Three sturdy fellows with five minutes work
coulduncover the badgers earth.
He had remembered that Morag was immured in the
cheese-house, andwould probably be pretty thirsty.
Oh, Peter John, what a mess weve made of
everything!
It was a scene asmacabre as any nightmare, but it
was orderly too. That gives DIngraville time to do the deuce of a lot
ofdamage.
Ive made a deuceof a mess of things, and I thought
I was being rather clever. And then I looked at the foreground, where apath from the
harbour climbed on to the terrace.
His absence gave him a dreadful sense ofconfusion
and impotence. Atleast you have deceived me very prettily, and I am not
easilydeceived.
Our enemies were out for business, and their ways
would not begentle. Before he reached the Bird Marsh the weather had changed with
avengeance.
I said the weather would change in theafternoon,
and its jolly well going to. The one thing that mattered was that he himself should
keepout of their hands.
Kill us, or hide us away somewhere for
good.
I tried to make a picture of Sandyhurrying to our
rescue, but got little comfort out of it.
But there wassomething feline in it, like the
purring of a cat. I must have smiled, for Sandy looked at mesharply.
Back to your sties, you swine, orI
shoot.
Every eye of them was on to Peter John, andafter a
moments hesitation they began to move forward.
At first he did not realize that this meant
salvation.
Sendhim forward, and Ill let him
indoors.
For myself I chose the roof, whichgave me a
prospect of the whole terrain.
He must have thought, not only that wewere
helpless, but that we were unsuspecting. But the three leaders made the clearest
andsharpest impact on my mind.