"See Hannaford's wife in church
last Sunday?"

"Wasn't there--had too much to employ me walking the coverts. I believe a
man's duty comes before his church-going at this time o' year; but I
suppose there's no use to argue with a lad when he's courting."

"Courting or not, I was there; and, what's more, I had it reckoned up for
me how much money Bess Hannaford wore on her back. So even going to
church may come in useful, Sam Macklin, if a man's got eyes in his head."

"Argyments!" sniffed the head-keeper. "You'll be some time lagging
Charley Hannaford with argyments. Coverts is coverts, my son, and Bow
Street is Bow Street. Keep 'em separate."

"Stop a minute. That long-legg'd boy of his is home from service at
Exeter. Back in the summer I heard tell he was getting on famous as a
footman, and liked his place. Seems to have changed his mind, or else the
Hannafords are settin' up a footman of their own." (Jim, when put out,
had a gift of sarcasm.)

"Bow Street again," said Macklin stolidly, puffing at his pipe.
"Anything more?"

"Well, yes,"--Jim at this point began to drawl his words--"you've cast an
eye, no doubt, over the apple heaps in Hannaford's back orchard?"

Macklin nodded.

"Like the looks o' them?"

"Not much. Anything more?"

Jim's gaze wandered carelessly to the horizon, and his drawl grew
slower yet as he led up to his triumph. "Not much--only I took a stroll
down to town Saturday night, and dropped in upon Bearne, the chemist.
Hannaford had been there that afternoon buying nux vomica."

"No?" The elder man was startled, and showed it. "The gormed rascal!
That was a clever stroke of yours, though, I will say."

Jim managed to conceal his satisfaction with a frown. "If I don't get a
charge of buckshot somewhere into Charles Hannaford between this and
Christmas I'm going to enlist!" he announced.

But Macklin did not hear, being occupied for the moment with this new
evidence of Hannaford's guile, which he contemplated, be it said, more
dispassionately than did Jim. In Jim there rankled a venomous personal
grudge, dating from the day when, having paid an Exeter taxidermist for a
beautifully stuffed _Phasianus colchicus_, he had borne the bird home,
cunningly affixed it to a roosting-bough, and left it there looking as
natural as life. On arriving at the tree early next morning he found
Macklin (to whom he had not imparted the secret) already there, and
staring aloft with a puzzled