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Updated: June 26, 2025
The man Lomax knocked down went before the magistrates, and was packed off to prison, but Magglin had to go up to London, to one of the great hospitals, and some months after, the chief magistrate in our district, that is to say, General Sir Hawkhurst Rye, had him up before him in his library, and punished him.
The evening was glorious, and after a broiling day the soft moist odours that came from the copses dotted here and there seemed delightfully refreshing, and so I strolled on and on till I was only a short distance from the cottage, which was separated from me by a couple of fields, when I turned slowly toward a corner of the enclosure I was in, where there was a pond and a patch of moist land where weeds never noticed towered up in abundance, and, to my surprise, I caught sight of Magglin seated on the bank of the pond, with his feet hanging close to the water, and apparently engaged in his evening toilet.
"He's got one o' them poaching guns, you see, with a short barrel as unscrews in the middle, and he must ha' been taking it to pieces when it was loaded, and shot hisself when running among the bushes." "Why, it's Magglin!" I shouted excitedly. "What!" cried the keeper, holding the lantern lower, and Polly uttered a cry.
"We must tell Bob Hopley we're going, or he may hear us in the wood, and pepper us, thinking it's old Magglin." "What?" "He said he would, if ever he caught him there." "Seen him lately?" I said. "No; have you?" "Not since the cricket match day, when I was going to Bob Hopley's."
You try to run away, and I'll send a charge o' small shot after you, and that can run faster than you can." "More'n you dare do, big Bob Hopley," cried Magglin, backing away up the hill; and I thought how cowardly the man's nature must be, for him to propose this expedition and then sneak away from us like that.
"Yah!" came back; and as the keeper dropped his gun into the hollow of his arm with a grim smile on his face, there was a loud thwack and a startled, "Oh!" for the tall gentleman had stood still, Magglin had reached him, and a stick fell heavily across the poacher's shoulders. "You scoundrel!" he roared, making a snatch at Magglin's collar, but the man was too slippery.
The man touched his hat and went off, leaving Lomax and me with the horse, which looked enormous then. Lomax strode round the animal, examining it, and making remarks as he went on. "Very well groomed," he said. "Saw your old friend Magglin before breakfast. Good legs. Like to get taken on again, he says. Tail wants topping too long. Lucky for him he didn't get before the magistrates.
"That's it, sir," said Magglin, securing the ferret in his pocket. "Ah, good morning," said a voice; and we two turned sharply, to find that Mr Rebble and Mr Hasnip, who were out early for a constitutional, had come up behind us quietly. "Good morning, sir. Good morning, sir," we said, and Magglin touched his cap and went off down the garden. "Very good, Mercer.
But almost at the same moment I saw a tall, stern gentleman appear from among the pine trees toward which Magglin was backing, for the keeper had presented his gun, evidently to take the labourer's attention, as I saw that, if matters went on in the way in which they were going, our companion would back right up into the new-comer's arms. "You stop, will you!" cried the keeper.
There, about fifty yards away, with his back to us, was Magglin, rubbing something on his sleeve. Then he breathed upon it, and gave it another rub, before holding it up in the sunshine, and we could see that it was bright and yellow, possibly a brooch. The next minute the poacher had leaped into the wood and passed among the trees. "Oh, what a game!" said Mercer, as we walked away.
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