“Playse ye, sir, I couldn’t a-bear to see you a-treated same as ye be treated by them as ye puts your trust in. Everythin’ be in a reg’lar caddle all over the place--everythin’ be a-goin’ wrong, sir, and when I sees it, I tells ’em of it. I can’t do no different--’tis my dooty. You do pay I by the week reg’lar, and I bain’t a-goin’ to eat the bread o’ idleness--’t ’ud stick i’ my in’ards--’e-es, that it would. ‘So soon as I do get upon my legs,’ says I, ‘I’ll have a look round;’ and I did have a look round, and what did I find? Every blessed thing a-goin’ wrong--so I sarces ’em for ’t. I wasn’t a-goin’ to hold my tongue, and see you tricked and abused. I was easy wi’ ’em--a dalled sight too easy--I did ought to have reported of ’em before, but to-day I couldn’t stand it no longer; when I did speak to ’em they up and insulted me, both on ’em. ’E-es, they did. They insulted of I shameful.” “I am sorry to hear that----” the Squire was beginning, when Mr. Sanders, losing patience, interrupted him. “Begging your pardon, sir, ’tis more than flesh and blood can stand; ’tis got to be him or me--that’s all I can say. Nobody could put up with it. I found things in a very bad state when I came, and I’m getting them better gradual, sir, and doing my dooty in all respects as well as I can; but if Guppy is to be allowed to come pryin’ and spyin’ after me, and findin’ fault with all my arrangements----” “He did call I a trespasser,” broke out John, who had been ruminating over his private woes, without taking heed of the keeper’s indictment. “He did call I a trespasser; he did say I was trespassin’ when I told en I’d a-been walkin’ through the Long Wood yonder where I did catch his little rascal of a son a-bird’s-nestin’ so bold as you playse. And Jim there, what did ought to know better, up and said I was poachin’ last week. _Me_ poachin’! Me what brought him back that very day a dozen o’ snares what I had picked up i’ the hedge as he went gawkin’ past without taking a bit o’ notice of.” “’E-es, but you found a rabbit in one and popped it into your pocket!” cried Jim irefully. “Popped it into your pocket and walked off wi’ it, let I say what I would.” “In course I did,” retorted John, with great dignity, “in course I did. ’Tweren’t very likely as I’d leave it wi’ you. As I telled ’ee at the time--says I: ‘Squire wouldn’t grudge me a rabbit now arter all the hundreds as I’ve a-had while I was keeper up yonder.’” The Squire covered his mouth with his hand, but tell-tale wrinkles appeared about his eyes, and the points of his moustache curled significantly upwards. After a moment he recovered himself sufficiently to desire the keepers to withdraw, announcing that he would have a quiet talk with John Guppy, and that no doubt the matter could be arranged. “So you had hundreds of rabbits while you were in my service, John,” he remarked, crossing one leg over the other, and looking at the old man with a smile. “Didn’t you get very tired of them?”