Stalky Co. | Page 6

again approvingly, and was silent.
McTurk and Beetle had taken out their books and were lying on their
stomachs, chin in hand. The sea snored and gurgled; the birds,
scattered for the moment by these new animals, returned to their
businesses, and the boys read on in the rich, warm, sleepy silence.
"Hullo, here's a keeper," said Stalky, shutting "Handley Cross"
cautiously, and peering through the jungle. A man with a gun appeared
on the sky-line to the east. "Confound him, he's going to sit down."
"He'd swear we were poachin', too," said Beetle. "What's the good of
pheasants' eggs? They're always addled, too."

"Might as well get up to the wood, I think," said Stalky. "We don't want
G. M. Dabney, Col., J.P., to be bothered about us so soon. Up the
wuzzy and keep quiet! He may have followed us, you know."
Beetle was already far up the tunnel. They heard him gasp
indescribably: there was the crash of a heavy body leaping through the
furze.
"Aie! yeou little red rascal. I see yeou!" The keeper threw the gun to his
shoulder, and fired both barrels in their direction. The pellets dusted
the dry stems round them as a big fox plunged between Stalky's legs,
and ran over the cliff-edge.
They said nothing till they reached the wood, torn, disheveled, hot, but
unseen.
"Narrow squeak," said Stalky. "I'll swear some of the pellets went
through my hair."
"Did you see him?" said Beetle. "I almost put my hand on him. Wasn't
he a wopper! Didn't he stink! Hullo, Turkey, what's the matter? Are you
hit?"
McTurk's lean face had turned pearly white; his mouth, generally half
open, was tight shut, and his eyes blazed. They had never seen him like
this save once in a sad time of civil war.
"Do you know that that was just as bad as murder?" he said, in a
grating voice, as he brushed prickles from his head.
"Well, he didn't hit us," said Stalky. "I think it was rather a lark. Here,
where are you going?"
"I'm going up to the house, if there is one," said McTurk, pushing
through the hollies. "I am going to tell this Colonel Dabney."
"Are you crazy? He'll swear it served us jolly well right. He'll report us.
It'll be a public lickin'. Oh, Turkey, don't be an ass! Think of us!"

"You fool!" said McTurk, turning savagely. "D'you suppose I'm thinkin'
of us? It's the keeper."
"He's cracked," said Beetle, miserably, as they followed. Indeed, this
was a new Turkey--a haughty, angular, nose-lifted Turkey--whom they
accompanied through a shrubbery on to a lawn, where a
white-whiskered old gentleman with a cleek was alternately putting and
blaspheming vigorously.
"Are you Colonel Dabney?" McTurk began in this new creaking voice
of his.
"I--I am, and--" his eyes traveled up and down the boy--"who--what the
devil d'you want? Ye've been disturbing my pheasants. Don't attempt to
deny it. Ye needn't laugh at it." (McTurk's not too lovely features had
twisted them. selves into a horrible sneer at the word pheasant.)
"You've been birds'-nesting. You needn't hide your hat. I can see that
you belong to the College. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye do! Your name
and number at once, sir. Ye want to speak to me--Eh? You saw my
notice-boards? Must have. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye did! Damnable,
oh damnable!"
He choked with emotion. McTurk's heel tapped the lawn and he
stuttered a little--two sure signs that he was losing his temper. But why
should he, the offender, be angry?
"Lo-look here, sir. Do--do you shoot foxes? Because, if you don't, your
keeper does. We've seen him! I do-don't care what you call us--but it's
an awful thing. It's the ruin of good feelin' among neighbors. A ma-man
ought to say once and for all how he stands about preservin'. It's worse
than murder, because there's no legal remedy." McTurk was quoting
confusedly from his father, while the old gentleman made noises in his
throat.
"Do you know who I am?" he gurgled at last; Stalky and Beetle
quaking.
"No, sorr, nor do I care if ye belonged to the Castle itself. Answer me

now, as one gentleman to another. Do ye shoot foxes or do ye not?"
And four years before Stalky and Beetle had carefully kicked McTurk
out of his Irish dialect! Assuredly he had gone mad or taken a
sunstroke, and as assuredly he would be slain--once by the old
gentleman and once by the Head. A public licking for the throe was the
least they could expect. Yet--if their eyes and ears were to be
trusted--the old gentleman had collapsed. It might be a lull before the
storm, but--
"I do not." He was still gurgling.
"Then you must sack your keeper. He's