"No, I don't," cried Tom sharply, "for I saw you throw a burning wax-match amongst them, only I was so stupid I never thought of going to tread upon it."

"Yes, you always were precious chuckle-headed," cried Sam, with a laugh.

"But I don't believe it was my match. If it had gone on burning, and there had been a row, I should have laid the blame on him."

Tom gave him a quick look and said nothing, but thought a good deal.

Sam noticed the look, and naturally divined his cousin's thoughts.

"Oh," he said, "if you want to get on in the world, it's of no use to give yourself away. I say, who is that joskin?"

"Pete Warboys, half gipsy sort of fellow. I've seen him poaching. Look here, this is a wire to catch hares or rabbits with."

Tom took out the wire noose, and held it out to his cousin.

"How do you know? that wouldn't catch a hare."

"It would. The gardener showed me once with a bit of string. Look here; they drive a peg into the ground if there isn't a furze stump handy, tie the string to it, and open the wire, so as to make a ring, and set it in a hare's run."

"What do you mean--its hole in the ground?"

"Hares don't make holes in ground, but run through the same openings in hedges or amongst the furze and heath. You can see where they have beaten the gra.s.s and stuff down. Then the poachers put the wire ring upright, the hares run through, and drag the noose tight, and the more they struggle, the faster they are."

"Oh, that's it, is it? I never lived in the country. Here, catch hold.

No, Stop; let's set it, and try and catch one."

Tom stared.

"I say," he cried; "why I read all about that in _The Justice of the Peace_,--don't you know that it's punishable?"

"Of course for the joskins, but they wouldn't say anything to a gentleman who did it for experiment."

Tom laughed.

"I shouldn't like a keeper to catch me doing it."

"I said a gentleman," said Sam coolly. "So that's a young poacher, is it?"

"Yes, and I thought it was a pity for you to give him money."

"Oh, I always like to behave well to the lower orders and servants when I'm out on a visit," said Sam. "Here, let's get back."

"Back! why, I thought we were going for a long walk," cried Tom.

"Well, we've had one. Suppose we went further, you cannot get a cab home, I suppose?"

"No," said Tom quietly, and with a faint smile. "You couldn't get any cabs here."

Sam turned back, and Tom followed his example, thinking the while about their adventure, and of what a terrible fire there might have been.

"What are you going to do with that wire?"

"Show it to uncle," said Tom quietly, "and then burn it."

"Bah! bra.s.s wire won't burn."

"Oh yes, it will," said Tom confidently. "Burn all away."

"How do you know?"

"Chemistry," said Tom. "I've read so. You can burn iron and steel all away."

"No wonder you couldn't get on with the law," said Sam, with a sneer.

"Here, come on; I'm tired."

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

"How long's he going to stop, Master Tom?" said David the next morning about breakfast-time, for he had come, according to custom, to see if cook wanted anything else on account of the company.

He had stumbled upon Tom, who was strolling about the grounds, waiting for his cousin to come down to the meal waiting ready, his uncle sitting reading by the window.

"He's going back to-morrow, David."

"And a jolly good job too, sir, I says," cried David, "whether you like it or whether you don't."

Tom looked at him wonderingly.

"Yes, sir, you may stare, but I speaks out. I like you, Master Tom, and allus have, since I see you was a young gent as had a respect for our fruit. Of course I grows it for you to heat, but it ain't Christian-like for people to come in my garden and ravage the things away, destroying and spoiling what ain't ripe. I know, and your uncle knows, when things ought to be eaten, and then it's a pleasure to see an apricot picked gentle like, so as it falls in your hand ready to be laid in a basket o' leaves proper to go into the house. You can take 'em then; it makes you smile and feel a kind o' pleasure in 'em, because they're ripe. But I'd sooner grow none than see 'em tore off when they're good for nowt. I didn't see 'em go, Master Tom, but four o' my chyce Maria Louisas has been picked, and I wouldn't insult you, sir, by even thinking it was you. It wasn't Pete Warboys, because he ain't left his trail. Who was it, then, if it wasn't your fine noo cousin?"

Tom said nothing, but thought of the hard green pears Sam had thrown at Pete Warboys.

"Just you look here, Master Tom," continued the gardener, leading the way to the wall. "There's where one was tore off, and a big bit o'

shoot as took two year to grow, fine fruit-bearing wood, but he off with it. Yes, there it is," he cried, pouncing upon a newly-broken-off twig, "just as I expected. There's where the pear was broke off arterward, leaving all the stalk on. Why, when that pear had been fit to pick, sir, it would have come off at that little jynt as soon as you put your hand under it and lifted it up. Why, I've know'd them pears, sir, as good as say thankye as soon as they felt your hand under 'em, for they'd growed too ripe and heavy to hang any longer. Dear, dear, dear, who'd be a gardener?"

"You would, David," said Tom, smiling. "Never mind; it's very tiresome, and he ought to have known better, if it was my cousin."

"Knowed better, sir? Why, you'd ha' thought a fine chap like he, dressed up to the nines with his shiny boots and hat, and smoking his 'bacco wrapped up in paper, instead of a dirty pipe, would ha' been eddicated up to everything. There, sir, it's Sunday mornin', and I'm goin' to church by-and-by, so I won't let my angry pa.s.sions rise; but if that young gent's coming here much, I shall tell master as it's all over with the garden, for I sha'n't take no pride in it no more."

"And that isn't the worst of it," thought Tom; "throwing those pears at Pete was telling him that we had plenty here on the walls, and tempting him to come."

That day pa.s.sed in a wearisome way to Tom. At church Sam swaggered in, and took his place after a haughty glance round, as if he were favouring the congregation by his condescension in coming. Then on leaving, when Mr Maxted bustled up to ask after Uncle Richard, fearing that he was absent from illness, till he heard that it was on account of his invalid brother, Sam began to show plenty of a.s.sumption and contempt for the little rustic church.

"Why don't you have an organ?" he said.

"For two reasons, my dear young friend," said Mr Maxted. "One is that we could not afford to buy one; the other that we have no one here who could play it if we had. We get on very well without."

"But it sounds so comic for the clerk to go _toot_ on that whistling thing, and then for people with such bad voices to do the singing, instead of a regular choir, the same as we have in town."