"Devilish fine girl! Since you ask my opinion, you've got it frankly, and for what it's worth. And so that's the little story you are going to amuse the court with, is it?" "That's the little story, Squire. No two mistakes about it," retorted the other, with an impudent leer. "And strike me blind, but it'll be worth doin' another month for the fun o' seein' the old Squire's face when I'm a-tellin' of it." Roland laughed quietly, contemptuously--and there was something in his laugh that seemed to undermine the other's self assurance. "You may tell your story, Devine--and then--" "And then, Squire?" "And then--you may go and be damned." The perfect nonchalance of this reply was disconcerting in the extreme. The growing uneasiness which it inspired in the poacher found vent in bluster. "Blast and blind me!" he snarled. "You don't seem to care over-much. Yer don't seem to have heard of Gipsy Steve. But there's them here as has, and there's them elsewhere as has, and to their cost. So mind me, Master Squire Dorrien, I say, and you'll hear more o' me yet." Roland slowly emitted a puff of smoke, and watched it mounting in blue circles upon the damp night air. Then he answered with sneering calmness: "You were perfectly right in saying I didn't seem to care over-much. I don't--and for these among other reasons. In the first place, you won't tell that story, because, if you do, it isn't another month you'll find yourself in for, but several years. Libel, with a view to blackmailing, means penal servitude in this country, remember. In the next place, if you do tell it your daughter will go into the witness-box and deny the whole thing on oath--for even granted the truth of your discovery, I needn't remind a man of your 'cuteness that she would rather see you hung than give a word of evidence likely to damage me." He paused for a moment, noting with a sneer the fury depicted in his listener's convulsed features. "Lastly," he went on, "such a tale told by a person of your well-known respectability, friend Gipsy Steve, wouldn't affect me in the slightest degree, since nobody would believe a word of it, or at the worst would pretend not to. By the way, Devine, were you ever in the States?" The start, and the sudden lividness of the other's countenance plainly visible in the moonlight, were answer enough. With a slight smile Roland went on. "Ah, I see you have been there. And that being the case you have an advantage over those who have not--that of knowing who's got the drop. I've got the drop on you, friend Stephen Devine, and I mean to keep it. So you shall be in quod to-morrow, and will have an opportunity of entertaining the Bench with your little romance next Petty Sessions." The poacher was shrewd enough to recognise the force of every one of Roland's assertions. So he changed his tone to the inevitable one of the beaten rough. He cringed.