"Now, now!" cried Dickon, hastily recharging his gun, "we have got enough for once, I think; let us be off as soon as we can. We can hitch the venison over that nearest wall," and he turned to point in the direction to which he referred; but the sight that met his eyes at that moment almost made the powder-flask, with which he was in the act of priming, fall from his hands. Advancing from the chestnut-trees under which he himself had just been standing, was a party consisting of at least twelve strong men, apparently well armed, and he at once saw that all chance of escape for himself and his comrades, without a struggle, was over, as the keepers were coming up between them and the common, while on the other side lay the thick bushes from which the deer had issued, and in which his party must be entangled and taken if they attempted to fly in that direction, and to the westward, beyond the chestnut-trees, were the river and the park-keeper's house. Now, however, that the matter was inevitable, Dickon showed more resolution than he had hitherto done. "Stand to it, my men!" he cried: "they have nosed us, by----! there's no running now; we must make our way to that corner, or we're done." His companions instantly turned at his exclamation; and whatever might be their internal feelings, they showed nothing but a dogged determination to resist to the last. The man who had fired the last shot instantly thrust a bullet into his gun, which he had already charged with powder; and, giving up their slain game for lost, the poachers advanced towards the angle of the wood nearest to the park-wall, keeping in a compact body, and crossing the front of the other party in an oblique line. The keepers, however, hastened to interpose, and came up just in time to prevent their opponents from reaching the trees. Thus, then, at the moment that they mutually faced round upon each other, the left of the gipsies and the right of their adversaries touched the wood, but the odds were fearfully in favour of the gamekeepers. "Come, come, my masters, down with your arms!" cried Harvey, the head keeper; "it's no use resisting: do you not see we are better than two to one?" The first reply was the levelling of the gipsies' fowling pieces; and notwithstanding the superiority of numbers and the anticipation of resistance, the keepers drew a step or two back; for under such circumstances no one can tell whose the chance may be, and the thought of unpleasant death will have its weight till the blood is warm. "Stand off!" cried Dickon, boldly: "master keeper, let us go free, or take the worst of it. We leave you your venison, and a good half-ounce bullet in each buck to pay for our pastime; but be you sure that the guns which sent those bullets can send others as true, and will send them very speedily, if you try to stop us."