had been compelled by Pogson’s superior force of character; of the two ribs of his wife’s umbrella which he had broken on the back of one wayward squeaker; and of the long detour he had taken when leaving Northstow, to avoid falling again in with the pig-driver, and being once more driven to drive.

So he went home to his rickety little homestead beyond the wood, and reached down his old gun from its place above the chimney-piece; only yielding to the injunctions of his wife that he must eat a bit o’ supper first, and that if he must be for shooting owls, he should begin by shooting the one which was stealing all their young pigeons. Obedient as usual, though querulous, Mr. Weekes presently took up his station in his yard, watching the dovecote and the darkening sky; but luckily for the pigeons, whom the owls were nightly protecting from their enemies the rats, no owl made his appearance for a full half-hour after Mr. Weekes had given them up in despair, and had carried off his gun to the wood in hopes of better luck.

Meanwhile Mr. Pogson, after purchasing some dozen or so of fine porkers, and a bottle of brandy to help him in the arduous task of getting them home safely, began in the late afternoon to drive them down the long high road towards the wood. The pigs were lively, and their owner began to be a little unsteady on his legs--a sensation which he more than once sought to correct by a draught of strong ale at a roadside public-house. The remedy did not have the desired effect, and his progress became slower and slower; but in spite of all obstacles, and by dint of extreme severity and a lavish outlay of bad language, he contrived to conduct himself and his charges across the bridge and the meadows to the edge of the wood without serious mishap, arriving there about the time at which Weekes was prowling in his yard after the barn owl. The bottle of brandy was by this time more than half empty, and the wood was as dark as pitch.

If Mr. Pogson had been in full possession of his wits he would hardly have tried to force his way through the wood, and would have avoided the bridle-path, and taken his pigs a couple of miles round by the road; but he had gone like an unreasoning animal in the way he was accustomed to, and now it was too late to turn back. He took another pull at the bottle, switched the nearest pigs, and pulling himself for a moment together, forced his drove into the narrow ride, trusting that they would follow their noses and keep to the open path.

In the dense black darkness and stillness, a sleepy and a sickly feeling came over Mr. Pogson’s usually hide-bound senses, from which he was only for a moment awakened by a sudden movement of the pigs in front of him. Whether it were a badger in the path, or a prowling fox that had frightened them, certain it is that at this moment they all faced about, and rushing with loud squeakings past the legs of their driver, vanished in a general stampede away into the wood.

Mr. Pogson stood aghast, and leant against a tree-trunk for support. The noise of the pigs died away, and he was alone--alone in blank darkness. Even pigs are company, and now he would have given a good deal for the companionship of a single one of his victims. There was a singing in his ears, a cold sweat on his hard brow; he felt quite unable to go further; his head swam.

Suddenly he heard a voice from overhead--a gentle voice, reproachful and somewhat hollow and ghostly--

“Whoo? Tu-whoo?”

Mr. Pogson felt a creepy sensation, and would have cast himself to the ground and hidden his face in the bluebells, but again the voice asked--

“Whoo? Whoo? Tu-whoo?”

“Pogson o’ Highfield,” cried the belated man in answer. But in still more reproachful accents, the voice demanded for the third time--

“Whoo? Tu-whoo?”

“Pogson o’ Highfield, pig-dealer,” cried the wretched man in stuttering accents; “a man as never did no harm to nothing in all his life!”

“Whoo? Whoo?” said the voice, seeming to retreat, and urged to follow it by some mysterious influence, Mr. Pogson staggered forward a few paces. But he had hardly left his tree for more than half a minute, when something caught him on the shins and tripped him up; at the same moment he received a violent blow on the head which, added to the effects of the brandy, stretched him quite unconscious on the ground. There he lay in the darkness, with the bottle slipping out of his pocket, while the mysterious voice continued to question him in vain from the old oak-tree overhead.

And now, but for the voice, all is silent again for a few minutes. Stay, who is this coming down the “light,” betraying his presence by the crackling of a dry twig beneath his boot? It is Mr. Weekes, bent on further profitable destruction; who would not have ventured himself in the wood after dark for fear of ghosts and other terrors, but is now urged to unwonted courage by the hope of gain and by the companionship of his old gun. He is making for the tree where he saw the owl at sunset.

As he advanced deeper into the dead blackness of the wood, Mr. Weekes began to feel a slight uneasiness, which was soon uncomfortably increased by strange noises on his right-hand, as of weird creatures making towards him through the underwood. But he was now close to his tree, and he could hear the hooting of the owls that were to be his prey. He was in the act of raising his gun, ready to fire when an owl should cross the bit of sky-line open above him, when the noises increased to his right, and with a terrific crackling and confusion an army of terrible creatures burst out upon him into the ride. All his courage fled. With a yell of fear he discharged his gun at the advancing foes, and then throwing it at them as a last resource, took to his heels and ran from them. But he had not run many yards when he tripped first over a heavy body, and then over a tightened cord, and losing at once his balance and his senses, Mr. Weekes swooned outright.

V.

“Did ye hear the gun then?” said the keeper to Oliver, as they met a few minutes later at the entrance to the wood. “There’s mischief _here_, forbye at the barber’s. Tak’ yon big stick, mon, and gang ye on wi’ the lantern.”

They went softly down the ride together, neither speaking again. Presently the keeper stumbled over some solid body lying in the grass, and Oliver, applying the lantern to it, discovered the corpse of a pig. The keeper whistled softly, and turned it over with his foot.

“Lawfu’ spoil,” he whispered, “lawfu’ spoil. Ye shall taste Pogson’s bacon yet afore ye die, Oliver!”

Then they found the gun, which Mr. McNab, now in his element, seized as further spoil, and gave to Oliver to carry instead of the big stick. And now he turned aside for a few yards to see what other sport his bairn’s tricks of that day might have brought him. Oliver followed close at his heels with the lantern.

“Whoo! Tu-whoo!” said the owl overhead.

“Ay, ye may weel hoot at ’em,” said the keeper, as the lantern revealed the prostrate forms of Mr. Pogson and Mr. Weekes; the latest arrival lying across the other, and seeming to embrace him with one arm, while the hand of the other was thrust into a tuft of faded primroses.

Oliver and McNab regarded this spectacle for a few moments in silence. Then Oliver, catching sight of the bottle slipping from the pig-dealer’s pocket, turned his wistful eyes on the Scotchman.

“Mr. McNab,” he said, “I’m an old man, and maybe as I won’t be woodcutting here much longer; but don’t you--for my sake don’t you” (here he shyly laid his wrinkled hand on the keeper’s arm), “let such sodden brutes as these come along and take the lives of innocent creatures--creatures as God above loves, and has made me for to love too--and all for a few shillings, or maybe guineas, and to please the ladies in Lunnon as don’t know what a wood be like, nor what creatures lives their lives here. I’ve known this tree for more nor fifty year, but the owls ha’ known it belike for five hundred; and now, afore I’m dead, the warrant’s out agen them. The fine ladies wants their feathers, but they don’t know what they’re doing--they don’t _think_ what they do, Mr. McNab. ’Tis fashion, I take it, only fashion, and it’ll blow over in a bit if you’ll but stop ’em now. I’m an old fool maybe, but God knows I’ve none too many to care about, or for to care about me, but my old woman, and beside her there’s none but these birds and beasts in the wood. And the peace of it, and the quiet of the life in it! Don’t you let it be rooted up, Mr. McNab, nor the wild beast of the field devour it!”

The keeper slapped him on the back of his smockfrock, and then seized him by the hand. “Oliver, my auld lad,” he said, “ye’ve just saved them out o’ the hand of the Pheelistines! And ye shall never want for friends to care for ye, be they owls or be they McNabs!”

* * * * *

And this was the story that old Oliver used to tell, with many a kindly word of respect for his friend the keeper, till one day, as I said at the beginning, death came upon him painlessly under that very tree, while the cuckoo sang in the distance, and the chiff-chaffs two notes echoed from the sunny end of the wood. How he came to know what happened to Mr. Pogson and the pigs is more than I can tell; probably the owls told it to him, or it may be that the conscience-stricken pig-dealer revealed to him alone the story, as to one who understood, as none else did, the mysteries of Truerne wood.

However that may be, it is certain that the enemy never again invaded his paradise. The owls were never disturbed, and by some mysterious agency the placard disappeared almost at once from the barber’s window. Mr. Pogson never passed through the wood again, and finding that distorted versions of his adventures were abroad in Highfield (where they are still told with relish by the winter fireside), he removed to a village some miles away, a milder and more merciful man. Mr. Weekes too was not long in giving up his farm, and disappearing entirely from the neighbourhood. In peace the owls and Oliver lived out their days under the grave but kindly guardianship of Mr. McNab the keeper; and when I last passed through the wood it showed no signs of the presence of the Philistine.

THE END.

R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BREAD ST. HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY SUFFOLK

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Local name for fieldfare.

[2] The valley of the Colne in the Cotswold Hills.

[3] Swindon.

[4] The London and Bristol road in the Kennet Valley west of Marlborough.

[5] Pewsey Vale.

[6] Salisbury Plain.

[7] A fact.