liding about
the woods at dead of night, thinking that someone was watching him
behind every tree, and might spring out upon him at any moment.
Especially when he curled himself up in bed, and pulled the blankets
snugly round him, did he feel convinced that he was far more comfortable
where he was than he would have been in Lord Woodruff's preserves.

Saurin had no compunctions of this sort; _he_ did not flinch when the
time came; on the contrary, when he found himself out in the fields he
felt a keen thrill of enjoyment. There was just enough sense of danger
for excitement, not enough for unpleasant nervousness. To be engaged in
what was forbidden was always a source of delight to him, and here he
was braving the rules of his school and breaking the laws of his country
all at once: it was like champagne to him. Yet it was the very height
of absurdity to risk expulsion, imprisonment, perhaps penal servitude
for _nothing_, literally for _nothing_.

He had no earthly use for the game when it was stolen, Marriner would
have it and sell it, but the question of Saurin's sharing in the profits
had not even been mooted. To do him justice he had not thought of such
a thing, the sport was all that tempted him. The field of their
operations was not to be near Marriner's house, but in a part of the
estates a good bit nearer Weston, and on the other side of it. Marriner
had learned that there was to be a poaching expedition on a large scale
that night at the other extremity of the preserves, a good three miles
off. He knew the men and their method. They used ordinary guns, killed
off all they could in a short time, and got away before the keepers
could assemble in force, or if they were surprised they showed fight.
He never joined in such bold attacks, but when he knew of them took
advantage, as he proposed to do on the present occasion, of the keepers
being drawn away, to do a little quiet business on his own account in
another direction. The place appointed for Saurin to meet Marriner was
a wood-stack reached by a path across the fields, two miles from Weston.
Closing the yard door behind him, but not locking it, he started off at
a sharp walk, keeping in the shade whenever he could, though all was so
still and noiseless that he seemed almost to be the only being in the
world, when he had once got quite out of the sight of houses. But no, a
night-hawk swept by him, so close as to make him start, and a stoat met
him in