“No? And why not?”
“Because,” answered the fellow, lowering his voice, but speaking in an insolent tone—“because I should have such a nice little story to tell their warshups the beaks, and the laryers, and the parties wot comes to see poor coves tried. I should be able to tell how young Squire Dorrien wasn’t above steppin’ down to my cottage o’ nights to keep my gal company like, while her poor old dad’s in trouble. I could tell ’em how I went to get a breath o’ fresh air the night I come out o’ quod, and as how I see young Squire Dorrien a steppin’ along in the dark to see my gal. I could tell as how I follered him until he cotched sight of the bit of light my gal had stuck in the winder to let him know her old dad’s come home again, and young Squire wouldn’t be adsackly welcome that night—and as how ’stonished he looked when he seed it? Fine gal, my Lizzie, ain’t she, Squire?”
“Devilish fine girl! Since you ask my opinion, you’ve got it frankly, and for what it’s worth. And so that’s the little story you are going to amuse the court with, is it?”
“That’s the little story, Squire. No two mistakes about it,” retorted the other, with an impudent leer. “And strike me blind, but it’ll be worth doin’ another month for the fun o’ seein’ the old Squire’s face when I’m a-tellin’ of it.”
Roland laughed quietly, contemptuously—and there was something in his laugh that seemed to undermine the other’s self assurance.
“You may tell your story, Devine—and then—”
“And then, Squire?”
“And then—you may go and be damned.” The perfect nonchalance of this reply was disconcerting in the extreme. The growing uneasiness which it inspired in the poacher found vent in bluster.
“Blast and blind me!” he snarled. “You don’t seem to care over-much. Yer don’t seem to have heard of Gipsy Steve. But there’s them here as has, and there’s them elsewhere as has, and to their cost. So mind me, Master Squire Dorrien, I say, and you’ll hear more o’ me yet.”
Roland slowly emitted a puff of smoke, and watched it mounting in blue circles upon the damp night air. Then he answered with sneering calmness: