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'No you couldn't,' my father said.
All this made me rather nervous.
'I see you broke your foot,' the keeper said. 'You didn't by any chance fall into a hole in the ground, did you?'
'It's been a nice walk, Danny,' my father said, putting a hand on my knee, 'but it's time we went home for our supper.' He stood up and so did I. We wandered off down the track the way we had come, leaving the keeper standing there, and soon he was out of sight in the half-darkness behind us.
'That's the head keeper,' my father said. 'His name is Rabbetts.'
'Do we have to go home, Dad?'
'Home!' my father cried. 'My dear boy, we're just beginning! Come in here.'
There was a gate on our right leading into a field, and we climbed over it and sat down behind the hedge.
'Mr Rabbetts is also due for his supper,' my father said. 'You mustn't worry about him.'
We sat quietly behind the hedge waiting for the keeper to walk past us on his way home. A few stars were showing, and a bright three-quarter moon was coming up over the hills behind us in the east.
'We have to be careful of that dog,' my father said. 'When they come by, hold your breath and don't move a muscle.'
'Won't the dog smell us out anyway?' I asked.
'No,' my father said. 'There's no wind to carry the scent. Look out! Here they come! Don't move!'
The keeper came loping softly down the track with the dog padding quick and soft-footed at his heel. I took a deep breath and held it as they went by.
When they were some distance away, my father stood up and said, 'It's all clear. He won't be coming back tonight.'
'Are you sure?'
'I'm positive, Danny'
'What about the other one, the one in the clearing?'
'He'll be gone too.'
'Mightn't one of them be waiting for us at the bottom of the track?' I asked. 'By the gap in the hedge?'
'There wouldn't be any point in him doing that,' my father said. 'There's at least twenty different ways of reaching the road when you come out of HazelPs Wood. Mr Rabbetts knows that.'
We stayed behind the hedge for a few minutes more just to be on the safe side.
'Isn't it a marvellous thought though, Danny,' my father said, 'that there's about two hundred pheasants at this very moment roosting up in those trees and already they're beginning to feel groggy? Soon they'll be falling out of the branches like raindrops!'
The three-quarter moon was well above the hills now, and the sky was filled with stars as we climbed back over the gate and began walking up the track towards the wood.
16
The Champion of the World
It was not as dark as I had expected it to be inside the wood this time. Little glints and glimmers from the brilliant moon outside shone through the leaves and gave the place a cold eerie look.
'I brought a light for each of us,' my father said. 'We're going to need it later on.' He handed me one of those small pocket torches shaped like a fountainpen. I switched mine on. It threw a long narrow beam of surprising brightness, and when I moved it around it was like waving a very long white wand among the trees. I switched it off.
We started walking back towards the clearing where the pheasants had eaten the raisins.
'This', my father said, 'will be the first time in the history of the world that anyone has even tried to poach roosting pheasants. Isn't it marvellous though, to be able to walk around without worrying about keepers?'
