"That it is, as sure as eggs are eggs," added the dame, into whose mind conviction had been entering a little more quickly than into that of her husband.
"There now!" exclaimed Dick, springing from his seat, and feeling proud of the power of his argumentation, when he saw both the farmer and his wife brought over so triumphantly to his side of the question. "There now, you see, Kiah Dobson, a man may be judged very wrongly, and be condemned for a thief and a rogue by many who are either—saving your presence, farmer—thorough fools or rogues themselves, and yet, all the while, he may be quite as honest as his neighbours. Now, don't you think it hard, Kiah, under all the circumstances, that you are not allowed to kill a hare when you like?"
"I'm not thinking so much about that," replied Farmer Dobson, his eyes still bent very thoughtfully downward—"I'm not thinking so much about that, as I am wondering how, in the name of Old Nick, these things came to be as they are. You see, Dick, it was the same in my father's time, though I've heard him say that my grandfather used to tell how, in the time of the great troubles, folks killed game when and where they liked; but that was only owing to the unsettled state of things, for these laws about the game were made before that time I take it, Dick."
"According to what I've learned about it," said Dick, looking still more proud than before, and feeling himself superior in information to the rest of the company, "these Game Laws, as they are called, began with William the Conqueror, the king that I dare say you've heard of, farmer, that came from beyond the sea, and got possession of this country, when——"
"Likely, likely," said the farmer, yawning, and growing wearied of Dick's learning; "I don't care two straws who first made such laws, Dick; but I'm sure of one thing—that it must be wrong, when one thinks on it, that the great folk should claim the wild creatures God Almighty makes himself as their own, when, all the while, they have no more right to 'em than other folk."
"To be sure it's wrong, farmer," said Dick. "What right could any man have, whether he were a king, or a 'squire, or a parson, to say to all the people of this country, or any other country, 'You shall none of you kill a stag, or a hare, or a pheasant, under pain of losing a hand, or going to prison?' The only wonder is, farmer, that people have submitted to these laws so long and so quietly."
"Why, you see, Dick," continued the farmer, whose common sense was of a more solid character than Dick's, though his perceptions were not quite so acute at the outset of an enquiry—"you see, Dick, this law is contrived, like most other laws, to draw a number of folk into the love and the liking of it: it isn't simply one man now, whatever it might have been formerly, that is interested in keeping up these Game Laws. Rich folks generally think they ought to do no other but uphold 'em. They say, that all the game would soon be destroyed if every body was allowed to kill hares and pheasants when and where they like. The 'squire, too, sends presents, you know, to his acquaintances the great folk in London, and elsewhere; and if hares and pheasants and partridges were as common with poor folk as with rich, why, the great folk would soon scorn to have 'em on their tables. 'There are wheels within wheels,' as the miller says, Dick. Rich folk are sure to hang together on their side of the wheat-sack; and that is the reason—more than their money, Dick, mind ye! more than their money—why they are so much more powerful than the poor. And for the self-same reason that they are so powerful, Dick," concluded the farmer, seeming determined to finish his speech in spite of the poacher's evident dislike to it, "I think it is far better for all who love peace and quietness, and a whole skin, to keep out of harm's way. You understand me, Dick! Come, dame, fill us a good jug of ale, and let us have a bit of bread and cheese, or a mouthful of bacon, and Dick and I will talk these things over a bit, just in a quiet and sensible way."
The dame hasted to set her hospitality before her spouse and the poacher; and it soon became hard to say which most excelled in the act of doing justice to it. The strong ale, however, was most freely partaken by the poacher, and, under its potency, Dick's tongue soon began to indulge itself with a tolerably large licence.
"I' faith, farmer," he said, "you gave me a roughish reception when I crossed your threshold; you must do things gentlier another time, when you're disposed for a cramp: it's only a fool-hardy sort of a thing to take a bull by the horns: it's ten times wiser, when he makes a butt at you, to scratch him a bit, and coax him, and smooth him down."