Big Jock Morrison looked perfectly able to do that, as he now stood with his hands in his pockets, staring about him in a cool defiant way. It seemed that he had been warned off Lord Artingale's ground several times, but had been too cunning for the keepers, and had only been taken red-handed the previous day, very early in the morning, so evidence showed; and he and his companion had upon them a hare, a rabbit, and a couple of pheasants, beside some wire snares and a little rusty single-barrelled gun, whose barrel unscrewed into two pieces, and which, so the head-keeper deposed, was detached from the stock and stowed away in the inner pocket of the big prisoner's coat. Gun, powder-flask, tin measure, and bag of shot, with game, placed upon the table. "And what did the prisoners say when you came upon them by--where did you say, keeper?" said one magistrate. "Runby Spinney, Sir Joshua, just where the Greenhurst lane crosses the long coppice, Sir Joshua." "And what did the prisoners say?" said the chairman stiffly. "Said they was blackberrying, Sir." "Oh!" said the chairman, and he appeared so stern that no one dared laugh, though a young rustic-looking policeman at whom Jock Morrison winked turned red in the face with his efforts to prevent an explosion. "Did they make any--er--er--resistance, keeper?" said the chairman. "The big prisoner, sir, said he'd smash my head if I interfered with him." "Dear me! A very desperate character," said Sir Joshua. "And did he?" "No, Sir Joshua, we was too many for him. There was me, Smith, Duggan, and the two pleecemen, so they give in." And so on, and so on. Had the prisoners anything to say in their defence? The dirty man had not, Jock Morrison had. "Lookye here: he didn't take the game, shouldn't ha' taken it, only they foun' 'em all lying aside the road. It was a fakement o' the keeper's, that's what it was. They was a pickin' blackberries, that's what him and his mate was a doin' of, and as soon as the 'ops was ready they was a going down south to pick 'ops." The magistrates' clerk, the principal solicitor in the town, smiled, and said he was afraid they would miss the hop-picking that season, as it was over. There was a short conference on the bench, and then the Rev Eli Mallow sentenced the prisoners to three months' imprisonment, and told them it was very fortunate for them that they had not resisted the law. "You arn't going to quod us for three months along o' them birds and that hare, are you?" said Jock Morrison. "Take them away, policeman." "Hold hard a moment," said the big fellow, so fiercely that the sergeant present drew back. "Look here, parsons, you'll spoil our hop-picking." "Take them away, constable," said the Rev Eli. "The next case." "Hold hard, d'ye hear!" cried the big ruffian, in a voice of thunder. "I s'pose, parson," he continued, addressing the chairman, "if I say much to you, I shall get it laid on thicker."