They were maladorous children; and the young clergyman, grasping woollen jersey-neck and shirt-band, the backs of his hands in contact with the backs of their moist, warm, dirty little necks, suffered disgust, yet held them the more firmly.

“I am convinced you have no right to that fruit or to those vegetables.  You are stealing.  Give an account of yourselves at once.”

And he shook them slightly to emphasize his command.  One hung on his hand, limp as a rag.  The other showed fight, kicking our friend liberally about the shins, with hobnailed boots which did, most confoundly, hurt.

“You lem’ me go,” he cried.  “Lem’ me go, or I’ll tell father, and first time you come along by our place ’e’ll set the ratting dawgs on to you.  Our ole bitch ’as got ’er teeth yet.  She’ll bite.  Ketch the fleshy part of your leg, she will, and just tear and bite.”

This carrying of war into the enemy’s country proved as disconcerting as unexpected, while to mention the sex of an animal was, in Reginald Sawyer’s opinion, to be guilty of unpardonable coarseness.  The atmosphere of a Protestant middle-class home clung to him yet, begetting in him a squeamishness, not to say prudery, almost worthy of his hostesses, the Miss Minetts.  He shook the culprits again, with a will.  He also blushed.

“If you were honest you would be anxious to give an account of yourselves,” he asserted, ignoring the unpleasant matter of the dogs.  “I am afraid you are very wicked boys.  You have stolen these vegetables and fruits.  Thieves are tried by the magistrates, you know, and sent to prison.  I shall take you to the police-station.  There the constable will find means to make you confess.”

Beyond provoking a fresh paroxysm of kicking, these adjurations were without result.  His captives appeared equally impervious to shame, contrition or alarm.  They remained obstinately mute.  Whereupon it began to dawn upon their captor that his position risked becoming not a little invidious, since the practical difficulty of carrying his threats into execution was so great.  How could he haul two sturdy, active children, plus a sack still containing a goodly quantity of garden produce, some quarter of a mile without help?  To let them go, on the other hand, was to have them incontinently vanish into those trailing whitish vapours creeping over the face of the landscape.  And, once vanished, they were lost to him, since he knew neither their names nor dwelling place; and could, with no certainty, identify them, having seen them only in the act of struggle and in this uncertain evening light.  He felt himself very nastily planted on the horns of a dilemma, when on a sudden there arrived help.

A vehicle of some description turned out of the main road and headed down the lane.

Laocooen-like, flanked on either hand by a writhing youthful figure, Reginald Sawyer called aloud: 

“Hi!—­Stop, there—­pray, stop.”