till the
tears stood in his eyes.

But all this while Mr Jones was fuming worse than ever, for he had
passed old Sam, Philip, Harry and Fred, standing at the gate of the
stable-yard, and no sooner did they catch sight of the strange figure
advancing towards them, than they rushed off laughing at such a
boisterous rate that Mr Jones felt as though he could have strangled
them all.

And now it is only fair that the reader should know how it was that Mr
Jones had got into such a pickle, for he certainly was in a very nasty
mess indeed. Mr Jones, as I said before, had been very much annoyed
because Squire Inglis purchased the little corner field; so, from a
petty feeling of spite, he always made a point of walking across the
corner, kicking down the bank, and treading heavily upon the young
quickset plants. Now, of course the example set by such a big little
man as Mr Jones, would be sure to find followers; and this was the case
here, for many of the boys of the village used to slip across as well.
But on the evening previous to what has been above related, old Sam took
his tools down with him, and had soon dug out a hole about three feet
deep just in the centre of the field, and right in the middle of the
track; he then borrowed an old tin pail from a cottage near, and filled
the hole full of black mud from a filthy drain ditch, which ran along
the backs of some of the cottages in the village street, the smell from
which was so bad that Fred and his cousins kept their distance while the
hole was being filled.

When the pit was about full, Sam carefully sprinkled it over with the
earth he had dug out, till it looked like the surrounding surface, when
he levelled the place all round, and made it all so much alike that, to
the ineffable delight of the boys, he could hardly tell where the
pitfall was exactly, and put one of his own feet in above the ankle.
Harry fairly danced with delight, but, seeing that the old man was
turning cross, he helped to cover the place again, and then they left
the pail at the cottage, and walked back to the Grange. As for the
people living close at hand, they were so much accustomed to seeing old
Sam working in the field that they took no notice of what he was doing;
so there the trap lay, all ready baited for the first man.

Now, it so happened that no one crossed the corner that night, as Sam
could readily see when he went down directly after breakfast next
morning, for all was just as