74 IN THE WEALD 
terms, what they would do to the ' poachin' warmint ' 
that ' was at it with lights.' Very gingerly he crept 
over the soft green stripe in the opposite direction to 
the sound of their voices. Though most innocent of 
bad intent, he knew it would be a difficult matter to 
convince those who were looking at that light that he 
was so. He remembered too, like a flash, that he had 
been told at the house where he put up that no one 
was allowed in this particular place in the daytime, 
and less still at night. The truth was, a particular 
moth that he wanted could only be found on some 
tangle which grew on the ditch-banks that sur- 
rounded the covers. He fled, and all went well for 
about one hundred and fifty yards. He was on the 
high road, about one mile from his lodgings, when, 
owing to some hurried movement he made, he acci- 
dentally for a moment turned the light of his 
lantern on in front of him, up the road on which he 
was running. It was more than enough. He heard 
a voice roar out, ' Damn 'em ! there they be ! ' Then 
came the bay of a great hound in leash. The under- 
wood crashed, and he fled at top speed. His 
specimen-boxes flew out of his pocket, full of small 
precious moths. In tearing at some of his buttons, 
so that the air could play on his chest as he ran, the 
lantern was pulled off his belt and dropped. This 
