George Fenn - The Star-Gazers

Ben Hayle, keeper, stepped out of his rose-covered cottage in Thoreby Wood; big, black-whiskered, dark-eyed and handsome, with the sun-tanned look of a sturdy Englishman, his brown velveteen coat and vest and tawny leggings setting off his stalwart form.

As he cleared the porch, he half-turned and set down his carefully kept double-barrelled gun against the rough trellis-work; as, at the sound of his foot, there arose from a long, moss-covered, barn-like building, a tremendous barking and yelping.

“Now then: that’ll do!” he shouted, as he walked towards the great double door, which was dotted with the mortal remains of what he termed “varmin” – to wit, the nailed-up bodies of stoats, weasels, hawks, owls, magpies and jays, all set down as being the deadly enemies of the game he reared and preserved for Mrs Rolph at The Warren. But even these were not the most deadly enemies of the pheasants and partridges, Thoreby Wood being haunted by sundry ne’er-do-weels who levied toll there, in spite of all Ben Hayle’s efforts and the stern repression of the County Bench.

“May as well stick you up too,” said Ben, as he took a glossy-skinned polecat from where he had thrown it that morning, after taking it from a trap.

He opened one of the doors, and two Gordon setters and a big black retriever bounded out, to leap up, dance around him, and make efforts, in dog-like fashion, to show their delight and anxiety to be at liberty once more.

“Down, Bess! Down, Juno! Steady, Sandy! Quiet! Good dogs, then,” he cried, as he entered the barn, took a hammer from where it hung, and a nail from a rough shelf, and with the dogs looking on after sniffing at the polecat, as if they took human interest in the proceeding, he nailed the unfortunate, ill-odoured little beast side by side with the last gibbeted offender, a fine old chinchilla-coated grey rat.

“’Most a pity one can’t serve Master Caleb Kent the same. Dunno, though,” he added with a chuckle. “Time was – that was years ago, though, and nobody can’t say I’ve done badly since. But I did hope we’d seen the last of Master Caleb.”

Ben Hayle took off his black felt hat, and gave his dark, grizzled hair a scratch, and his face puckered up as he put away the hammer, to stand thinking.

“No, hang him, he wouldn’t dare!”

Ben walked back to the porch to take up his gun, and a look of pride came to brighten his face, as just then a figure appeared in the porch in the shape of Judith Hayle, a tall, dark-eyed girl of twenty, strikingly like her father, and, as she stood framed in the entrance, she well warranted the keeper’s look of pride.

“Are you going far?”

“’Bout the usual round, my dear. Why, Judy, the place don’t seem to be the same with you back home. But it is dull for you, eh?”

“Dull, father? No,” said the girl laughing.

“Oh, I dunno. After your fine ways up at The Warren with Miss Marjorie and the missus, it must seem a big drop down to be here again.”

“Don’t, father. You know I was never so happy anywhere as here.”

“But you are grown such a lady now; I’m ’most afraid of you.”

“No you are not. I sometimes wish that Mrs Rolph had never had me at the house.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes you talk to me like that.”

“Well, then, I won’t say another word. There, I must be off, but – ”

He hesitated as if in doubt.

“Yes, father.”

“Well, I was only going to say, I see young Caleb has come back to the village, and knowing how he once – ”

“Come back, father!” cried Judith, with a look of alarm.

“Yes, I thought I’d tell you; but I don’t think he’ll come nigh here again.”

“Oh, no, father, I hope not,” said the girl, looking thoughtfully towards the wood, with her brows knitting.

“He’d better not,” said the keeper, picking up and tapping the butt of his gun. “Might get peppered with number six. Good-bye, my dear.”

He kissed her, walked to the edge of the dense fir wood, gave a look back at the figure by the porch, and then plunged in among the bushes and disappeared, closely followed by the eager dogs, while Judith stood frowning at the place where he had disappeared.

“I wish father wouldn’t be so close,” thought the girl. “He must know why I’m sent back home. It wasn’t my fault; I never tried; but he was always after me. Oh, how spiteful Miss Madge did look.”

She went into the cottage to stand by the well-polished grate, her hand resting upon the mantelpiece, whose ornaments were various fittings and articles belonging to the gamekeeper’s craft, above which, resting in well-made iron racks, were a couple of carefully cared-for guns; one an old flint-lock fowling-piece, the other a strong single-barrel, used for heavier work, and in which the keeper took special pride.

“Caleb,” she said with a shudder, “come back! Well, I was so young then.”

As Ben Hayle went thoughtfully along the path, trying to fit into their places certain matters which troubled him, the man of whom they had both been thinking was near at hand, so that, as the gamekeeper was saying to himself, – “Yes: it’s because young squire come home to stay that the missus has sent her back,” – Caleb Kent stood before him in the path, the dogs giving the first notice of his presence by dashing forward, uttering low growls, and slipping round the slight, dark, good-looking, gipsy-like fellow coming in the opposite direction.

“Hallo, you, sir!” said the keeper sharply.

“And hallo, you, sir!” retorted the young man, showing his white teeth as he thrust his hands far down in his cord breeches pockets, and, as he stopped, passing one cord legging over the other.

“What are you doing here?”

“Looking at you, Ben Hayle. Path’s free for me as it is for you. No, I aren’t got a gun in two pieces in my pockets. You needn’t look. You know how that’s done.”

“If I’d been you, I’d ha’ stopped away altogether,” said the keeper, “and not come back here, where nobody wants you.”

“Pity you weren’t me. Six months’ hard would have done you good once more.”

“When I get six months’ imprisonment, it won’t be for night poaching, but for putting a charge of shot in you, you lunging hound. And don’t you let that tongue of yours wag so fast, young man. I’m not ashamed of it. Everyone knows I did a bit of poaching when I was a young fool, and did my bit in quod for that trouble with the keepers. But they know too that, when I came out, and the captain’s father come to me and said, ‘Drop it, my lad, and be an honest man,’ I said I would, and served him faithful; so shut your mouth before I do it with the stock of my gun.”

“All right, mate, don’t be waxey. Look here: – s’pose I turn honest too.”

“You!” said the keeper, scornfully.

“Yes, me; and marry Judy.”

“That’ll do,” cried the keeper sharply.

“No it won’t, we’re old sweethearts – Judy and me.”

“That’ll do, I say. Now, cut.”

“When I like,” said the man, with a sneer. “Better let me marry her; the captain won’t.”

The keeper caught him by the throat.

“Will you keep that cursed tongue still!”

“No, I won’t,” cried the young man fiercely, and with a savage look in his eyes. “I know, even if I have been away. I know all about it. But I’m in that little flutter, Ben Hayle.”

“Curse you! hold your tongue, will you,” roared the keeper; and the dogs began to bark fiercely as he forced the young poacher back against a tree, but only to release him, as a quick sharp voice, called to the dogs, which dashed up to the new-comer, leaping to be caressed.