The fond couple were sitting on a bench under a tree, for Joan had fairly tired under the weight of no less than nine rabbits which were slung on her belt. The lurcher stole up, and quietly laid a rabbit down at Joan's feet; then a soft-spoken man came from behind the tree, and observed-- "I am a policeman in plain clothes, and you must go with me to the keeper's cottage." But Darby, the wily one, rose to the occasion. The dog is trained to repudiate his acquaintance at a word, and when he said, "That's not my dog; get off, you brute!" the accomplished lurcher picked up the rabbit and vanished like lightning. Nevertheless the policeman led off Darby, and Joan followed. The keeper was out, but the policeman searched the Consumptive and found nothing. The keeper said to me--even me, "My wife tells me they brought up a man the other night, but he had no game on him. He had a woman with him that fairly made the missus tremble. She was like a bloomin' giant out of a show." I smiled, for the Consumptive had told me the whole tale. "My 'art was in my mouth," he remarked, and I do not wonder. Considering that Joan was padded with the carcases of _nine_ rabbits under that enormous cloak, it was quite natural for her bulk to seem abnormal. Ah! if that intelligent policeman had probed the mysteries that underlay the cloak! I am glad he did not, for the Consumptive is a most entertaining beast of prey. Another of our poaching men was obliged to borrow from me the money for his dog licences, and in gratitude he allowed me to see his brace of greyhounds work at midnight. People think that greyhounds cannot hunt by scent, but this man has a tiny black and a large brindle that work like basset-hounds. They are partners, and they have apparently a great contempt for the rules of coursing. One waits at the bottom of a field, while his partner quarters the ground with the arrowy fleetness of a swallow. When a hare is put up by the beating dog she goes straight to her doom. It seems marvellous that such lawless desperadoes should be hanging about London; but there they are, and they will have successors so long as there is a head of game on the ground. The men are disreputable loafers; they care only for drink and the pleasures of idleness. I grant that. My only business is to show what a strange secret life, what a strange secret society, may be studied almost within sight of St. Paul's. The very best and most daring poacher I know lives within five-and-twenty minutes' journey from Waterloo. You may keep on framing stringent game laws as long as you choose, but you cannot kill an overmastering instinct.