With farmer's instinct George turned to the outhouse. The cow-yard startled me. It was a forest of the tallest nettles I have ever seen—nettles far taller than my six feet. The air was soddened with the dank scent of nettles. As I followed George along the obscure brick path, I felt my flesh creep. But the buildings, when we entered them, were in splendid condition; they had been restored within a small number of years; they were well-timbered, neat, and cosy. Here and there we saw feathers, bits of animal wreckage, even the remnants of a cat, which we hastily examined by the light of a match. As we entered the stable there was an ugly noise, and three great rats half rushed at us and threatened us with their vicious teeth. I shuddered, and hurried back, stumbling over a bucket, rotten with rust, and so filled with weeds that I thought it part of the jungle. There was a silence made horrible by the faint noises that rats and flying bats give out. The place was bare of any vestige of corn or straw or hay, only choked with a growth of abnormal weeds. When I found myself free in the orchard I could not stop shivering. There were no apples to be seen overhead between us and the clear sky. Either the birds had caused them to fall, when the rabbits had devoured them, or someone had gathered the crop.
"This," said George bitterly, "is what the mill will come to."
"After your time," I said.
"My time—my time. I shall never have a time. And I shouldn't be surprised if father's time isn't short—with rabbits and one thing and another. As it is, we depend on the milk-round, and on the carting which I do for the council. You can't call it farming. We're a miserable mixture of farmer, milkman, greengrocer, and carting contractor. It's a shabby business."
"You have to live," I retorted.
"Yes—but it's rotten. And father won't move—and he won't change his methods."
"Well—what about you?"
"Me! What should I change for?—I'm comfortable at home. As for my future, it can look after itself, so long as nobody depends on me."
"Laissez faire," said I, smiling.
"This is no laissez faire," he replied, glancing round, "this is pulling the nipple out of your lips, and letting the milk run away sour. Look there!"
Through the thin veil of moonlit mist that slid over the hillside we could see an army of rabbits bunched up, or hopping a few paces forward, feeding.
We set off at a swinging pace down the hill, scattering the hosts. As we approached the fence that bounded the Mill fields, he exclaimed, "Hullo!"—and hurried forward. I followed him, and observed the dark figure of a man rise from the hedge. It was a game-keeper. He pretended to be examining his gun. As we came up he greeted us with a calm "Good-evenin'!"
George replied by investigating the little gap in the hedge.
"I'll trouble you for that snare," he said.
"Will yer?" answered Annable, a broad, burly, black-faced fellow. "An' I should like ter know what you're doin' on th' wrong side th' 'edge?"
"You can see what we're doing—hand over my snare—and the rabbit," said George angrily.
"What rabbit?" said Annable, turning sarcastically to me.
"You know well enough—an' you can hand it over—or——" George replied.
"Or what? Spit it out! The sound won't kill me"—the man grinned with contempt.
"Hand over here!" said George, stepping up to the man in a rage.
"Now don't!" said the keeper, standing stock still, and looking unmovedly at the proximity of George:
"You'd better get off home—both you an' 'im. You'll get neither snare nor rabbit—see!"
"We will see!" said George, and he made a sudden move to get hold of the man's coat. Instantly he went staggering back with a heavy blow under the left ear.
"Damn brute!" I ejaculated, bruising my knuckles against the fellow's jaw. Then I too found myself sitting dazedly on the grass, watching the great skirts of his velveteens flinging round him as if he had been a demon, as he strode away. I got up, pressing my chest where I had been struck. George was lying in the hedge-bottom. I turned him over, and rubbed his temples, and shook the drenched grass on his face. He opened his eyes and looked at me, dazed. Then he drew his breath quickly, and put his hand to his head.
"He—he nearly stunned me," he said.
"The devil!" I answered.
"I wasn't ready."
"No."
"Did he knock me down?"
"Ay—me too."
He was silent for some time, sitting limply. Then he pressed his hand against the back of his head, saying, "My head does sing!" He tried to get up, but failed. "Good God!—being knocked into this state by a damned keeper!"
"Come on," I said, "let's see if we can't get indoors."
"No!" he said quickly, "we needn't tell them—don't let them know."
I sat thinking of the pain in my own chest, and wishing I could remember hearing Annable's jaw smash, and wishing that my knuckles were more bruised than they were—though that was bad enough. I got up, and helped George to rise. He swayed, almost pulling me over. But in a while he could walk unevenly.
"Am I," he said, "covered with clay and stuff?"
"Not much," I replied, troubled by the shame and confusion with which he spoke.
"Get it off," he said, standing still to be cleaned.
I did my best. Then we walked about the fields for a time, gloomy, silent, and sore.
Suddenly, as we went by the pond-side, we were startled by great, swishing black shadows that swept just above our heads. The swans were flying up for shelter, now that a cold wind had begun to fret Nethermere. They swung down on to the glassy mill-pond, shaking the moonlight in flecks across the deep shadows; the night rang with the clacking of their wings on the water; the stillness and calm were broken; the moonlight was furrowed and scattered, and broken. The swans, as they sailed into shadow, were dim, haunting spectres; the wind found us shivering.
"Don't—you won't say anything?" he asked as I was leaving him.
"No."
"Nothing at all—not to anybody?"
"No."
"Good-night."
About the end of September, our countryside was alarmed by the harrying of sheep by strange dogs. One morning, the squire, going the round of his fields as was his custom, to his grief and horror found two of his sheep torn and dead in the hedge-bottom, and the rest huddled in a corner swaying about in terror, smeared with blood. The squire did not recover his spirits for days.
There was a report of two grey wolvish dogs. The squire's keeper had heard yelping in the fields of Dr. Collins of the Abbey, about dawn. Three sheep lay soaked in blood when the labourer went to tend the flocks.
Then the farmers took alarm. Lord, of the White House farm, intended to put his sheep in pen, with his dogs in charge. It was Saturday, however, and the lads ran off to the little travelling theatre that had halted at Westwold. While they sat open-mouthed in the theatre, gloriously nicknamed the "Blood-Tub," watching heroes die with much writhing and heaving, and struggling