about midday
So he altered his mind , and went on . Very likely the keeper was angry , but there was no one to hear what he said except the dead hawk . He would have fired off fifty cartridges if he had had them , but as he did not like a weight to carry he had only two or three , and these did not attract attention . As for the labourer , about midday , when he sat down to lunch in the cart-house at the farm where he worked with the other men , he did just mention that he thought he had seen something white waving in the wood , and they said it was odd , but very likely nothing to speak of . One of the wounded dogs ran home , bleeding all the way , and there crept into his kennel and died ; the other could not get so far , but dropped in a hedge . The keeper 's wife wondered why he did not come home to dinner , but supposed , with a sigh , that he had looked in at an alehouse , and went on with her work . The keeper shouted again when his throat got less hoarse , but all the answer he obtained was the echo from the wood .