ed, and patched, with bulging, greasy pockets; a
cast of flies round a battered hat, riddled with shot-holes, a dog-
whistle at his button-hole, and an old gun cut short over his arm,
bespoke his business.

'I seed that 'ere Crawy against Ashy Down Plantations last night,
I'll be sworn,' said he, in a squeaking, sneaking tone.

'Well, what harm was the man doing?'

'Oh, ay, that's the way you young 'uns talk. If he warn't doing
mischief, he'd a been glad to have been doing it, I'll warrant. If
I'd been as young as you, I'd have picked a quarrel with him soon
enough, and found a cause for tackling him. It's worth a brace of
sovereigns with the squire to haul him up. Eh? eh? Ain't old Harry
right now?'

'Humph!' growled the younger man.

'There, then, you get me a snare and a hare by to-morrow night,'
went on old Harry, 'and see if I don't nab him. It won't lay long
under the plantation afore he picks it up. You mind to snare me a
hare to-night, now!'

'I'll do no such thing, nor help to bring fake accusations against
any man!'

'False accusations!' answered Harry, in his cringing way. 'Look at
that now, for a keeper to say! Why, if he don't happen to have a
snare just there, he has somewhere else, you know. Eh? Ain't old
Harry right now, eh?'

'Maybe.'

'There, don't say I don't know nothing then. Eh? What matter who
put the snare down, or the hare in, perwided he takes it up, man?
If 'twas his'n he'd be all the better pleased. The most
notoriousest poacher as walks unhung!' And old Harry lifted up his
crooked hands in pious indignation.

'I'll have no more gamekeeping, Harry. What with hunting down
Christians as if they were vermin, all night, and being cursed by
the squire all day, I'd sooner be a sheriff's runner, or a negro
slave.'

'Ay, ay! that's the way the young dogs always bark afore they're
broke in, and gets to like it, as the eels does skinning. Haven't I
bounced pretty near out of my skin many a time afore now, on this
here very bridge, with "Harry, jump in, you stupid hound!" and
"Harry, get out, you one-eyed tailor!" And then, if one of the
gentlemen lost a fish with their clumsiness--Oh, Father! to hear 'em
let out at me and my landing-net, and curse fit to fright the devil!
Dash their sarcy tongues! Eh! Don't old Harry know their ways?
Don't he know 'em, now?'

'Ay,' said the young man, bitterly. 'We break the dogs, and we load
th