mpatience and irritability which contrasted strangely
with the honourable self-restraint that withheld him from direct abuse
of his power.

For a long time, Daniel and his master waited in vain. Jesse, whom
they had entertained some vague hope of chasing away by angry looks and
scornful words, had been so much accustomed all his life long to taunts
and contumely, that it was a great while before he became conscious of
their unkindness; and when at last it forced itself upon his attention,
he shrank away crouching and cowering, and buried himself in the closest
recesses of the coppice, until the footstep of the reviler had passed
by. One look at his sweet little friend repaid him twenty-fold; and
although farmer Cobham had really worked himself into believing that
there was danger in allowing the beautiful child to approach poor Jesse,
and had therefore on different pretexts forbidden her visits to the
Moors, she did yet happen in her various walks to encounter that devoted
adherent oftener than would be believed possible by any one who has not
been led to remark, how often in this best of all possible worlds, an
earnest and innocent wish does as it were fulfil itself.

At last, however, a wish of a very different nature came to pass. Daniel
Thorpe detected Jesse in an actual offence against that fertile source
of crime and misery, the game laws.

Thus the affair happened.

During many weeks, the neighbourhood had been infested by a gang of
bold, sturdy pilferers, roving vagabonds, begging by day, stealing and
poaching by night--who had committed such extensive devastations
amongst the poultry and linen of the village, as well as the game in the
preserves, that the whole population was upon the alert; and the lonely
coppices of the Moors rendering that spot one peculiarly likely to
attract the attention of the gang, old Daniel, reinforced by a stout lad
as a sort of extra-guard, kept a most jealous watch over his territory.

Perambulating the outside of the wood one evening at sunset, he heard
the cry of a hare; and climbing over the fence, had the unexpected
pleasure of seeing our friend Jesse in the act of taking a leveret still
alive from the wire. "So, so, master Jesse! thou be'st turned poacher,
be'st thou?" ejaculated Daniel, with a malicious chuckle, seizing, at
one fell grip, the hare and the lad.

"Miss Phoebe!" ejaculated Jesse, submitting himself to the old man's
grasp, but struggling to retain the lever