teach the cur a lesson!” cries Nigel, leaning his gun against a tree, and taking a clasp-knife out of his pocket. “What you should have taught him long ago, Doggy Dick, if you’d half done your duty.”
“Lor, Muster Nigel,” replies the gamekeeper, to whom the apostrophe has been addressed, “I’ve whipped the animal till my arms ached. ’Tain’t no use. The steady ain’t in him.”
“I’ll put it into him, then!” cries the young Anglo-Indian, striding, knife in hand, towards the spaniel. “See if I don’t!”
“Stay, Nigel!” interposed Henry. “You are surely not going to do the dog an injury?”
“And what is it to you, if I am? He is mine—not yours.”
“Only, that I should think it very cruel of you. The fault may not be his, poor dumb brute. As you say, it may be Dick who is to blame, for not properly training him.”
“Thank’ee, Muster Henry! ’Bleeged to ye for yer compliment. In coorse it be all my doin’; tho’ not much thanks for doin’ my best. Howsoever, I’m obleeged to ye, Muster Henry.”
Doggy Dick, who, though young, is neither graceful nor good-looking, accompanies his rejoinder with a glance that bespeaks a mind still more ungraceful than his person.
“Bother your talk—both!” vociferates the impatient Nigel. “I’m going to chastise the cur as he deserves, and not as you may like it, Master Hal. I want a twig for him.”
The twig, when cut from its parent stem, turns out to be a stick, three-quarters of an inch in diameter.
With this the peccant animal is brutally belaboured, till the woods for a mile around re-echo its howlings.
Henry begs his brother to desist.
In vain. Nigel continues the cudgelling.
“Gi’e it him!” cries the unfeeling keeper. “Do the beggar good.”
“You, Dick,” interposes Henry, “I shall report you to my father.”
An angry exclamation from the half-brother, and a sullen scowl from the savage in gaiters, is the only notice taken of Henry’s threat. Nigel, irritated by it, only strikes more spitefully.
“Shame, Nigel! Shame! You’ve beaten the poor brute enough—more than enough. Have done!”
“Not till I’ve given him a mark to remember me!”
“What are you going to do to him? What more?” hurriedly asks Henry, seeing that Nigel has flung away the stick, and stands threateningly with his knife. “Surely you don’t intend—”
“To split his ear! That is what I intend doing!”
“For shame! You shall not!”
“Shall not? But I shall, and will!”
“You shall split my hand first!” cries the humane youth, flinging himself on his knees, and with both hands covering the head of the setter.
“Hands off, Henry! The dog is my own; I shall do what I please to him. Hands off, I say!”
“I won’t!”
“Then take the consequences.”
With his left hand Nigel clutches at the animal’s ear, at the same time lunging out recklessly with the knife blade. Blood spurts up into the faces of both, and falls in crimson spray over the flax-like coat of the setter.
It is not the blood of Nigel’s dog, but his brother’s—the little finger of whose left hand shows a deep, longitudinal cut traversing all the way from knuckle to nail.
“You see what you’ve got by your interference!” cries Nigel, without the slightest show of regret. “Next time you’ll keep your claws out of harm’s way.”
The unfeeling observation, more than the hurt received, at length stirs the Saxon blood of the younger brother.
“Coward!” he cries. “Throw your knife away, and stand up. Though you are three years older than I, I don’t fear you. You shall pay for this.”
Nigel, maddened by the challenge from one whom he has hitherto controlled, drops the knife; and the half-brothers close in a fisticuff, fight with anger as intense as if no kindred blood ran in their veins.
As already stated, there is but slight difference in their size. Nigel the taller, Henry of stouter build. But in this sort of encounter the Saxon sinews soon show their superiority over the more flaccid frame of the Anglo-Indian; and in ten minutes’ time the latter appears but too well pleased, when the keeper interferes to prevent his further punishment. Had it gone the other way, Doggy Dick would have allowed the combat to continue.
There is no thought of further sport. For that day, the woodcocks are permitted to remain undisturbed in their shrubby cover.
Henry, binding up his wounded hand in a kerchief, strides direct homewards, followed by the black setter. Nigel stalks moodily behind, with Doggy Dick by his side, and the blood-besprinkled animal skulking cowed-like at his heels.
General Harding is astonished at the early return of the sportsmen. Is the stream frozen up, and the woodcocks gone to more open quarters?
The blood-stained kerchief comes under his eye, and the split finger requires explanation. So, too, a purple ring around the eye of his eldest born. The truth has to be told, each giving his version.
The younger brother is at a disadvantage: for the testimony is two to one—the keeper declaring against him. For all that, truth triumphs in the mind of the astute old soldier, and although both his sons are severely reprimanded, Nigel receives the heavier share of the censure.
It is a sad day’s sport for all—the black setter alone excepted.
For Doggy Dick does not escape unscathed. Ere parting from the presence of the General, the licence is taken from his pocket; the velveteen shooting jacket stripped from his shoulders; and he receives his discharge, with a caution never to show himself again in the Beechwood preserves, under the penalty of being treated as a poacher.
Chapter Two.
Doggy Dick.
Doggy Dick, on being discharged by General Harding, in a short time succeeded in obtaining another and similar situation. It was on an estate bordering that of the General, whose cover came within a field or two of meeting with those of his neighbour. This gentleman was a city magnate, by name Whibley, who, having accumulated a fortune by sharp trading on the Stock Exchange, had purchased the estate in question, and commenced playing squire on an extensive scale.
Between the old officer and the newcomer there was no cordiality; on the contrary, some coolness. General Harding had an instinctive contempt for the vulgar ostentation
