Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/66

Martin drew a bit of strong thread, then, looking about, he wagged his head and pushed through the undergrowth. "Hare or pheasant, I care not which. Here we shall spread our net — here — and here.” Whereupon he pulled down a twig and knotted the thread and formed a noose with his fingers. "Here puss shall run,” he continued, "and here, God willing, we shall eat.”

Having thus set his snare, he left it, and sulkily, for the sun was getting up in the sky and they had come far without breaking their fast. So Phil followed him and they lay on a bank, with an open vale before them where yellow daffodils were in full bloom, and nursed their hunger.

After a while Martin slipped away deftly but returned with a face darker than he took, and though he went three times to the snare and scarcely stirred a leaf, — which spoke more of experience in such lawless sports than some books might have told, — each time his face, when he returned, was longer than before.

"A man must eat," he said at last, "and here in his own bailiwick and warren will I eat to spite him. Yea, and leave guts and fur to puzzle him. But there’s another way, quicker and surer, though not so safe.”

So they went together over a hill and down a glade to a meadow.

“Do thou,” he whispered, ‘‘lie here in wait.”

With a club in his hand and a few stones in his pocket he circled through the thicket, and having in his manner of knowing his business and of commanding the hunt, resumed his old bravado, he now made a great show of courage and resourcefulness; but Phil, having flung himself down at full length by the meadow, smiled to hear him puffing through the wood.