The Pothunters - P. G. Wodehouse (free ebook novel .txt) 📗

“Nice cheery remark to make!” thought Barrett. “He’ll have to do a good bit of digging before he fetches me out. I’m a fixture for the present.”

There was a sound of scratching as if the dog, in his eagerness to oblige, were trying to uproot the tree. Barrett, realising that unless the keeper took it into his head to climb, which was unlikely, he was as safe as if he had been in his study at Philpott’s, chuckled within himself, and listened intently.

“What is it, then?” said the keeper. “Good dog, at ’em! Fetch him out, Jack.”

Jack barked excitedly, and redoubled his efforts.

The sound of scratching proceeded.

“R-r-r-ats-s-s!” said the mendacious keeper. Jack had evidently paused for breath. Barrett began quite to sympathise with him. The thought that the animal was getting farther away from the object of his search with every ounce of earth he removed, tickled him hugely. He would have liked to have been able to see the operations, though. At present it was like listening to a conversation through a telephone. He could only guess at what was going on.

Then he heard somebody whistling “The Lincolnshire Poacher,” a strangely inappropriate air in the mouth of a keeper. The sound was too far away to be the work of Jack’s owner, unless he had gone for a stroll since his last remark. No, it was another keeper. A new voice came up to him.

“ ’Ullo, Ned, what’s the dog after?”

“Thinks ’e’s smelt a rabbit, seems to me.”

“Ain’t a rabbit hole ’ere.”

“Thinks there is, anyhow. Look at the pore beast!”

They both laughed. Jack meanwhile, unaware that he was turning himself into an exhibition to make a keeper’s holiday, dug assiduously. “Come away, Jack,” said the first keeper at length. “Ain’t nothin’ there. Ought to know that, clever dog like you.”

There was a sound as if he had pulled Jack bodily from his hole.

“Wait! ’Ere, Ned, what’s that on the ground there?” Barrett gasped. His pillboxes had been discovered. Surely they would put two and two together now, and climb the tree after him.

“Eggs. Two of ’em. ’Ow did they get ’ere, then?”

“It’s one of them young devils from the School. Master says to me this morning, ‘Look out,’ ’e says, ‘Saunders, for them boys as come in ’ere after eggs, and frighten all the birds out of the dratted place. You keep your eyes open, Saunders,’ ’e says.”

“Well, if ’e’s still in the woods, we’ll ’ave ’im safe.”

“If he’s still in the woods!” thought Barrett with a shiver.

After this there was silence. Barrett waited for what he thought was a quarter of an hour⁠—it was really five minutes or less⁠—then he peeped cautiously over the edge of his hiding place. Yes, they had certainly gone, unless⁠—horrible thought⁠—they were waiting so close to the trunk of the tree as to be invisible from where he stood. He decided that the possibility must be risked. He was down on the ground in record time. Nothing happened. No hand shot out from its ambush to clutch him. He breathed more freely, and began to debate within himself which way to go. Up the hill it must be, of course, but should he go straight up, or to the left or to the right? He would have given much to know which way the keepers had gone, particularly he of the dog. They had separated, he knew. He began to reason the thing out. In the first place if they had separated, they must have gone different ways. It did not take him long to arrive at that conclusion. The odds, therefore, were that one had gone to the right upstream, the other downstream to the left. His knowledge of human nature told him that nobody would willingly walk uphill if it was possible for him to walk on the flat. Therefore, assuming the two keepers to be human, they had gone along the valley. Therefore, his best plan would be to make straight for the top of the hill, as straight as he could steer, and risk it. Just as he was about to start, his eye caught the two pillboxes, lying on the turf a few yards from where he had placed them.

“May as well take what I can get,” he thought. He placed them carefully in his pocket. As he did so a faint bark came to him on the breeze from downstream. That must be friend Jack. He waited no longer, but dived into the bushes in the direction of the summit. He was congratulating himself on being out of danger⁠—already he was more than halfway up the hill⁠—when suddenly he received a terrible shock. From the bushes to his left, not ten yards from where he stood, came the clear, sharp sound of a whistle. The sound was repeated, and this time an answer came from far out to his right. Before he could move another whistle joined in, again from the left, but farther off and higher up the hill than the first he had heard. He recalled what Grey had said about “millions” of keepers. The expression, he thought, had understated the true facts, if anything. He remembered the case of Babington. It was a moment for action. No guile could save him now. It must be a stern chase for the rest of the distance. He drew a breath, and was off like an arrow. The noise he made was appalling. No one in the wood could help hearing it.

“Stop, there!” shouted someone. The voice came from behind, a fact which he noted almost automatically and rejoiced at. He had a start at any rate.

“Stop!” shouted the voice once again. The whistle blew like a steam siren, and once more the other two answered it. They were all behind him now. Surely a man of the public schools in flannels and gymnasium shoes, and trained to the last ounce for just such a sprint as this, could beat a handful of keepers