‘“Well, ah’ll hae to kill thee some day, Dick, and ah’ll might as weel ha’ done it noo.”
‘They were always like that, a word and a blow, till the keepers for miles around were almost all afraid of them, and purposely timed their beats to avoid the men. Ned, after a three months in gaol secured him by the old Lant Braithwaite, was one day working by a peat-pot ‘Luckily, however, the struggle had been noticed by other men at work on the moor, and the poacher was by main force pulled away from a brutal murder. Of course, even in that slack time, when a policeman was never seen outside the county town, such a thing as this had to be looked into. Ned the poacher was arrested and thrown into prison. When he came before the magistrates, one of them hailed him with: ‘“Well, Ned, Lant has got you again.” ‘“Ay, reet enough,” was the off-hand reply; “but he wodn’t [wouldn’t] if ah’d hed t’ peeat speead in me hand.” ‘What a present-day bench would say to a bloodthirsty address like this from a poacher, I don’t know, but keepers’ lives were held cheap in those days. Magistrates who would hang a man for stealing a sheep only inflicted a short sentence on the killer of a keeper. However, this time some big man took an interest in getting the poacher his due, and Ned finally got ten years’ transportation. ‘While he was away Dick was constantly in gaol. Perhaps he was less desperate than his brother, but I don’t know. Two water-bailiffs once came upon him laden with salmon, fresh netted, on a bridge. They tried to arrest him, but he was a strong man, and threw first one and then the other over the ledge. It was a sheer forty feet, and a horrible flood was dashing through among the rocks. But if keepers were cheap, bailiffs were cheaper. Both men managed to struggle out of the torrent many yards lower down, one with a broken arm and a badly cut head, but nothing was said about it. ‘Dick passed in and out of gaol till Ned’s long term was up. One wild February morning the gray castle gate opened and the poacher walked out. He was a hardened and unforgiving beggar; for the first thing he said, as he fixed his eyes on the bleak sunrise, was: ‘“Well, ah’m oot again, and noo Lant Braithwaite an’ thoo be alive, I’ll kill thee afore this time to-morn.” ‘At mid-day a great snowstorm closed down, and hourly became worse. At about four o’clock a knock came to Lant Braithwaite’s door; it was opened by his grandson. An elderly, rough-looking man asked: