“Westall wor braggin’ last night at Bradsell’s”—­(Bradsell was the landlord of “The Green Man” at Mellor)—­“ee said as how they’d taken you on at the Court—­but that didn’t prevent ’em knowin’ as you was a bad lot.  Ee said ee ’ad ’is eye on yer—­ee ’ad warned yer twoice last year—­”

“That’s a lie!” said Hurd, removing his pipe an instant and putting it back again.

Patton looked more cheerful.

“Well, ee spoke cru’l.  Ee was certain, ee said, as you could tell a thing or two about them coverts at Tudley End, if the treuth were known.  You wor allus a loafer, an’ a loafer you’d be.  Yer might go snivellin’ to Miss Boyce, ee said, but yer wouldn’t do no honest work—­ee said—­not if yer could help it—­that’s what ee said.”

“Devil!” said Hurd between his teeth, with a quick lift of all his great misshapen chest.  He took his pipe out of his mouth, rammed it down fiercely with his thumb, and put it in his pocket.

“Look out!” exclaimed Patton with a start.

A whistle!—­clear and distinct—­from the opposite side of the hollow.  Then a man’s figure, black and motionless an instant on the whitened down, with a black speck beside it; lastly, another figure higher up along the hill, in quick motion towards the first, with other specks behind it.  The poachers instantly understood that it was Westall—­whose particular beat lay in this part of the estate—­signalling to his night watcher, Charlie Dynes, and that the two men would be on them in no time.  It was the work of a few seconds to efface as far as possible the traces of their raid, to drag some thick and trailing brambles which hung near over the mouth of the hole where there had been digging, to catch up the ferrets and game, and to bid Hurd’s lurcher to come to heel.  The two men crawled up the ditch with their burdens as far away to leeward as they could get from the track by which the keepers would cross the field.  The ditch was deeply overgrown, and when the approaching voices warned them to lie close, they crouched under a dense thicket of brambles and overhanging bushes, afraid of nothing but the noses of the keepers’ dogs.

Dogs and men, however, passed unsuspecting.

“Hold still!” said Hurd, checking Patton’s first attempt to move.  “He’ll be back again mos’ like.  It’s ’is dodge.”

And sure enough in twenty minutes or so the men reappeared.  They retraced their steps from the further corner of the field, where some preserves of Lord Maxwell’s approached very closely to the big Mellor wood, and came back again along the diagonal path within fifty yards or so of the men in the ditch.

In the stillness the poachers could hear Westall’s harsh and peremptory voice giving some orders to his underling, or calling to the dogs, who had scattered a little in the stubble.  Hurd’s own dog quivered beside him once or twice.

Then steps and voices faded into the distance and all was safe.