“Oh! and weren’t there?” retorted John sarcastically. “Ye must ha’ poor eyes, Maister Sanders. There, ’twas what I did use to say to a cousin o’ Squire’s as used to come shooting here twenty-five years ago, and couldn’t hit a haystack. ‘There don’t seem to be anything to shoot, keeper,’ he’d say; and I’d answer back, ‘Ye must ha’ wonderful poor eyes, sir.’ Ho, ho! he were a stuck-up sort o’ gentleman as were always a-findin’ fault and a-pickin’ holes, but I mind I had a good laugh agen him once. ’Twas a terr’ble hot day, and we’d walked miles and miles, and I were a bit done-up at the end, and thankful for a sup o’ beer. And he comes up to I, and says, laughin’ nasty-like, ‘Well, Guppy, you don’t seem much of a walker. Now, I could go all day.’ ‘’E-es, sir,’ says I, ‘and so can a postman. I d’ ’low your bags ’ad much same weight at the end o’ your rounds.’” Sanders vouchsafed no comment on this anecdote, and John, propping his stick against the paling, proceeded with much difficulty to climb over it, and to hobble from one pen to the other, stooping stiffly to inspect the young birds and the arrangements made for their comfort. “They big speckly hens is too heavy for these here delicate little fellows,” he remarked. “Game hens is the best--’twas what I did always have. ’Tis more in nature as the game hens should make the best mothers to young pheasants. They be a poor-looking lot, Maister Sanders. I did use to have ’em a deal more for’ard at this time o’ year. What be feedin’ ’em on?” “Now look ’ere, I’m not going to stand any more o’ this,” thundered the keeper, fairly losing his temper. “I’m not going to have you poking and prying about this place no longer. You’ve got past your work, and I’m doing it now. If the Squire’s satisfied, that’s all I need think about. If he isn’t, he can tell me so.” “Ha! no man likes bein’ found fault with,” returned Guppy sententiously; “but sometimes ’tis for their own good. Now you take a word o’ advice from I, what was workin’ here afore you was born or thought of very like.” “I’ll not, then!” cried the other angrily. “Get out o’ this, you old meddler, or I’ll report you to the Squire!” “You did ought to thank I for not reportin’ of you,” returned John firmly. “The Squire do think a deal o’ I--a deal; but I’d be sorry to get a man into trouble as do seem to be meanin’ well. You mind my words, keeper, and you’ll find as they’ll come true--ye’ll have a bad season this year, and maybe ye’ll be a bit more ready to take advice from them as knows more nor you do. ’Tis the first year, so I’ll not be hard on ye.” He had now recrossed the wire, repossessed himself of his stick, and with a nod of farewell at his irate successor, turned his steps homewards. He spent the rest of that day lamenting the direful changes which had taken place since his own withdrawal from active life, and privately resolved to be astir early on the morrow in order to proceed further with his tour of investigation.