"Why, you see, Dick," continued the farmer, whose common sense was of a more solid character than Dick's, though his perceptions were not quite so acute at the outset of an enquiry—"you see, Dick, this law is contrived, like most other laws, to draw a number of folk into the love and the liking of it: it isn't simply _one_ man _now_, whatever it might have been formerly, that is interested in keeping up these Game Laws. Rich folks generally think they ought to do no other but uphold 'em. They say, that all the game would soon be destroyed if every body was allowed to kill hares and pheasants when and where they like. The 'squire, too, sends presents, you know, to his acquaintances the great folk in London, and elsewhere; and if hares and pheasants and partridges were as common with poor folk as with rich, why, the great folk would soon scorn to have 'em on their tables. 'There are wheels within wheels,' as the miller says, Dick. Rich folk are sure to hang together on their side of the wheat-sack; and that is the reason—more than their money, Dick, mind ye! more than their money—why they are so much more powerful than the poor. And for the self-same reason that they _are_ so powerful, Dick," concluded the farmer, seeming determined to finish his speech in spite of the poacher's evident dislike to it, "I think it is far better for all who love peace and quietness, and a whole skin, to keep out of harm's way. You understand me, Dick! Come, dame, fill us a good jug of ale, and let us have a bit of bread and cheese, or a mouthful of bacon, and Dick and I will talk these things over a bit, just in a quiet and sensible way." The dame hasted to set her hospitality before her spouse and the poacher; and it soon became hard to say which most excelled in the act of doing justice to it. The strong ale, however, was most freely partaken by the poacher, and, under its potency, Dick's tongue soon began to indulge itself with a tolerably large licence. "I' faith, farmer," he said, "you gave me a roughish reception when I crossed your threshold; you must do things gentlier another time, when you're disposed for a cramp: it's only a fool-hardy sort of a thing to take a bull by the horns: it's ten times wiser, when he makes a butt at you, to scratch him a bit, and coax him, and smooth him down." The farmer was a little nettled by Raven Dick's taunting tone and the devilry of his eye; but he thought one scuffle enough for a day, and so replied with a somewhat forced look of good humour, "I hardly think it's wisest at all times, Dick. I think, for my own part, the only way sometimes is to take a bull by the horns. And besides, Dick, whoever heard o' such a thing as scratching a bull? You may scratch an angry cur, you know, Dick," he concluded with a laugh, "but a bull!—no, no, Dick, scratching a bull won't do at all!"