i6 HOUND AND HORN 



fiend '^ Forager " with the carcase of a hen hanging 

 from his jaws, and pursued by another couple who 

 were grabbing at the dainty morsel, and strewing 

 feathers all over the lawn. Billy ran out, and I 

 did my best to hold the worthy couple in conversation, 

 and had to assent to a second glass of very fiery 

 whisky to accomplish this, touching on every topic 

 from the price and condition of ewes to the prospects 

 of harvest, and keeping one eye on the window and 

 the other on Mr. B.'s glass the while. Shortly 

 afterwards I made an escape, leaving the crime 

 unconfessed, and, as we believed, undetected. Mr. 

 Brydon's last words were : ^' I'll think aboot the 

 maitter o' the whulp." 



Billy's account was that when he got to the straw- 

 barn he found the two lads throwing half-mangled 

 corpses of fowls down the pit of the mill-wheel, and 

 smothering clouds of feathers in the straw. Some 

 luckless hens had been roosting on the rafters ; and 

 when the door was closed on the pack, they had 

 flown down in the darkness, and courted certain 

 death. 



No puppies were taken to walk by Mr. and Mrs. 

 Brydon that year. 



About this time Billy went off rather suddenly and 

 with much mystery, as he only revealed " he was 

 going south." Two days later we received two in- 

 comprehensible wires from him, the first reading, 

 ^^ Have bought her ;^' the second, though handed in 

 an hour before the first, received an hour later, and 

 reading, " Have seen A Clinker. Carrie is a lady." 

 Of course, Joanna instantly composed several replies 

 to the effect that we were interested to have his 



