“Where?  There’s never no cur here!”

“You lie, you oaf—­no—­why—­Doctor—­How many hounds are there here?”

“I can’t see,” says Tom, “among those bushes.”

“Can’t see, eh?  Why don’t those brutes hit it off?” says Trebooze, drawling, as if he had forgotten the matter, and lounging over the fence, drops into the stream, followed by Tom, and wades across.

The hounds are all round him, and he is couraging them on, fussing again more than ever; but without success.

“Gone to hole somewhere here,” says Peter.

“....!” cries Trebooze, looking round, with a sudden shudder, and face of terror.  “There’s that black brute again! there, behind me!  Hang it, he’ll bite me next!” and he caught up his leg, and struck behind him with his spear.

There was no dog there.

Peter was about to speak; but Tom silenced him by a look, and shouted,—­

“Here we are!  Gone to holt in this alder root!”

“Now then, little Carlingford!  Out of the way, puppies!” cries Trebooze, righted again for the moment by the excitement, and thrusting the hounds right and left, he stoops down to put in the little terrier.

Suddenly he springs up, with something like a scream, and then bursts out on Peter with a volley of oaths.

“Didn’t I tell you to drive that cur away?”

“Which cur, sir?” cries Peter, trembling, and utterly confounded.

“That cur!...  Can’t I believe my own eyes?  Will you tell me that the beggar didn’t bolt between my legs this moment, and went into the hole before the terrier?”

Neither answered.  Peter with utter astonishment; Tom because he saw what was the matter.

“Don’t stoop, Squire.  You’ll make the blood fly to your head.  Let me—­”

But Trebooze thrust him back with curses.

“I’ll have the brute out, and send the spear through him!” and flinging himself on his knees again, Trebooze began tearing madly at the roots and stones, shouting to the half-buried terrier to tear the intruder.

Peter looked at Tom, and then wrung his hands in despair.

“Dirty work—­beastly work!” muttered Trebooze.  “Nothing but slugs and evats!—­Toads, too,—­hang the toads!  What a plague brings all this vermin?  Curse it!” shrieked he, springing back, “there’s an adder! and he’s gone up my sleeve!  Help me!  Doctor!  Thurnall! or I’m a dead man!”

Tom caught the arm, thrust his hand up the sleeve, and seemed to snatch out the snake, and hurl it back into the river.

“All right now!—­a near chance, though!”

Peter stood open mouthed.

“I never saw no snake!” cried he.

Tom caught him a buffet which sent him reeling.  “Look after your hounds, you blind ass!  How are you now, Trebooze?” And he caught the squire round the waist, for he was reeling.

“The world!  The world upside down! rocking and swinging!  Who’s put me feet upwards, like a fly on a ceiling?  I’m falling, falling off, into the clouds—­into hell-fire—­hold me!—­Toads and adders! and wasps—­to go to holt in a wasp’s nest!  Drive ’em away,—­get me a green bough!  I shall be stung to death!”