rook's meadow. Lend me your handkerchief."

The handkerchief that the Terror lent her might have easily been of a
less pronounced gray; but Erebus mopped her beaded brow with it in a
perfect content. She had ridden home as fast as she could ride with
her interesting news.

"I wish I'd seen him too," said the Terror thoughtfully.

"It's quite enough for me to have seen him!" said Erebus with some heat.

"It would be better if we'd both seen him," said the Terror firmly.

"It's such beastly cheek his poaching himself after taking no notice of
our letter!" said Erebus indignantly.

"Yes, it is," said the Terror.

She went on to set forth the enormity of the conduct of their neighbor
at considerable length. The Terror said nothing; he did not look to be
listening to her. In truth he was considering what advantage might be
drawn from Sir James' transgression.

At last he said: "The first thing to do is for both of us to catch him
poaching."

Erebus protested; but the Terror carried his point, with the result
that two evenings later they were in the wood above the trout-stream,
stretched at full length in the bracken, peering through the hedge of
the wood at Sir James Morgan so patiently and vainly fishing the stream
below.

"He'll soon be at the boundary fence," said the Terror in a hushed
voice of quiet satisfaction.

"If only he goes on catching nothing on this side of it!" said Erebus
who kept wriggling in a nervous impatience.

"It's on the other side of it they're rising," said the Terror in a
calmly hopeful tone.

Sir James, unconscious of those eagerly gazing eyes, made vain cast
after vain cast. He was a big game hunter; he had given but little
time and pains to this milder sport; and he came to the fence at which
his water ceased and that of Mr. Glazebrook began, with his basket
still empty of trout. He looked longingly at his neighbor's water; as
the Terror had said, the trout in it were rising freely. Then the
watchers saw him shrug his shoulders and turn back.

"He's not going to poach, after all!" cried Erebus in a tone of acute
disappointment.

"Look here: are you really quite sure you saw him poaching at all?
Long Ridge is a good way off," said the Terror looking across to it.

"I did. I tell you he was half-way down old Glazebrook's meadow," said
Erebus firmly.

"It's very disappointing," said the Terror, frowning at the disobliging
fisherman; then he added with philosophic calm: