Kitabı oku: «Tales of the birds», sayfa 10
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“Did ye hear the gun then?” said the keeper to Oliver, as they met a few minutes later at the entrance to the wood. “There’s mischief here, forbye at the barber’s. Tak’ yon big stick, mon, and gang ye on wi’ the lantern.”
They went softly down the ride together, neither speaking again. Presently the keeper stumbled over some solid body lying in the grass, and Oliver, applying the lantern to it, discovered the corpse of a pig. The keeper whistled softly, and turned it over with his foot.
“Lawfu’ spoil,” he whispered, “lawfu’ spoil. Ye shall taste Pogson’s bacon yet afore ye die, Oliver!”
Then they found the gun, which Mr. McNab, now in his element, seized as further spoil, and gave to Oliver to carry instead of the big stick. And now he turned aside for a few yards to see what other sport his bairn’s tricks of that day might have brought him. Oliver followed close at his heels with the lantern.
“Whoo! Tu-whoo!” said the owl overhead.
“Ay, ye may weel hoot at ’em,” said the keeper, as the lantern revealed the prostrate forms of Mr. Pogson and Mr. Weekes; the latest arrival lying across the other, and seeming to embrace him with one arm, while the hand of the other was thrust into a tuft of faded primroses.
Oliver and McNab regarded this spectacle for a few moments in silence. Then Oliver, catching sight of the bottle slipping from the pig-dealer’s pocket, turned his wistful eyes on the Scotchman.
“Mr. McNab,” he said, “I’m an old man, and maybe as I won’t be woodcutting here much longer; but don’t you – for my sake don’t you” (here he shyly laid his wrinkled hand on the keeper’s arm), “let such sodden brutes as these come along and take the lives of innocent creatures – creatures as God above loves, and has made me for to love too – and all for a few shillings, or maybe guineas, and to please the ladies in Lunnon as don’t know what a wood be like, nor what creatures lives their lives here. I’ve known this tree for more nor fifty year, but the owls ha’ known it belike for five hundred; and now, afore I’m dead, the warrant’s out agen them. The fine ladies wants their feathers, but they don’t know what they’re doing – they don’t think what they do, Mr. McNab. ’Tis fashion, I take it, only fashion, and it’ll blow over in a bit if you’ll but stop ’em now. I’m an old fool maybe, but God knows I’ve none too many to care about, or for to care about me, but my old woman, and beside her there’s none but these birds and beasts in the wood. And the peace of it, and the quiet of the life in it! Don’t you let it be rooted up, Mr. McNab, nor the wild beast of the field devour it!”
The keeper slapped him on the back of his smockfrock, and then seized him by the hand. “Oliver, my auld lad,” he said, “ye’ve just saved them out o’ the hand of the Pheelistines! And ye shall never want for friends to care for ye, be they owls or be they McNabs!”
And this was the story that old Oliver used to tell, with many a kindly word of respect for his friend the keeper, till one day, as I said at the beginning, death came upon him painlessly under that very tree, while the cuckoo sang in the distance, and the chiff-chaffs two notes echoed from the sunny end of the wood. How he came to know what happened to Mr. Pogson and the pigs is more than I can tell; probably the owls told it to him, or it may be that the conscience-stricken pig-dealer revealed to him alone the story, as to one who understood, as none else did, the mysteries of Truerne wood.
However that may be, it is certain that the enemy never again invaded his paradise. The owls were never disturbed, and by some mysterious agency the placard disappeared almost at once from the barber’s window. Mr. Pogson never passed through the wood again, and finding that distorted versions of his adventures were abroad in Highfield (where they are still told with relish by the winter fireside), he removed to a village some miles away, a milder and more merciful man. Mr. Weekes too was not long in giving up his farm, and disappearing entirely from the neighbourhood. In peace the owls and Oliver lived out their days under the grave but kindly guardianship of Mr. McNab the keeper; and when I last passed through the wood it showed no signs of the presence of the Philistine.
