Page:Quiller-Couch - Noughts and Crosses.djvu/235

Rh and my dog says there's more in a tail than most men estimate" "You foul-tongued poacher" broke out my father.

"Now you're mixing matters up," Dick interrupted, blandly; "I poach, and that's a crime. I've shown your boy to-day how men kill badgers, and maybe that's wrong. But look here, sir—I've taught him some things besides; the ways of birds and beasts, and their calls; how to tell the hour by sun and stars; how to know an ash from a beech, of a pitch-dark night, by the sound of the wind in their tops; what herbs will cure disease and where to seek them; why some birds hop and others run. Sirs, I come of an old race that has outlived books and pictures and meeting-houses: you belong to a new one and a cock-sure, and maybe you're right. Anyhow, you know precious little of this world, whatever you may of another."

He stopped, pushed a hand through his coarse black hair, and, as if suddenly tired, resumed the old, sidelong gypsy look that he had been straightening with an effort.