For, just as I was twisting the bine of my very last faggot, before tucking the cleft tongue under, there came three men outside the hedge, where the western light was yellow; and by it I could see that all three of them carried firearms.  These men were not walking carelessly, but following down the hedge-trough, as if to stalk some enemy:  and for a moment it struck me cold to think it was I they were looking for.  With the swiftness of terror I concluded that my visits to Glen Doone were known, and now my life was the forfeit.

It was a most lucky thing for me, that I heard their clothes catch in the brambles, and saw their hats under the rampart of ash, which is made by what we call “splashing,” and lucky, for me that I stood in a goyal, and had the dark coppice behind me.  To this I had no time to fly, but with a sort of instinct, threw myself flat in among the thick fern, and held my breath, and lay still as a log.  For I had seen the light gleam on their gun-barrels, and knowing the faults of the neighbourhood, would fain avoid swelling their number.  Then the three men came to the gap in the hedge, where I had been in and out so often; and stood up, and looked in over.

It is all very well for a man to boast that, in all his life, he has never been frightened, and believes that he never could be so.  There may be men of that nature—­I will not dare to deny it; only I have never known them.  The fright I was now in was horrible, and all my bones seemed to creep inside me; when lying there helpless, with only a billet and the comb of fern to hide me, in the dusk of early evening, I saw three faces in the gap; and what was worse, three gun-muzzles.

“Somebody been at work here—­” it was the deep voice of Carver Doone; “jump up, Charlie, and look about; we must have no witnesses.”

“Give me a hand behind,” said Charlie, the same handsome young Doone I had seen that night; “this bank is too devilish steep for me.”

“Nonsense, man!” cried Marwood de Whichehalse, who to my amazement was the third of the number; “only a hind cutting faggots; and of course he hath gone home long ago.  Blind man’s holiday, as we call it.  I can see all over the place; and there is not even a rabbit there.”

At that I drew my breath again, and thanked God I had gotten my coat on.

“Squire is right,” said Charlie, who was standing up high (on a root perhaps), “there is nobody there now, captain; and lucky for the poor devil that he keepeth workman’s hours.  Even his chopper is gone, I see.”

“No dog, no man, is the rule about here, when it comes to coppice work,” continued young de Whichehalse; “there is not a man would dare work there, without a dog to scare the pixies.”

“There is a big young fellow upon this farm,” Carver Doone muttered sulkily, “with whom I have an account to settle, if ever I come across him.  He hath a cursed spite to us, because we shot his father.  He was going to bring the lumpers upon us, only he was afeared, last winter.  And he hath been in London lately, for some traitorous job, I doubt.”