“There is one thing,” remarked a spare, but hale-looking man, who sat next the herbalist, “one thing, or, may be, a thing or two, I'll make bold to observe, which is, namely, this:--though Zaul Braintree were never over and above vriendly to I--that be nothing--the man's a man--and I do zay, the'zquire were a bit too hard upon Zaul, to turn un off wi out more nor an hour's notice, and not gi'e un a good character:--and what vor, I wonder?--Because this here Phil Govier, a demure, down-looking twoad, zaid a' poached a bit! A'ter this, what were Zaul to do? Wi'out a character, he couldn't get a zarvice, and a poor man bean't to starve: zo a' poached, and that in downright earnest;--and it ztrikes I, no blame to un neither.” “Oh! fie! fie!” exclaimed the supervisor; “you should not preach so, friend; the practice of poaching is highly illegal.” “Highly illegal,--indeed,--John,--that is,--James Cobb,” said the exciseman, in his usual manner; “we must not hear--this sort of a--thing; must we,--constable?” “Why, it bean't treason, master exciseman, be it?” asked a tall old fellow, who stood at the end of the settle. “Do you hear--that?” said the exciseman, turning to his superior; “do you hear that?--and he an earth-stopper,--and gets his bread by--the game laws.” The supervisor looked aside toward the bottom of the narrow table, and while the ensuing conversation went on, took a deliberate view of the earth-stopper's person, apparel, and accoutrements. He was a squalid-looking figure, with half a week's growth of grey beard on his chin and cheeks; the edge of a red woollen night-cap, which he wore under a weather-beaten dog's-hair hat, was strained across his pale, wrinkled brow; his legs were thin, puny, and bent outward in such a manner, that they seemed to have been moulded on the carcase of a horse. “Well,” quoth the earth-stopper, in reply to the exciseman's observation, shouldering his pick-axe and shovel, and lighting the candle in his lanthorn, as he spoke; “I zuppose a man may move his tongue, if a' be a yearth-stopper,--or else what be the use o't to un?--I were one o' the virst to lay hands on young Braintree, and always ha' ztood vorward on zuch like 'casions; but what o' that? I'd help to take up thee, or thy betters by the zide o' thee there, if thee wert zuzpected and accused; but vor all that, I'd speak up my own mind, and zay, I thought thee wert innocent, iv zo be as I did think thee zo--mind me:--and now you ha' put me up, I'll go vurther, and ask 'ee, what business had Phil Govier a' got in the copse that time o' night?” “Ay, that's true,” observed the landlord; “for it be well known the 'squire's strict orders was, that the keepers shouldn't go out o' nights. 'Let the poachers have a little o' their own way,' I have a heard un say;--'I'd rather lose a few head o' game, than ha' blood shed upon the manor; and meetings by night, betwixt poachers and keepers, often do end worse than either one or t'other a' looked for.'”