Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/106

98 for him to sleep out with them. He built a shelter of hurdles interlaced with brushwood, and in the sunny afternoon we collected piles of bracken, browning to the ruddy winter-brown now. He slept there for a week, but that week aged his mother like a year. She was out in the cold morning twilight watching, with her apron over her head, for his approach. She did not rest with the thought of him out on the Common.

Therefore, on Saturday night he brought down his rugs, and took up Gyp to watch in his stead. For some time we sat looking at the stars over the dark hills. Now and then a sheep coughed, or a rabbit rustled beneath the brambles, and Gyp whined. The mist crept over the gorse-bushes, and the webs on the brambles were white;—the devil throws his net over the blackberries as soon as September’s back is turned, they say.

“I saw two fellows go by with bags and nets,” said George, as we sat looking out of his little shelter.

“Poachers,” said I. “Did you speak to them?”

“No—they didn’t see me. I was dropping asleep when a rabbit rushed under the blanket, all of a shiver, and a whippet dog after it. I gave the whippet a punch in the neck, and he yelped off. The rabbit stopped with me quite a long time—then it went.”

“How did you feel?”

“I didn’t care. I don’t care much what happens just now. Father could get along without me, and mother has the children. I think I shall emigrate.”

“Why didn’t you before?”

“Oh, I don’t know. There are a lot of little