ing
to go his rounds quickly, and then take the dogs out into the stubble,
and try and thrash them into some use. Presently, as he walked along, he
came to the glade in the woods, and saw the dead hawk hanging from the
trap up in the old oak-tree. Pleased to find that his trap, so cunningly
placed, had not been prepared in vain, he went up to the oak, leaned his
gun against the trunk, ordered the dogs to lie down (which they did with
some reluctance), and then climbed up into the tree to re-set the gin.

He took the hawk from the trap (his feathers were all draggled and wet
from the rain), and threw the dead bird down; and, whether it was that
the act of throwing it caused an extra strain upon the bough, or whether
the storm had cracked it in the night, or whether it had rotted away
more than appeared on the surface, or whether it was all of these things
together, certain it is the bough broke, and down came the keeper thud
on the sward. The bough fell down with him, and as it fell it struck
the gun, and the gun exploded, and although the dogs scampered aside
when they heard the crack, they did not scamper so quick but one of them
was shot dead, and the other two were mortally wounded.

For a while the keeper lay there stunned, with the wet grass against his
face. But by-and-by, coming to himself, he sat up with difficulty, and
called for assistance, for he could not move, having sprained one ankle,
and broken the small bone of the other leg. There he sat and shouted,
but no one came for some time, till presently a slouching labourer (it
was the very same who put up the wire by the copse in which the hare was
caught) chanced to pass by outside the wood. The keeper saw him, but
hoarse with shouting, and feeling faint too (for a sprained ankle is
extremely painful), he could not make him hear. But he bethought him of
his gun, and dragging it to him, hastily put in a cartridge and fired.

The report drew the labourer's attention, and peering into the wood, he
saw some one on the ground waving a white handkerchief. After looking a
long time, he made up his mind to go and see what it was; but then he
recollected that if he put his foot inside the wood he should be
trespassing, and as he had got a wire in his pocket that would be a
serious matter. So he altered his mind, and went on.

Very likely the keeper was angry, but there was no one to hear what he
said except the dead hawk. He would have fired off fifty cartridges if