is innocence, and was never caught
in the act of taking game; but if anyone wanted to stock his preserves,
Slam could always procure him a supply of pheasants' eggs, and more than
one village offender who had been sent to expiate his depredations in
jail was known to have paid visits to Slam's yard.

Slam was a dog-fancier as well as a rat-catcher, and therefore doggy
boys were attracted to his premises, which, however, were sternly
interdicted. In the first place they were out of bounds, though this of
itself did not go for very much. There was no town very near Weston,
and so long as the boys made their appearance at the specified hours
they were not overmuch interfered with. Paper chases, or hare and
hounds as they are sometimes called, were openly arranged and
encouraged; and if boys liked to take walks in the country, they could
do so with a minimum of risk. If they were awkward enough to meet a
master face to face when out of bounds, he could hardly help turning
them back and giving them a slight imposition; but if they saw him
coming, and got out of his way, he would not look in their direction.

But to enter an inn, or to visit Slam's, was a serious offence,
entailing severe punishment, and even expulsion, if repeated.

Yet one beautiful warm summer's evening, when the birds were singing and
the grasshoppers chirruping, and all nature invited mankind to play
cricket or lawn-tennis, if there were no river handy for boating, four
youths might have been seen (but were not, luckily for them) approaching
the forbidden establishment. A lane with high banks, now covered with
ferns and wild flowers, and furrowed with ruts which were more like
crevasses, ran up to the house; but they left this and went round the
orchard to the back of the yard, in the wall of which there was a little
door with a bell-handle beside it. On this being pulled there was a
faint tinkle, followed by a canine uproar of the most miscellaneous
description, the deep-mouthed bay of the blood-hound, the sharp yap-yap
of the toy terrier, and a chorus of intermediate undistinguishable
barkings, some fierce, some frolicsome, some expectant, being mixed up
with the rattling of chains. Then an angry voice was heard amidst the
hubbub commanding silence, and a sudden whine or two seemed to imply
that he had shown some practical intention of being obeyed. A bolt was
drawn, the door opened, and a short wiry man, dressed in fustian and
velveteen, wit