"Well, Devine, and what have you got to say for yourself?" said the chairman. There had been no defence set up; the prisoner had doggedly pleaded guilty. Indeed he could hardly have done otherwise, seeing that he had been caught red-handed in the act of taking one of the leverets out of the "hang," while the other was found upon him. The head-keeper of Cranston and his subordinate had just been stating to the Bench under what circumstances they had made their capture; moreover, that the culprit was an excessively leery bird, who had long dodged the sharp watch they had kept upon him--and now the justices, having conferred together, were prepared to pass sentence. "Please your warshups," said the prisoner sullenly, "I'd bin out o' work for nigh three weeks, and rent owin', and nothin' to keep the pot bilin' at home. And I set the `hangs' for rabbits, your warshups, which isn't game, an' I thowt as how that bit o' furze were common land, and didn't belong to nobody. And somehow when the hares got cotched, I took 'em, cos my gal had just come home, and there weren't nothin' in the house." An eager look came into the man's swarthy hang-dog countenance. He was a heavy, powerfully built fellow of middle height, and his dark complexion and jet-black hair had gained for him the sobriquet "Gipsy Steve;" that, and the fact that no one knew where he came from, or anything about him. Among his own class he was popularly supposed to be "a man who had committed a murder," for no reason apparently, unless it were his foreign and uncommon aspect, and a terribly evil look which would come over his dark features when crossed or roused. Again the magistrates conferred together. "Gaol's the word," said Mr Pagnell decisively. "No fine this time. The fellow's an out-and-out knave, and now he's trying to humbug us into the bargain. Why he's been up numberless times before us for one thing or another, and twice already for poaching." "But he was acquitted the first time, and the second there was a doubt," expostulated the clerical justice--a kindly-hearted man who, although his commission of the peace was congenial to a harmless vanity, disliked punishing his fellow men. "I think we might give him another chance." So two of the trio being in favour of mercy, stern justice was outvoted.