Stalky, filling himself a pipe. "Isn't it scrumptious? Good old sea!"
He spat again approvingly, and was silent.

McTurk and Beetle had taken out their books and were lying on their
stomachs, chin in hand. The sea snored and gurgled; the birds,
scattered for the moment by these new animals, returned to their
businesses, and the boys read on in the rich, warm, sleepy silence.

"Hullo, here's a keeper," said Stalky, shutting "Handley Cross"
cautiously, and peering through the jungle. A man with a gun appeared
on the sky-line to the east. "Confound him, he's going to sit down."

"He'd swear we were poachin', too," said Beetle. "What's the good of
pheasants' eggs? They're always addled, too."

"Might as well get up to the wood, I think," said Stalky. "We don't
want G. M. Dabney, Col., J.P., to be bothered about us so soon. Up
the wuzzy and keep quiet! He may have followed us, you know."

Beetle was already far up the tunnel. They heard him gasp
indescribably: there was the crash of a heavy body leaping through
the furze.

"Aie! yeou little red rascal. I see yeou!" The keeper threw the gun to
his shoulder, and fired both barrels in their direction. The pellets
dusted the dry stems round them as a big fox plunged between Stalky's
legs, and ran over the cliff-edge.

They said nothing till they reached the wood, torn, disheveled, hot,
but unseen.