with the dawn and the birds and into woodland pool or tree-shaded
river; then gathering fuel and making a fire and cooking breakfast;
then washing the utensils, harnessing the horses, and moving on
again--sometimes Cleek driving, sometimes Narkom, sometimes the
boy--stopping when they were hungry to prepare lunch just as they
had prepared breakfast, then forging on again until they found
some tree-hedged dell or bosky wood where they might spend the
night, crooned to sleep by the wind in the leaves, and watched
over by the sentinel stars.

So they had spent the major part of the week, and so they might
have spent it all, but that chance chose to thrust them suddenly
out of idleness into activity, and to bring them--here, in this
Arcadia--face to face again with the evils of mankind and the harsh
duty of the law.

It had gone nine o'clock on that fifth night when a curious thing
happened: they had halted for the night by the banks of a shallow,
chattering stream which flowed through a wayside spinney, beyond
whose clustering treetops they had seen, before the light failed,
the castellated top of a distant tower and, farther afield, the
weathercock on an uplifting church spire; they had supped and
were enjoying their ease--the two men sprawling at full length on
the ground enjoying a comfortable smoke, while Dollops, with a
mouth harmonica, was doing "Knocked 'Em in the Old Kent Road," his
back against a tree, his eyes upturned in ecstasy, his long legs
stretched out upon the turf, and his feet crossed one over the
other--and all about them was peace; all the sordid, money-grubbing,
crime-stained world seemed millions of miles away, when, of a
sudden, there came a swift rush of bodies--trampling on dead
leaves and brushing against live ones--then a voice cried out
commandingly, "Surrender yourselves in the name of the king!" and
scrambling to a sitting position, they looked up to find themselves
confronted by a constable, a gamekeeper, and two farm labourers--the
one with drawn truncheon and the other three with cocked guns.

CHAPTER VII

"Hullo, I say!" began Mr. Narkom, in amazement. "Why, what the
dickens----" But he was suffered to get no farther.

"You mind your P's and Q's! I warn you that anything you say will be
used against you!" interjected sharply and authoritatively the
voice of the constable. "Hawkins, you and Marlow keep close guard
over these chaps while me and Mr. Simpkins looks round for th