saurin met with a disappointment when he returned home. his uncle had intended to go abroad and take him with him, but this intention was frustrated by an attack of gout, which kept him to his country home, where his nephew had to spend the entire vacation, and he found it the reverse of lively. sir richard saurin’s house stood in the midst of a well-timbered park, and there were some spinneys belonging to the place also. at one time he had rented the shooting all round about, and preserved his own woods; but it was a hunting country, and the havoc made by foxes was found to be so great that he gave up preserving in disgust, and so, growing lazy, made that an excuse for dropping the other field shooting, which passed into different hands. so now there was no partridge-shooting, unless a stray covey chose to light in the park, and there were very few pheasants, though the rabbits were pretty numerous.
sir richard, being free from any paroxysm of his complaint when his nephew arrived, laughed at his black eye.
“is that the result of your course of lessons in boxing?” he asked.
“well, uncle richard, i should have come worse off if i had not had them,” replied saurin; “but one cannot fight without taking as well as giving.”
“but why fight at all? that is not what you are sent to school for.”
“i never did before, and it is not likely to happen again, only i was forced on this occasion to stand up for myself.”
“well, well,” said sir richard, “i have something more serious to speak to you about.”
saurin felt his heart beat; he feared for a moment that his visits to slam’s, and the impositions he had practised, had been discovered; but this was not the case.
“it is not a very good report i have received of you this time,” continued his guardian. “it seems that you have grown slack in attention to your studies, and have not made the progress which might fairly be expected from a boy of your age and abilities. now, it is only right to warn you that the income left you by your father very little more than covers the expense of your education; and since a considerable portion of it consists of a pension, which will cease on your being twenty-one, it will not be sufficient for your support, so that you must make up your mind speedily what profession you will adopt, and must exert every effort to get into it. our vicar here, a young man newly come, is a mathematician and a good german scholar, two subjects which gain good marks, i am told, in all these competitive examinations, and i have made arrangements for you to read with him every morning for a couple of hours.”
this was not a very bright look-out for the summer holidays. “since it was so very necessary for him to work, it was perhaps well that he should not have too much to distract him,” he said sarcastically; but found some truth in the words, for he was forced into taking an interest in a german novel which the clergyman, with some tact, chose for him to translate. but the life was dull; when he sought out his former companions, the village scapegraces, he found that there had been a grand clear out of them; it was as if the parish had taken a moral purgative. bill had enlisted; tom, the worst of the lot, had (it was his mother who spoke) “got into bad company and gone to lunnon;” dick and jim were in prison, and harry had reformed and been taken into a gentleman’s stables. solitude!
his principal amusement was shooting rabbits. september was close at hand, and if he had sought the society of his equals, instead of making a bad name in the neighbourhood in former years, he would probably have had more than one invitation to better sport amongst the partridges; but he had such an evil reputation that the gentlemen of the county did not covet his society for their sons. now, rabbit shooting in the winter, with dogs to hunt the bunnies through brushwood, furze, or bracken, so that snap-shots are offered as they dart across open places, is very good fun; but the only way saurin had of getting at them at this season was by lying in wait in the evening outside the woods and shooting them when they came louping cautiously out. he found excitement in this at first, but it was impossible to miss such pot-shots for one thing, and he got very few chances for another. the report of the gun frightened them all into the wood, not to venture out again for some time, probably till it was too dark to distinguish them. the only chance was, when a rabbit had been got at one place, to go off at once to another wood at some distance and lie in ambush again there. in this way two, or at most three shots might be got in the short period of dusk. fond as he was of carrying a gun, saurin found this sport unsatisfactory after a week or so, though it was infinitely better than not shooting anything at all. but one day when he rode over to the county town, seven miles off, for cartridges, he saw a small air-gun of a new and improved pattern in the shop, which took his fancy very much indeed. it was beautifully finished, charged in the simplest way imaginable, and would carry either a bullet or a small charge of shot, killing easily, the man said, with the former at fifty yards, and with the latter at five-and-twenty. it would require some skill to hit a rabbit in the head with a bullet; and as there was no report to speak of, only a slight crack, killing or missing one would not scare the others. the price was not high, and as sir richard never objected to his having anything in reason that he wanted, and was, moreover, glad that the rabbits who committed sad havoc in the garden should be thinned down, he took it home with him and tried it that evening. just about sunset he repaired to his favourite spot, a clump of three trees growing close together, behind which he could easily conceal himself. a wood, full of thick undergrowth, well nigh impenetrable, ran in front and made an angle to the right, so that there were two sides from which the rabbits might come out. the air was perfectly still, not a leaf was stirring, and every note of a bird that was warbling his evening song, positively the very last before shutting up for the night, fell sharp and clear upon the ear, as saurin knelt behind the trees, gun in hand, eagerly watching. presently he saw something brown, rather far on his left, close to the wood. it came a little further out, and the long ears could be distinguished.
saurin was rather doubtful about the distance, but, eager to try his new weapon, he took a steady aim and pulled. no smoke, no fire, nothing but a slight smack such as a whip would make. the rabbit raised its head, listened, and hopped quietly back into the wood. a palpable miss. but there on the right was another, not thirty yards off this one. saurin slewed round, got the sight well on its head, and pulled again. this rabbit did not go back to the wood, but turned over, struggled a little, and then lay still. saurin did not run out to pick it up, but kept quiet, and presently another came out, to see what was the matter with its friend apparently, for it louped up to the body; and he nailed that. and he missed two and killed two more, and then the rabbit community began to suspect there was something wrong, and kept in the wood. but, returning home, he stalked and shot another in the park, making a bag of five altogether, which pleased him immensely.
next day he tried the shot cartridges on blackbirds and sparrows in the garden, and slaughtered not a few, to the gardener’s great delight. it was not only the efficiency of so toy-like a weapon which pleased saurin; the silence and secrecy with which it dealt death had a charm for him. and so it happened that when the time came for him to return to weston, he took the air-gun with him. it went into a very small compass, and was easily stowed in his portmanteau. he could smuggle it to slam’s and keep it there, and if he had no chance of using it, he could still show it off to edwards and his other intimates, and also to the perhaps more appreciative eyes of edwin marriner and another, perhaps two other scamps of sporting tastes whom he met at slam’s on certain afternoons, when they guzzled beer, and smoked, and played sometimes at bagatelle, sometimes at cards, or tossed for coppers. and they won his money in a small way, and laughed at his jokes, and took interest in his bragging stories, and went into ecstasies over his songs, and really liked and admired him in their fashion. so the departure of mr wobbler did not keep him away, and he went to the yard as much as ever. if he had won the fight it would probably have made a difference, and he might have tried once more to compete for influence and popularity in the school. but now he had quite given up all ideas of that kind. he spoke to crawley, and shook his hand with apparent cordiality when they first met after coming back, because he felt that it would be ridiculous to show a resentment which he had proved himself powerless to gratify; but he hated him worse than ever, if possible. if the breaking up of the boxing-class did not diminish saurin’s visits to slam’s, it had that effect on the other members of it. stubbs was faithful to his dog, and perry to his hawk, and there were other boys who had pets there, or who liked to go on a wet day to see ratting, or the drawing of the badger, an animal who lived in a tub, like diogenes, and was tugged out of it by a dog, not without vigorous resistance, when anyone chose to pay for the spectacle; the poor badger deriving no benefit from the outlay. but such visits were fitful. edwards, indeed, was faithful to his friend, but even edwards did not care for slam’s any longer. he had taken a violent passion for football, and often played, leaving saurin to go to the yard alone. on sundays, indeed, he could not play football, but neither did he like playing cards on that day. saurin laughed him out of his scruples, but not all at once. but saurin did not want companionship; he preferred that of marriner and company.
edwin marriner was a young farmer in the neighbourhood of weston college, and he farmed his own land. certainly it was as small an estate as can well be imagined, consisting of exactly two acres, pasture, arable, cottage, and pig-stye included, but undoubted freehold, without a flaw in the title. he was just twenty-one when his father died, a year before the time we are treating of, and then lord woodruff’s agent made him an offer for his inheritance, which he stuck to like a very naboth.
the price named was a good and tempting one, far more indeed than the land was worth; but when the money was spent he would have nothing for it but to become a mere labourer, or else to enlist, and he did not fancy either alternative, while he could manage to live, as his father did before him, on his patch, which spade-labour made remunerative. he worked for hire in harvest-time, and that brought something; the pig-stye yielded a profit, so did a cow, and there were a few pounds reaped annually from a row of beehives, for the deceased marriner, though not very enlightened generally, had learned, and taught his son the “depriving” system, and repudiated the idiotic old plan of stifling the stock to get the honey. all these methods of making both ends meet at the end of the year were not only innocent but praiseworthy; but the marriners had the reputation of making less honourable profits, and that was why lord woodruff was so anxious to get rid of them. the two acres lying indeed in the midst of his lordship’s estates, was of itself a reason why he should be inclined to give a fancy price for them; but when the proprietor was suspected of taking advantage of his situation to levy considerable toll on the game of his big neighbour, who preserved largely, he became a real and an aggravated nuisance.
marriner, as his father had done, openly carried a gun, for which he paid his license, and it was impossible, with reason, to blame him, for the rabbits alone would have eaten up every particle of his little stock if he took no measures against them. if he shot an occasional pheasant, or his dog caught a hare, or even two, in the course of the season on his own land, why, no one could wonder. but it was not necessary to sow buckwheat in order to attract the pheasants. and he had no right whatever to set snares in lord woodruff’s covers, which, though they could not catch him, the gamekeepers were certain he did. one thing decidedly against him in the opinion of the gentry round about, was that he frequently visited slam’s, and slam was regarded as a receiver of stolen goods, certainly so far as game was concerned, perhaps in other matters also. edwin marriner was a wiry-looking little man, with red hair and whiskers, quick bright eyes, and a look of cunning about his mouth. he had two propensities which interfered with one another: he was very fond of strong drink and very fond of money. the drink was delightful, but to spend the money necessary to procure it was a fearful pang. the best way out of the dilemma was to get someone to treat him, and this he did as often as he could. he had plenty of cunning and mother wit, and was skilled in woodcraft, but he was utterly innocent of anything which could fairly be called education. he had been taught to read, but never exercised the gift; he could do an addition sum, and write, with much labour, an ill-spelled letter, and that was all. and this was the individual selected by saurin for a companion, and, whose society he preferred to that of all his schoolfellows, edwards not excepted. on half-holidays he would go to his little farm (which was half-an-hour’s walk too far for ordinary occasions, now the days had grown short, and “all in,” was directly after five-o’clock school), and talk to him while he was at work, for marriner was industrious, though with a dishonest twist, and if he went to slam’s yard so often now it was because his gentleman friend brought some grist to his mill, besides often standing beer for him, and because he had business relations with slam; though he liked the boy’s company too, and admired his precocious preference for crooked ways, and hatred of lawful restraint. the fact was that they were drawn together by a strong propensity which was common to both, and which formed a never-failing topic of interesting conversation. this propensity was a love of sport, especially if indulged secretly, unlawfully, and at the expense of somebody else; in a word, they were arrant poachers, the man in fact, the boy at heart. not but what saurin had snared a hare too in his time.
for some time marriner had been chary of confessing his depredations, for he was careful about committing himself, especially to a gentleman, who might naturally be supposed to side with the game-preservers. but when the ice was broken he talked freely enough, and from that time the intimacy commenced. yet at times he had qualms, and feared that he had been rash to depart from his custom of close secrecy; and it often occurred to him that it would be well to draw saurin into some act of complicity, and so seal his lips effectually and for ever. he felt and expressed great admiration for the air-gun, and suggested that they should try it some moonlight night upon the roosting pheasants. this was treated as a joke at first; a romantic idea which could not, of course, be carried into practice; but after it had been referred to, and discussed again and again, it did not look so utterly impossible. the principal difficulty was the getting out at night, but after many careful inspections of his tutor’s premises saurin saw how this might be managed. there was a small back-yard into which the boys had access at any time; this was surrounded by a high wall with a chevaux de frise at the top, which might be considered insurmountable unless one were jack sheppard or the count of monte christo. but there was a door at the bottom, seldom used, hardly ever, indeed, except when coals came in. outside there was a cart track, and then open field. it was the simplest thing, a mere question of obtaining a key to this door, and he could walk out whenever he liked. yes, but how to get the key, which was taken by the servant to mrs cookson when not in use? to watch when coals were next brought in for an opportunity of purloining it would be worse than useless, for a new lock would be put to the door, and suspicion aroused. an idea occurred to him; he had read of impressions of keys being taken in wax, and duplicates being made from them. he asked marriner if it were possible to get this done, and the reply was yes, that he knew a friendly blacksmith who would make a key to fit any lock of which he had the wards in wax, for a matter of say five shillings, which was leaving a handsome margin of profit for himself, we may remark in passing. five shillings was a lot, saurin thought, when he was not sure that he would use the key if he had it. marriner did not know, perhaps it could be done for three; at any rate he might as well have the wax by him in case he got a chance. curiously enough, he thought he had some in the house, though he sold all his honey in the comb as a rule. but a hive had been deserted, and he knew he had melted the wax down, and it must be somewhere. it was, and he found it, and he got a key and showed saurin how to take an impression of it.
“why, you have done it before then!” said saurin.
“p’raps,” replied marriner, with a side glance of his cunning eyes. “a poor man has to turn his hand to a bit of everything in these hard times.”
it was an early winter, and the weather turned very cold, which caused a great consumption of fuel. and one morning, on coming in to his tutor’s from early school, saurin heard the small thunder of coals being poured into the cellar, and saw the yard door open, a wagon outside, and a man staggering from it under a sack. he ran up to his room, threw down his books, took the wax, and went back to the yard door, where he took a great interest in the unlading of the sacks. a fine sleet was falling, with a bitter north-east wind, to make it cut the face, so that there were none of the servants outside, and no one to see him but the two men who were busied in their work. never was such an opportunity. he had the least possible difficulty in taking the key out of the lock, pressing it on the wax in the palm of his hand, in the way marriner had shown him, and replacing it without attracting observation. then he returned to his room, whistling carelessly, and putting the wax, which had the wards of the key sharply defined upon it, in a seidlitz-powder box, to prevent the impression being injured, he locked it up in his bureau and went to breakfast.
now that this had been accomplished so favourably, it seemed a pity not to have the key made. he might probably never want to use it; but still, there was a pleasant sense of superiority in the knowledge that he was independent of the “all in,” and could get out at any hour of the night that he chose. so the next time he went to marriner’s cottage he took the box containing the wax with him, and marriner paid him the high compliment that a professional burglar could not have done the job better. a week after, he gave him the key, and one night, after everyone had gone to bed, saurin stole down-stairs, out into the yard, and tried it. it turned in the lock easily, the door opened without noise, and he was free to go where he liked. only there was no place so good as bed to go to, so he closed and locked the door again, and went back to his room, feeling very clever and a sort of hero. i am sure i do not know why. no one was taken into his confidence but edwards, and he only because it was necessary to talk to somebody about his poaching schemes, and to excite wonder and admiration at his inventive skill and daring courage, and this edwards was ready at all times to express. he was never taken to marriner’s, but he still occasionally accompanied his friend to the yard—on sundays, usually, because of the card-playing, to which he had taken a great fancy. he still thought in his heart that it was very wrong, but saurin laughed at such scruples as being so very childish and silly that he was thoroughly ashamed of them. saurin, who was so clever and manly that he must know better than he did, saw no harm. besides, he was very fond of playing at cards, and though he did not much like the very low company he met at slam’s yard now, he told himself that what was fit for saurin was fit for him, and it was desirable, beneficial, and the correct thing to see life in all its phases. his hero’s defeat by crawley had not diminished his devotion one iota, for he attributed it entirely to saurin having crippled his left hand when he knocked his adversary down. even then he believed that saurin would have won, only crawley was in training, and the other was not. crawley was all very well, but he lacked that bold and heroic defiance of authority which fascinated edwards (himself the most subordinate soul by nature, by the way). the idea of crawley’s daring even to dream of going poaching, or breaking out at night, or having a false key made! no, he was a good commonplace fellow enough, but saurin was something unusual,—which it is fervently to be hoped he was. poor edwards, with his weak character, which made it necessary for him to believe in someone and yield him homage; what a pity it was he had not fixed on a different sort of hero to worship!
