pers are poisonous."

"Yes, but they don't sting; they bite. They've got poisoned fangs. You
can see an adder along here sometimes. Perhaps we shall see one to-day,
warming himself in the sun."

But we did not, for a few minutes later we approached a swing gate, just
as the keeper came round a curve in the opposite direction.

"Here you are, then," he said, "just right. Farmer Dawson's gone off to
market, and so we shan't have to ask leave. Come on, and let's see if
we can find Jem Roff."

He pushed open the gate, and we went along a cart track for some
distance, and then on through one of the hop-gardens, with its tall
poles draped with the climbing rough-leaved vines, some of which had
reached over and joined hands with their fellows, to make loops and
festoons, all beautiful to my town-bred eyes, as was the glimpse I
caught of a long, low old English farmhouse and garden, with a row of
bee-hives, as we went round a great yard surrounded by buildings--
stables, barns, sheds, and cow-houses, with at one corner four tall
towers, looking like blunt steeples with the tops cut off to accommodate
as many large wooden cowls.

"What are they?" I asked.

"Oast-houses."

"What?"

"Oast-houses, where they dry the hops over a fire on horse-hair sheets,"
said Mercer. "Look! that's the pigeon-cote," he continued, pointing to
three rows of holes cut in the woodwork which connected the brick
towers. "The owl's nest's in one of those."

Just then a middle-aged man, with a very broad smile upon his face, and
a fork in his hand, came up.

"Here, Jem," said the keeper, "the young gentlemen want to see the owl's
nest."

The smile departed from the man's face, which he wiped all over with one
hand, as he frowned and shook his head.

"Nay, nay," he said. "The master's very 'tickler 'bout them howls.
Why, if I was to kill one, he'd 'most kill me."

"The young gents won't hurt 'em, Jem."

"Nay, but they'd be wanting to take eggs, or young ones, or suthin'."

"Well, I should like one egg," said Mercer.

"Ah, I thowt so! Nay, you mustn't goo."

"Oh yes, let us go," said Mercer. "There, I won't touch an egg."

"An' you won't touch the birds?"

"No."

"Nor him neither."

"Oh, I won't touch them," I said eagerly.

"You see the master says they do no end of good, killing the mice and
young rats."

"And I say they do no end of mischief, killing the young partridges and
fezzans and hares," said the keeper.