Biggles on the Home Front by W E Johns

Author:W E Johns [Johns, W E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adventure
Published: 2012-03-11T12:44:51+00:00

Panting, Bertie went on up to a fork out of their reach, and there made himself secure before adjusting his monocle and gazing down at his pursuers. They, slavering, sat on their haunches staring up at him. “Grrr,” growled one.

“Grrr to you,” growled Bertie.

A man was shouting. Presently he came in sight, running. It was the gardener. He carried a twelve bore gun. He was followed by two others, in blue overalls, possibly the mechanics who had been working in the hangar. Bertie perceived that he had stirred things up, which was to be regretted but could not have been prevented. He had not reckoned on guard dogs.

The man with the gun came up. “What are you doing up there?” he shouted.

“What do you think I’m doing, you fool—birds-nesting?” demanded Bertie caustically, shaken by his narrow escape.

“Come down.”

“Not me,” replied Bertie, with some wrath. “What do you take me for? If these brutes are yours call them off.”

“You’re trespassing.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to set dangerous dogs on me. Look what they’ve done to my trousers. I shall sue you for damages.”

Two more men now joined the party. Both were hatless, as if they had come from the house. Bertie recognized one of them, although it took him a moment or two to place him, for he had only seen his photograph.

It was Swell Noble, the cat-burglar jewel thief. His companion was a man nearer sixty years of age, pale, thin-faced, bald in front and with a short, well-trimmed, greying beard.

This man now spoke. He had a cultured voice, but Bertie thought he detected a slight accent, as if he was a foreigner long resident in England. “What is all this?” he asked, quietly.

Bertie wondered if this could be Carlton as he answered: “I should think it’s pretty obvious. Can’t a man take a quiet stroll through a wood without being attacked by a pack of ravening wolves?” In the circumstances Bertie’s exaggeration may have been pardonable.

“What were you doing?”

“What would I be doing? I was out for a walk. This looked a nice wood so I took a stroll in it to admire the flowers.”

“You had no business here. You were frightening my pheasants.”

“Frightening your pheasants!” snorted Bertie. “What do you think your beastly bloodhounds were doing to me!”

“I repeat, you had no right to be here.”

“Is this wood yours?” questioned Bertie.

“Of course it’s mine.”

“How was I to know that?”

“You must have known it belonged to somebody.”

“I wasn’t to know I was entering a private menagerie. Why don’t you put up a notice to let people know that if they step on to your land they’re liable to be torn to pieces?”

The old man smiled. “They don’t like strangers.”

“I’d already worked that out,” retorted Bertie. “Very well,” he went on, “I admit I was in the wrong and I apologize; but allow me to remind you that there is no law against trespass unless damage can be proved. The only damage has been done by those ferocious hounds of yours.

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