the neck, held it by main force, and
killed it; then put the ferret into his pocket. "Lord!" he said, wiping
his brow, "they do come suddent."

What he had pulled out was a dead cat; a wretched puss, who on some
happy hunt had got itself wedged in the hole, and so perished there
miserably. He and Patton stooped over it wondering; then Hurd walked
some paces along the bank, looking warily out to the right of him across
the open country all the time. He threw the poor malodorous thing far
into the wood and returned.

The two men lit their pipes under the shelter of the bushes, and rested
a bit, well hidden, but able to see out through a break in the bit of
thicket.

"Six on 'em," said Hurd, looking at the stark creatures beside him. "I
be too done to try another bury. I'll set a snare or two, an' be off
home."

Patton puffed silently. He was wondering whether Hurd would give him one
rabbit or two. Hurd had both "plant" and skill, and Patton would have
been glad enough to come for one. Still he was a plaintive man with a
perpetual grievance, and had already made up his mind that Hurd would
treat him shabbily to-night, in spite of many past demonstrations that
his companion was on the whole of a liberal disposition.

"You bin out workin' a day's work already, han't yer?" he said
presently. He himself was out of work, like half the village, and had
been presented by his wife with boiled swede for supper. But he knew
that Hurd had been taken on at the works at the Court, where the new
drive was being made, and a piece of ornamental water enlarged and
improved--mainly for the sake of giving employment in bad times. He,
Patton, and some of his mates, had tried to get a job there. But the
steward had turned them back. The men off the estate had first claim,
and there was not room for all of them. Yet Hurd had been taken on,
which had set people talking.

Hurd nodded, and said nothing. He was not disposed to be communicative
on the subject of his employment at the Court.

"An' it be true as _she_ be goin' to marry Muster Raeburn?"

Patton jerked his head towards the right, where above a sloping hedge
the chimneys of Mellor and the tops of the Mellor cedars, some two or
three fields away, showed distinct against the deep night blue.

Hurd nodded again, and smoked diligently. Patton, nettled by this
parsimony of speech, made the inward comment that his companion was "a
deep un." The village was perfectly aware of the par