Unfortunately, in spite of all his mother said to the contrary, Bob was firmly impressed with the notion that game of every kind, whether fur or feather, belonged as much to him as to the gentry who tried to preserve them. The fresh air was free; nobody dared to claim the sunshine. Then why the wild birds, and the hares and rabbits?
Evil company corrupts good manners. That is what his copy-book used to tell him. But Bob soon learned to laugh at that, and it is no wonder that as he reached manhood his doings and daring as a poacher became noted far and near.
He was beyond the control of his mother. She could only advise him, read to him, pray for him; but I fear in vain. Only be it known that Bob Cooper really loved this mother of his, anomalous though it may seem.
Well, the keepers had been very harsh with him, and the gentry were harsh with him, and eke the law itself. Law indeed! Why Bob was all but an outlaw, so intense was his hatred to, and so great his defiance of the powers that be.
It was strange that what force could not effect, a few soft words from Branson, and Archie’s gift of the hare he had shot on his birthday, brought about. Bob Cooper’s heart could not have been wholly adamantine, therefore he began to believe that after all a gamekeeper might be a good fellow, and that there might even exist gentlefolks whose chief delight was not the oppression of the poor. He began after that to seek for honest work; but, alas! people looked askance at him, and he found that the path of virtue was one not easily regained when once deviated from.
His quondam enemy, however, Branson, spoke many a good word for him, and Bob was getting on, much to his mother’s delight and thankfulness, when the final and crashing blow fell.
Poor old widow Cooper! For years and years she had but two comforts in this world; one was her Bible, and the other—do not smile when I tell you—was her pipie.
Oh! you know, the poor have not much to make them happy and to cheer their loneliness, so why begrudge the widow her morsel of tobacco?
In the former she learned to look forward to another and a better world, far beyond that bit of blue sky she could see at the top of her chimney on a summer’s night—a world where everything would be bright and joyful, where there would be no vexatious rheumatism, no age, and neither cold nor care. From the latter she drew sweet forgetfulness of present trouble, and happy recollections of bygone years.
Sitting there by the hearth all alone—her son perhaps away on the hill—her thoughts used oftentimes to run away with her. Once more she would be young, once again her hair was a bonnie brown, her form little and graceful, roses mantling in her cheeks, soft light in her eyes. And she is wandering through the tasselled broom with David by her side. “David! Heigho!” she would sigh as she shook the ashes from her pipie. “Poor David! it seems a long, long time since he left me for the better land,” and the sunlight would stream down the big, open chimney and fall upon her skinny hands—fall upon the elfin-like locks that escaped from beneath her cap—fall, too, on the glittering pages of the Book on her lap like a promise of better things to come.