Perhaps he see 'em when ee's going to the wood with a wood cart--or he cooms across 'em in the turnips--wounded birds, you understan', miss, perhaps the day after the gentry 'as been bangin' at 'em all day.

An' ee don't see, not for the life of 'im, why ee shouldn't have 'em.

Ther's bin lots an' lots for the rich folks, an' he don't see why _ee_ shouldn't have a few arter they've enjoyed theirselves.

And mebbe he's eleven shillin' a week--an' two-threy little chillen--you understan', miss ?" "Of course I understand!" said Marcella, eagerly, her dark cheek flushing.

"Of course I do! But there's a good deal of game given away in these parts, isn't there?
I know Lord Maxwell does, and they say Lord Winterbourne gives all his labourers rabbits, almost as many as they want." Her questions wound old Patton up as though he had been a disused clock.
He began to feel a whirr among his creaking wheels, a shaking of all his rusty mind.
"Perhaps they do, miss," he said, and his wife saw that he was beginning to tremble.