“I tell ’ee, my lad, I’ll serve ’ee in the same way as we serve a dog who runs out and eats his game. To-morrow I will tie this leveret under your nose and your hands behind your back, and let ’ee nose at it for a day or two――that’s what I’ll do.” And, with these words, the indignant agriculturist stalked out of the kitchen. The boy watched him across the yard, and when the farmer was lost to sight he unbuttoned his waistcoat, and passing his hand round his back produced a quantity of napkins with which he had padded himself. He had been expecting some such castigation, and like an old soldier had recourse to stratagem. The heavy blows fell harmless upon his back and shoulders. No wonder he bore all with such patience and equanimity. In cunning he was more than a match for his master, or indeed the whole of the establishment. Patty could not refrain from laughing when she beheld the artifice resorted to by her companion in the kitchen. “You are a sharp one, Alf, and no mistake,” she cried. “But you won’t peach――won’t tell the governor?” said he. “No――no. Let us hope his anger is all over by this time.” “He won’t forget his promise about the hare, I daresay, but what of that? It won’t hurt me.” The lad was quite right――Jamblin did not forget the promise he had made. “Look here, men, just pinion this young scoundrel. We’ll teach him a lesson he won’t easily forget,” cried the farmer to his labourers in the yard on the following morning. The men obeyed and the boy’s arms were fastened firmly, so that there was no possibility of his raising them. The hare was then slung under his chin. “Now, my lad, see how that suits you,” said Jamblin. “It shall hang there till you promise never to do the same thing again.” He was driven out of the yard by the farm labourers, who one and all detested him for his mischievous ways, and therefore they enjoyed the fun immensely. “Now then, youngster, go and make a sight o’ yourself till noontime,” cried the carter, thrusting young Purvis forcibly through the open gate into the high road. “Who cares for a pack of fools like you?” exclaimed the lad, walking rapidly away from the scene. A chorus of laughter reached his ears as he took his way along the road. He was certainly under the impression that he cut a most ridiculous figure, adorned as he was with his furry companion, but there was no help for it; he was constrained to hear the sneering remarks passed on him by the passengers, equestrian and pedestrian, he met with on the road. He had also to endure the jocose and playful cuts with the whip with which the carters saluted him as they went by with their long teams of horses. But he bore all these indignities with the greatest fortitude; nevertheless a burning spirit of revenge smouldered within his breast――a spirit which some day or other would burst into a flame. He walked on without deigning to offer any reply to the vexatious and sneering observations with which he was greeted.