By this time the reader knows his good qualities, and his defects; superior to his wife in one or two things, he was by no means so thorough a gentleman as she was a lady. He had begun to make a party with his own servants against the common enemy; and, in his wrath, he now took another step, or rather a stride, in the same direction. As he hurried away to the public-house, white with ire, he met his gamekeeper coming in with a bucketful of fish fresh caught. "What have ye got there?" said Griffith, roughly; not that he was angry with the man, but that his very skin was full of wrath, and it must exude. Mr. Leicester did not relish the tone, and replied, bluntly and sulkily, "Pike for our Papists." The answer, though rude, did not altogether displease Griffith; it smacked of odium theologicum, a sentiment he was learning to understand. "Put 'em down, and listen to me, Thomas Leicester," said he. And his manner was now so impressive that Leicester put down the bucket with ludicrous expedition, and gaped at him. "How, my man, why do I keep you here?" "To take care of your game, Squire, I do suppose." "What? when you are the worst gamekeeper in the county. How many poachers do you catch in the year? They have only to set one of their gang to treat you at the public-house on a moonshiny night, and the rest can have all my pheasants at roost while you are boozing and singing." "Like my betters in the parlour," muttered Tom. "But that is not all," continued Gaunt, pretending not to hear him. "You wire my rabbits, and sell them in the town. Don't go to deny it; fore I've half a dozen to prove it." Mr. Leicester looked very uncomfortable. His master continued--"I have known it this ten months, yet you are none the worse for't. Now, why do I keep you here, that any other gentleman in my place would send to Carlisle gaol on a justice's warrant?" Mr. Leicester, who had thought his master blind, and was so suddenly undeceived, hung his head and snivelled out, "'Tis because you have a good heart, Squire, and would not ruin a poor fellow for an odd rabbit or two." "Stuff and nonsense!" cried Gaunt. "Speak your mind, for once, or else begone for a liar as well as a knave." Thus appealed to, Leicester's gipsy eyes roved to and fro as if he were looking for some loophole to escape by; but at last he faced the situation. He said, with a touch of genuine feeling, "D----n the rabbits! I wish my hand had withered ere I touched one on them." But after this preface he sunk his voice to a whisper, and said, "I see what you are driving at, Squire; and since there is nobody with us (he took off his cap)--why, sir, 'tis this here mole I am in debt to, no doubt."