At the Fighting Cocks they found four or five of Will Atkins's particular friends sitting round the fire. They had not been drinking much, seemed sociable and friendly, and talked about any thing that came uppermost. Wildgoose soon went beyond the quantity, to which he had stinted himself; when all at once Atkins called out, "Come now, Jack, do tell us what could possess you to give up sporting. You used to take as much pleasure in it as any gentleman in the land." John was taken by surprise, and did not well know what to answer. At length he fairly acknowledged that he gave it up in consequence of what Mr. Hooker had said to him. "Well now, that is too bad," said Will, "I thought that you had been a lad of too much spirit to be talked over by a parson. I concluded that you had some real good reason, and never should have guessed that you had nothing more to say for yourself than that." John replied, that Mr. Hooker spoke very kindly to him; and that in what he said, he seemed to have both sense and Scripture on his side. "Scripture!" exclaimed Bob Fowler, "why sure enough Jack Wildgoose is turned methodist." They all laughed heartily at the joke, and went on for some time bantering Wildgoose upon his being so straight-laced. Jack never could stand being laughed at. He had not resolution enough to hold fast his integrity, when his integrity exposed him to ridicule. He did not remember the words of the prophet, _Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be afraid of their revilings_: nor those of our Saviour, _Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words_--that is, ashamed of being religious, of being a Christian--_in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in his glory with his holy angels_. In short, Atkins and his comrades plied Jack Wildgoose so successfully with ale and bantering, that he gave up his good resolutions, and agreed to accompany them on a scheme which they had already planned for making an attack upon Sir John's preserve. They sat drinking till past twelve o'clock at night, and then repaired by different roads to the scene of action. It so happened, that the keepers had received some information, which had carried them to the opposite side of the manor. The gang, therefore, carried on their operations for some time without interruption; and when their firing had drawn the keepers towards them, one of the party, who had been posted on the look-out, contrived to give them a signal, so that they got away without difficulty. They returned to their rendezvous loaded with pheasants, for which Tomkins paid them a good price, with some gin into the bargain. They gave Wildgoose more than his fair share of the money by way of encouragement; and agreed to meet again on the following Thursday.