Jack had told his mother that he was going to a friend at a distance, and should not return home that night. This made her sadly anxious; but she knew by experience that persuasion was lost upon him. When he returned home in the morning, she was confirmed in the suspicion that something was wrong. From his intimacy with Will Atkins she concluded he had been upon some poaching scheme; and determined, as she could do nothing herself, to try what effect Mr. Hooker could produce upon her son. It was not long before a good opportunity offered. Just as Jack left Mr. Hale's paddock, a heavy rain had come on, which soon soaked his clothes. Wet as he was, he got into a shed, partly for shelter, and partly to fill up the time, till his mother was up in the morning to let him in. The consequence was, that he caught a severe cold, attended with so much fever and head-ache, that he was unfit to go to work. Mr. Hooker called, and having kindly enquired after his health, began giving some hints on the subject of poaching. Jack sulkily answered, that "no one had a right to consider him as a poacher, until he was caught." Mr. Hooker, however, who had had some communication with Sir John's keeper, soon let him know that he had good ground for what he said; and endeavoured to make him sensible of the criminality and danger of his conduct. Jack would not acknowledge that poaching was wrong. Stealing he knew was disgraceful and sinful. To carry off a sheep, or to rob a henroost, deserved, he allowed, to be severely punished; "but," said he, "I cannot see the harm of _poaching_: animals that run wild by nature belong to nobody, and any body that can has a right to catch them. I don't know why it is more wrong to kill a partridge than it is to kill a crow or a sparrow; or why catching a hare is worse than knocking down a squirrel." "The laws of the land," said Mr. Hooker, "have made a difference between those animals, and it is the duty of every man to obey the laws of the country in which he lives." "Not," answered Jack, "if the laws are hard or unfair." "Our duty," replied Mr. Hooker, "is to obey the laws as we find them. If every one were at liberty to reject such laws as he disliked, we might almost as well have no laws at all. The thief would cast off the laws against stealing; the drunkard those against drunkenness; and of course the poacher would have no laws against poaching. The Scriptures teach us _to submit ourselves to every ordinance of man_; why? _for the Lord's sake_:--as a matter of religious duty. They bid us to be subject not only for wrath, for fear of punishment, but _for conscience sake_. They teach us _to obey magistrates_: to be dutiful _to the king as supreme, and to magistrates as to them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and the praise of them that do well_. Remember, therefore, that quiet obedience to the laws of the land is a Christian duty. We are to obey