The very idea of her being taken first, roused in him a kind of spasm--a fierceness, a clenching of the hands.

But all the same, in this poaching matter, he must have, his way, and she must just get used to it.
Ah! a low whistle from the further side of the wood.

He replied, and was almost instantly joined by a tall slouching youth, by day a blacksmith's apprentice at Gairsley, the Maxwells' village, who had often brought him information before.
The two sat talking for ten minutes or so on the log.

Then they parted; Hurd went back to the ditch where he had left the game, put two rabbits into his pockets, left the other two to be removed in the morning when he came to look at his snares, and went off home, keeping as much as possible in the shelter of the hedges.

On one occasion he braved the moonlight and the open field, rather than pass through a woody corner where an old farmer had been found dead some six years before.