Part 5

“You can light my pipe, if you like,” said John, still gloomily, “but I be goin’ up-along all the same. Things ’ull be goin’ to ruin if I don’t tell ’em how they used to be carried on i’ my time.”

“I d’ ’low ye’ll not get so far,” said Mrs. Guppy; “but of all the obstinate men--well, there, ’tis a good thing as the A’mighty made half the world o’ women-folk, else everythin’ ’ud be fair topsy-turvy.”

John wedged his pipe firmly in the corner of his mouth, put his gun under his arm, and, taking his thick stick from the chimney corner, set forth, without vouchsafing any answer; he limped painfully as he walked, and Mrs. Guppy, looking sorrowfully after him, opined that he’d have had enough of it afore he’d gone half a mile. But though she had been wedded to John for thirty-five years, she had not yet learned the quality of his spirit; he uttered many groans as he shambled along, and lifted the poor limb, which had so long been well-nigh useless, with increasing effort, but he held bravely on his way until he reached his destination, a vast stretch of land, half park, half down, peopled by innumerable rabbits and furnished with copses and plantations, which no doubt afforded cover to game of every kind. Here John paused for the first time, turned his head on one side, clicked his tongue and jerked forward his gun with a knowing air as a rabbit crossed his path.

“If ’t ’ad ha’ been loaded I’d ha’ made short work o’ thee, my bwoy,” he remarked. “There don’t seem to be so many o’ you about as there did used to be i’ my time, though--not by a long ways. That there noo chap ’ull ha’ let ye go down, I reckon. There bain’t many like poor old Jan Guppy--nay, I’ll say that for ye, Jan. You was worth your salt while you were about--’e-es, and so long as ye be above ground I d’ ’low you’ll make it worth Squire’s while to keep ye.”

Having delivered this tribute to himself with a conscientiously impartial air, he proceeded on his way, and presently came in sight of the keeper’s cottage, or rather lodge, set midway in the long avenue which led to the Squire’s mansion, and smiled to himself at the sudden out-cry of canine voices which greeted his approach.

“There they be, the beauties! That’s Jet--I’d know her bark among a thousand. I d’ ’low she knows my foot,” as one voice detached itself from the chorus and exchanged its warning note for a strangled whine of rapture. “She’ll break that chain o’ hers if they don’t let her loose. ’Ullo, Jet, old girl! Hi, Rover! Pull up, Bess!”

All the barks had now ceased, and a pointer came scurrying to the gate, followed by a large retriever.

“There ye be, my lads--too fat, too fat. Ah, they be feedin’ o’ them too well now--not so good for work, I d’ ’low! Poor old Jet! Ye be tied-up, bain’t ye? There, we’ll come to ye.”

Passing through the wicket-gate, he was limping unceremoniously round to the back of the cottage, when the door was thrown open and the astonished figure of the keeper’s wife appeared in the aperture.

“Mornin’, mum,” said John, lifting his hand half-way to his forelock, which was his nearest approach to a polite salutation when in parley with folks of Mrs. Sanders’ degree. “I be Mr. Guppy, what was keeper here afore your master. I be jist come to take a look about.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Mrs. Sanders, who was a very genteel and superior person; “my husband would have had great pleasure in taking you round, Mr. Guppy, but he’s out just at present.”

“No matter for that, mum, I’ll go by myself. What, Jet! There ye be, my beauty; dear, to be sure, a body ’ud never think ’twas the same dog. She do seem to ha’ fell away terr’ble, mum.”

Jet, a curly-coated black spaniel, was at that moment straining wildly at her chain, and wriggling her little black body in such spasms of ecstasy at the sight of her old master that it would have needed a very sharp eye to detect any alteration in her appearance, if, indeed, such existed; but John spoke in a tone of conviction.

“She bain’t half the dog she were. What do you feed her on, mum? Jet, she did used to be dainty--didn’t ye, Jet? Her coat do stare dreadful, mum, now don’t it? A prize dog didn’t ought to have its coat neglected like that. When I had the charge o’ she, dally! if I didn’t comb and brush her morn an’ night, same as if she’d been a young lady. Be dalled if I didn’t! Where be your master, mum?”

Mrs. Sanders’ face, always somewhat frosty in expression, had become more and more pinched and supercilious during the colloquy, and she now replied extremely distantly that she couldn’t say for certain where Mr. Sanders might be, but that very likely he was looking after the young pheasants.

“Ah!” commented John, with interest; “and where mid he ha’ got them this year?”

“On this side of the North Plantation,” returned the lady unwillingly.

“A bad place, mum, a very bad place; no birds ’ull ever do well there. If he’d a-come to I, I could ha’ telled en that. They’ll never thrive up yon in that draughty place--no, that they won’t; and it’ll be too cold for ’em. I’m afeared he’ll have a bad season. The North Plantation--dear, some folks doesn’t know much! Well, I’ll go and have a look at ’em, and if I do see your husband, I mid be able to gie en a word or two o’ advice.”

“Ho! no need for that, I think,” cried Mrs. Sanders wrathfully. “’Tisn’t very likely as my husband, wot ’as lived in the fust o’ families, and been keeper to a markis, ’ud want to take advice from an old gentleman like you, Mr. Guppy, as has never left the one place all your life.”

“I could have advised en agen the North Plantation, anyhow,” said John stolidly. “Well, I’ll wish ’ee good-day, mum. I’ll be goin’ my ways up-along.”

And he hobbled off, muttering to himself as he went: “The North Plantation! The chap must be a fool!... They poor dogs, they was glad to see I!--jist about; but bain’t he a sammy! There he do go and feed up the shooting dogs so as they be for all the world like pigs, and Jet, what we used to keep same as a little queen, he do seem to take no more notice of nor if she was a cat! Poor Jet! How she did cry to get to I! Well, well! I may be able to put things straight a bit.”

Proceeding at his slow pace, the pilgrimage to the North Plantation was a matter of considerable time, and it was noon before he halted at length beside the enclosure where hundreds of tiny pheasant chicks ran in and out of their several coops, with a venturesomeness much deplored by their distracted hen foster-mothers.

A tall, middle-aged man was walking about amid the pens, with a proudly proprietary air which announced him to be the head-keeper.

Guppy wiped the sweat of weakness and fatigue from his brow and uttered a quavering “Hullo!” Mr. Sanders turned and walked majestically towards him.

“What do you want,” he inquired briefly.

“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?”