"I dare say the lawyers could say something on behalf of that form of stealing," Frank Meredyth answered, good-naturedly, "only that they’re all busy justifying the big stealings—the stealings of emperors, and statesmen, and financial magnates. However, I will admit this also: it is uncommonly awkward when you have poaching going on. It is an annoyance that worries. And you suspect everybody; and go on suspecting, until you can trust nobody; and you get disgusted with the whole place. Your abstract sympathy with the life of a poacher won’t comfort you when you imagine that the moor has been shot over before you are out in the morning, and when you suspect the keepers of connivance. It isn’t pleasant, I must say; indeed, it is a condition of affairs that can but rarely exist anywhere, for naturally the keepers are risking a good deal—risking their place, in fact——" "I quite agree with you, Mr. Meredyth," Mary said at this point, with some emphasis. "Indeed, it is a condition of affairs that looks to me absurdly improbable. I should like to have some sort of definite proof of it before believing it. No doubt, there may be some such feeling as you suggest among the people—that Mr. Ross should still have the fishing and shooting: it is easy enough to believe that, when you find you cannot convince them that the land does not belong to him too; but it is quite another thing to assume that he takes advantage of this prevailing sentiment. However, in any case, isn’t the remedy quite simple? Why shouldn’t Fred ask him to go shooting with you? Surely there is room for three guns?" "Oh," said Fred Stanley, with some stiffness, "if you wish to invite him to shoot on the Twelfth, very well. It is your shooting; it is for you to say. Of course, I did not understand when I left London that there was any stranger going to join the party, or I should have explained as much to Frank——" "I am sure I shall be only too delighted, Miss Stanley," Frank Meredyth put in, quickly, "if any friend of yours should join us—quite delighted—naturally—another gun will be all the better. And when I spoke of the joys of poaching, I assure you it was without any particular reference to anybody: I was telling you what would be my own ambition in other circumstances. Fred will write to Mr. Ross——" "I beg your pardon," said the young gentleman, with something of coldness. "Mamie, you’d better write yourself." "Not if there is going to be any disinclination on your part," she said. "Disinclination?" he repeated. "Well, the way I look at it is simply this: you suspect that poaching is going on, and you ask the poacher to go shooting—why? Because you are afraid of him. It is a confession of weakness. What I would do, if the place were mine, is this: I’d send the keepers packing—and every man-jack of the gillies, too—until I knew I was master. It is perfectly preposterous that your own servants should connive at your being cheated——"