Mr Matthew Sweetland heard the chaff of his companions and looked grim. He was head gamekeeper at Middlecott Court, and no man had a worthier reputation. From his master to his subordinates, all spoke well of him. His life prospered; his autumn “tips” were a splendid secret known only to himself and his wife. He looked forward presently to retiring from the severe business of a gamekeeper and spending the end of life in peace. One thorn alone pricked Matthew; and from that there was no escape. His only son, Daniel Sweetland, had disappointed him. The keeper’s wife strove to make her husband more sanguine; neighbours all foretold pleasant things concerning Daniel; but the lad’s reputation was not good. His knowledge of sport and his passion for sport had taken a sinister turn. They were spiced with a love of adventure and very vague ideas on the law of property. Flogging had not eradicated these instincts. When the time came to make choice of a trade, Daniel decided against gamekeeping. “I be too fond of sport,” he said. And now he worked at Vitifer Mine on Dartmoor, and was known to be the cleverest poacher in the district. On coming of age, the youth made his position clear to his parents. “I don’t think the same as you, father, because I’ve larned my lessons at the Board School, an’ ideas be larger now than they was in your time. I must have my bit o’ sport; an’ when they catches me, ’twill be time enough to pull a long face about it. But this I’ll promise on my oath; that never do I set foot inside Middlecott woods, an’ never will I help any man as does. I’ll not lift a gun against any bird of your raising; but more I won’t say. As to game in general--well, I’ve got my opinions; an’ being a Radical with large ideas about such things, I’ll go my way.” “Go your way to the gallows,” said Matthew Sweetland. “If I’d knowed what I was breeding you for, I’d have sent you to your uncle the cobbler to London, an’ never taught you one end of a gun from t’other. ’Tis poor payment for a good father’s care to find his only one be an ungrateful toad of a boy, an’ a disgrace to the nation.” “Sporting will out,” answered Daniel, calmly. “I ban’t a bad sort; an’ I’ll disgrace nobody. I’m a honest, plain dealer--according to my own lights; an’ if I don’t agree with you about the rights of property in wild things like birds an’ fish, an’ a hare now an’ again--well, what of it?” “’Tis the beginning,” declared his father. “From the day I catched you setting a wire in a hedge unbeknownst to me, I felt that I’d done wrong to let you bide in the country.” And now Matthew Sweetland’s beer tasted sour as he heard the talk of his neighbours in the bar of the “White Hart.”