“You must consider, sir, how many the gains have to be divided amongst. Where poaching is done by gangs, as it is here, there are a great number to share in the first instance. Then there are the coachmen or van-drivers that carry the game up to London, and the porters that take charge of it there. Then the poulterers must have their commission; double what they have on poultry, on account of the risk. And then there is the waste,—which is more than is easily counted,—what with the game being mangled, and killed out of season, and sent up in a bad state. Pheasants are sent up long after January, and hares with young; and sometimes half a sackfull is good for nothing when it is unpacked. All this can leave but little gain for the woodman’s share.” “And his gains must be most uncertain, too. When he sends up a fine batch of game, he may chance to find that the market is overstocked. There can be no regularity of supply where it is carried on in an illegal and underhand manner.” “That is true, sir; and I have heard from people here, disappointed in the way you speak of, that in the very middle of the season, when every dinner-table in the London gentry’s houses had game upon it, full one-third of what was sent up was thrown away. After hawking about what was not quite past cooking, and selling birds for a few pence to anybody that passed by, one poulterer alone threw two thousand partridges into the Thames. This makes our people here so united as they are. They keep up a perfect understanding all the way to London, that there may be the less difficulty in poaching to order,—which is the surest way to make money.” “To the poulterer’s order?” “Yes. He sends down a message, perhaps, that he has engaged to furnish some thousand head a week for three weeks, and that he depends upon this district; and then poaching is the order of the day. By the time the job is done, the newspapers begin to cry out. There is often work for the coroner, before all is over; and account is laid for a few going to prison; but where all are banded together in prospect of this, the going to prison is no disgrace, and not much of a hardship; and the manslaughter comes to be looked upon as a matter of course.” “I shall tell my brother all this,” said James, rising. “Not so as to implicate you,” he added, perceiving that Mr. Riley looked alarmed. “Now is the time, while I am at Fellbrow, to keep a watch over our poaching neighbours. Pray do they meddle with deer?” “Your gamekeeper can tell you that better than I can,” replied the farmer, now grown wary as to his communications. “Would you like to step abroad, sir, and look at the bit of ground I told you of?”