'Why?' asked Roland, dissembling his rage, to find the mask thrown off thus. 'Because the land is worth twice as much again as it was in the days when your grandfather gave a tack of the Mains to his grandfather.' 'Surely he deserves to benefit thereby?' 'We don't think so.' 'We again!' thought Roland, trembling with suppressed passion; but now Trotter, the servant, announced that the gamekeeper wished to see Mr. Sharpe, and Gavin Fowler was ushered in--an old man whose eyes, when Roland shook hands with him, glistened with pride and pleasure, as he exclaimed: 'Welcome back to your father's rooftree and yer ain fireside, sir; a' here hae lang wanted ye sairly.' A sneer hovered on the lips of Hawkey Sharpe, as he said briefly to the keeper, who had a gun under his arm, a shot-belt over his shoulders, and a couple of dogs at his heels: 'Well, what brings you here to-day?' 'I've caught that loon Jamie Spens snaring rabbits and hares in the King's Wood.' 'At last,' said Hawkey Sharpe through his teeth. 'At last, sir,' responded the keeper, chiefly to Roland. 'Did he show fight?' asked Sharpe. 'Of course he did; Jamie comes o' a camstairy and fechtin' race.' 'I know that,' said Roland; 'this is not his first offence, by what you said?' 'Allow _me_, sir,' said the steward pointedly, with a wave of his hand. 'He is no bad kind o' chield,' urged the keeper. 'He will serve for an example, anyway!' 'His family are puir--starving, in fact, sir.' 'What the deuce do I care? I'd as soon shoot a poacher as a weasel.' 'Let the poor fellow off for this time,' said Roland. 'Of course--do, please,' urged Maude; 'if you, Mr. Sharpe, were poor, hungry, and, more than all, had a hungry wife and children----' 'They are nothing to me.' 'But such pretty little children!' urged Maude. 'God bless your kind heart, miss!' exclaimed the old keeper. 'Let him go--this once--I say,' said Roland, still boiling at the tone and manner adopted by the steward. 'For my sake,' added Maude sweetly. 'For yours?' asked Mr. Sharpe, looking at her with a peculiar expression to which Roland had not yet the key, for he said firmly and emphatically: 'At my _order_, rather!' 'Roland, please don't interfere,' said his cold and pale-faced stepmother; 'Mr. Sharpe knows precisely how to deal with these people.' 'Oh--indeed!' 'I shall not take my way in this instance,' said Mr. Sharpe condescendingly; 'and so, to please _you_, Miss Lindsay, the culprit shall go free,' he added, with a bow to Maude, who blushed, more with annoyance, apparently, than satisfaction, while Roland, in obedience to an imploring glance from her, stifled his indignation, and abruptly quitted the library.