I shot a hen, I know, greatly to my delight. 'Bag it,' says Ponto, in
rather a hurried manner: 'here's somebody coming.' So I pocketed the
bird.
'You infernal poaching thieves!' roars out a man from the hedge in the
garb of a gamekeeper. 'I wish I could catch you on this side of the
hedge. I'd put a brace of barrels into you, that I would.'
'Curse that Snapper,' says Ponto, moving off; 'he's always watching me
like a spy.'
'Carry off the birds, you sneaks, and sell 'em in London,' roars the
individual, who it appears was a keeper of Lord Carabas. 'You'll get six
shillings a brace for 'em.'
'YOU know the price of 'em well enough, and so does your master too, you
scoundrel,' says Ponto, still retreating.
'We kill 'em on our ground,' cries Mr. Snapper. 'WE don't set traps for
other people's birds. We're no decoy ducks. We're no sneaking poachers.
We don't shoot 'ens, like that 'ere Cockney, who's got the tail of one
a-sticking out of his pocket. Only just come across the hedge, that's
all.'
'I tell you what,' says Stripes, who was out with us as keeper this
day, (in fact he's keeper, coachman, gardener, valet, and bailiff, with
Tummus under him,) 'if YOU'LL come across, John Snapper, and take your
coat off, I'll give you such a whopping as you've never had since the
last time I did it at Guttlebury Fair.'
'Whop one of your own weight,' Mr.
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