leaned over the roof, and one of the limbs was like to fall; but they
wouldn't cut him, just to spite us, and the rain dripping spoilt the
thatch. So I just had another chimney built at that end for an oven, and
kept up the smoke till all the tree that side died. I've had more than
one pheasant through them oaks, as draws 'em: I had one in a gin as I
put in the ditch by my garden.

'They started a tale as 'twas I as stole the lambs a year or two ago,
and they had me up for it; but they couldn't prove nothing agen me. Then
they had me for unhinging the gates and drowning 'em in the water, but
when they was going to try the case they two young farmers as you know
of come and said as they did it when they was tight, and so I got off.
They said as 'twas I that put the poison for the hounds when three on
'em took it and died while the hunt was on. It were the dalledest lie! I
wouldn't hurt a dog not for nothing. The keeper hisself put that poison,
I knows, 'cause he couldn't bear the pack coming to upset the pheasants.
Yes, they been down upon I a main bit, but I means to bide. All the
farmers knows as I never touched no lamb, nor even pulled a turmot, and
they never couldn't get no witnesses.

'After a bit I catched the keeper hisself and the policeman at it; and
there be another as knows it, and who do you think that be? It be the
man in town as got the licence to sell game as haves most of my hares;
the keeper selled he a lot as the money never got to my lard's pocket
and the steward never knowed of. Look at that now! So now he shuts his
eye and axes me to drink, and give me the ferreting job in Longlands
Mound; but, Lord bless 'ee, I bean't so soft as he thinks for.

'They used to try and get me to fight the keeper when they did catch me
with a wire, but I knowed as hitting is transporting, and just put my
hands in my pockets and let 'em do as they liked. _They_ knows I bean't
afraid of 'em in the road; I've threshed more than one of 'em, but I
ain't going to jump into _that_ trap. I've been before the bench, at one
place and t'other, heaps of times, and paid the fine for trespass. Last
time the chairman said to I, "So you be here again, Oby; we hear a good
deal about you." I says, "Yes, my lard, I be here agen, but people never
don't hear nothing about _you_." That shut the old duffer up. Nobody
never heard nothing of he, except at rent-audit.

'However, they all knows me now--my lard and the steward, and the keeper