Page:Life Story of an Otter.djvu/202

168 them behind, was soon at the lodge gates. There he nearly frightened old Jenny into hysterics by his shouts; but she took her revenge, for after letting him through she shook the keys in his face and screamed after him, 'Mad as a curley! mad as a curley!' until he rounded the bend where the mansion comes into view. The whole house seemed asleep; but as the miller crossed the bridge over the moat the squire appeared at a window and, in a voice that betrayed the tension of his feelings, called out:

'Where?'

'Longen Pool, sir.'

'Fresh?'

'Last night's.'

'Rouse the men, Hicks; we shall need every hand we can muster.'

Before he had got through the plantation on his way to the kennels the clang of the firealarm broke on the still morning air, and when he returned from his round, squire, whipper-in and hounds were making their way through the park with a small retinue of servants in their train. At the hamlet they were joined by the parson, the parish clerk, the landlord, two sawyers, and six or seven others, and between the pound and the river by a few crofters, whom