and Mrs Holly, the widow with a small
shop, were almost borne down with the rates, and not seeing why they
should toil that Billy and Nanny Barton should lounge and drink.

Billy Barton, however, did more. He joined an expedition which Dan
Hewlett was already organising with Joe Todd, as much for revenge as
profit, to have a night of poaching in Mr Selby's woods, in which there
were a number of fine pheasants, not so many as at present where
preserves are strictly kept, but poaching was more profitable in some
ways, since in those days poulterers were not allowed to sell game
openly, but gave a higher price to men who could contrive to convey it
to them, and then sold it at a great profit to pretentious people, who
had no friends to give it to them, but who wanted to show it at their
dinner-parties. Tirzah Todd, as usual, was the means of disposing of
most of these gains. Her lively ways made poulterers and servants
inclined to further her dealings.

She was a great deal too sharp to carry any save her lawful wares to
Greenhow Farm; but in the last year since the Carbonels had come,
especially since the captain had been a magistrate, the trade had been
less prosperous and required more caution. Once Captain Carbonel had
found a wire for a hare in his hedge, and had made it known that he
should prosecute any one whom he caught out. He was no eager sportsman
himself, but he had a respect for the law.

The poachers arranged a raid upon the Selby woods, in which Joe Todd,
Dan Hewlett, and Billy Barton all took part. The first of these was too
sharp to be caught by the keepers. He had all the litheness and cunning
of his gipsy blood, and was actually safe in the branches of a tree
overhead, while Dan, having put his foot into a rabbit-hole, was seized
by one keeper, with his gun and a bag of spoil, and Billy Barton, in his
bewilderment, ran straight into the arms of another, with a pheasant's
tail poking up his short smock-frock as it stuck out of his pocket.

Of course Mr Selby could not commit for an offence against himself, so
Hewlett and Barton were hauled off to Captain Carbonel, while their
wives begged to see madam, and they were conducted to the verandah, for
the justice business was going on in the large kitchen. No doubt they
expected, though Nanny had read no novels, that the magistrate would sit
enthroned in the most public place in the house, that the women would
weep, that the ladies, with softened h