"Oh, they have committed offences enough, my lord," answered the keeper; "and if your lordship give fifty guineas, we shall soon have plenty to help in catching them." The peer paused for a moment or two without any direct reply; but he then answered, "What I have said I mean, Harvey: the fifty guineas I would give of course to the man by whose means they were principally brought to justice; but I would do more, and pay handsomely every one concerned in actually taking them. Do you think they have ever shot any of the deer?" he added after a short pause. "No, my lord, no!" answered the keeper, fearful that blame might fall upon himself; "I will answer for it they have not done that." "I am sorry for it," said Lord Dewry, dryly. The man stared, and the peer proceeded:--"I am sorry for it; because, you see, Harvey, the offence would be the heavier, and we might get rid of them for ever if we could prove such a thing against them; whereas this poaching, especially if it be a first offence, will only take them out of the way for a time, and then turn them back upon us more enraged against us than ever." "That's true, my lord, that's true," replied the keeper, whose perceptions were sufficiently acute, and who began to see that his master had a very potent distaste to the race of gipsies, although his mind, proceeding in its habitual train, did not fail to conclude that the peer's motives for hating them were the same which would have actuated himself had he been in the peer's situation, namely, wrath at their having destroyed the peculiar objects of his veneration, game, and anger at their having outwitted him in his endeavours to preserve it. He went no further in his investigations of his lord's designs, though he himself had peculiar motives of his own; but, possessing goodly powers of detestation himself, he easily conceived that the baron would not scruple at any plausible stratagem for the purpose of obtaining his object. "That's true, my lord, that's true," replied he; "but do you know, I should not wonder if they did some night shoot a fat buck upon his moonlight walk; and I dare say, for the matter of that, we could get them to do it very soon." "Nay, nay," cried the peer in a tone of moderation, "take care what you are about, Harvey; for if any one were to discover that you instigated them, you might get transported; and though of course I would take care that none of my servants was a loser by his zeal in my service, yet I should not like you to get into any scrape."