through which there was a private entrance into the
court. He whispered a word to an officer, who admitted them, and pointed
to a seat behind the dock, where they were screened from observation, and
where the woman could see her husband standing between his two
fellow-prisoners.

The prisoners were listening anxiously to the evidence which the
principal game-keeper was offering against them. The first, a man about
sixty, excited greater interest than the others. He earnestly attended to
what was going on, but gave no sign of fear, as to the result. Brushing
back his gray locks, he gazed round the court, with something like a
smile. This man's life had been a strange one. Early in his career he
had been ejected from a farm which he had held under the father of the
present prosecutor, Sir George Roberts; he soon after lost what little
property had been left him, and, in despair enlisted--was sent abroad
with his regiment--and for many years shared in the toils and
achievements of our East Indian warfare. Returning home on a small
pension, he fixed his abode in his native village, and sought to indulge
his old enmity against the family that had injured him by every kind of
annoyance in his power. The present baronet, a narrow-minded tyrannical
man, afforded by his unpopularity good opportunity to old Ralph Somers to
induce others to join him in his schemes of mischief and revenge. "The
game," which was plentiful on the estate, and the preservation of which
was Sir George's chief delight, formed the principal object of attack;
the poverty of the laborers tempted them to follow the old soldier, who
managed affairs so warily, that for nine years he had been an object of
the utmost terror and hatred to Sir George and his keepers, whilst all
their efforts to detect and capture him had, until now, been fruitless.

Martin Harvey, who stood by his side with his shattered arm in a sling,
bore marks of acute mental suffering and remorse; but his countenance was
stamped with its original, open, manly expression--a face often to be
seen among a group of English farm laborers, expressive of a warm heart,
full of both courage and kindness.

The evidence was soon given. The game-keepers, on the night of the 24th
of February, were apprised that poachers were in the plantations. Taking
with them a stronger force than usual, all well-armed, they discovered
the objects of their search, in a lane leading out into the fields, and
shouted to