"Stealing, say you?" rejoined Dick, his brows knitting together; "I scorn your words, Kiah Dobson!—You lie in your throat!—What do I steal?" "The 'squire's hares, by dozens, thou saucy varlet," answered Kiah. "How come they to be the 'squire's hares?" asked Dick, fixing his eyes very keenly on the farmer. "By feeding and breeding on his land," answered Kiah Dobson. "But don't _you_ plough the land, Farmer Dobson?" "To be sure I do——" "And don't _you_ buy the seed to sow upon the land?" "Sartainly I do——" "And don't _you_ sow the seed when you have bought it?" "Ay, and I can sow a breadth with here and there a fellow in any——" "Pshaw!—don't _you_ watch the corn while it is growing, weed it, and attend to it till it is ripe? and do not _you_, with the sweat of your own brow, and the help of those you hire with your own purse, reap the corn, and gather it into the stack-yard?—and don't _you_, afterwards, pay many a shilling in wages for Roger Brown, and Tim Wilson, and others, to thrash your corn for you?—and don't you consider the corn _yours_ when you are taking it to market?—and don't you think _you_ have a right to receive the money for which you sell it?" "Ay, and I would fain be knowing, Dick, who besides has so good a right to it as I have," replied the farmer, starting to his feet with warmth, and not apprehending the drift of Dick's queries. "Then the corn which these poor hares have eaten during the summer," said Dick, pointing to the dead animals which lay on the floor, "was _your_ corn, and _not_ the 'squire's, for you pay him his rent, don't you, Kiah?" "Zounds, ay! to the very day," instantly and proudly replied the farmer. "And yet _you_ durst not kill a hare, and be seen in doing it," said Dick, not permitting a moment's pause to take place. "Me kill a hare!" exclaimed Kiah, scratching his head, and colouring very deeply; "Lord! you know, Dick, I've no licence; and, besides, the 'squire always reckons the hares his own, you know." "Does he?" said Dick, with a peculiar sneer, "then he's a fool for so doing.—Why, Farmer Dobson, don't you remember how, last latter-end, three persons came from Lincoln, and went shooting like wild devils over the whole estate, murdering and bagging all they could see? And it's more than likely you'll have a greater number of the Lincoln Minster Jackdaws, as the 'squire called 'em, this month than you had last November; and will the 'squire be such a fool as to call the hares his own then, when the black thieves are packing off with them, think you?" "Dang it! thou talks very odd, Dick!" said the farmer, sitting down very quietly, fixing his eyes on the floor, and scratching his head harder than before; "thou talks very odd, but what thou say'st is as true as the gospel, for all that." "That it is, as sure as eggs are eggs," added the dame, into whose mind conviction had been entering a little more quickly than into that of her husband.