"With all my heart, Sir," said Ste Gimlet, taking the glass of wine which Sir John Slingsby offered him. "Here's to the king, God bless him! and may he give us many such magistrates as Sir John Slingsby."
"Sir, I've a great mind to fine you another bumper for adding to my toast," exclaimed the baronet; and then, waving his hand to the constables, he continued: "Be off, the prisoner is discharged; you've nothing more to do with him--stay here, Master Gimlet, I've something to say to you;" and when the door was shut, he continued, with a very remarkable change of voice and manner: "Now, my good friend, I wish to give you a little bit of warning. As I am Lord of the Manor for many miles round the place where you live, the game you have taken must be mine, and, therefore, I have thought myself justified in treating the matter lightly, and making a joke of it. You may judge, however, from this, that I speak disinterestedly, and as your friend, when I point out to you, that if you follow the course you are now pursuing, it will inevitably lead you on to greater offences. It will deprave your mind, teach you to think wrong right, to resist by violence the assertion of the law, and, perhaps, in the end, bring you to the awful crime of murder, which, whether it be punished in this world or not, is sure to meet its retribution hereafter."
"Upon my life and soul, Sir John," said Ste Gimlet, earnestly, "I will never touch a head of game of yours again."
"Nor any one else's, I hope," answered Sir John Slingsby, "you are an ingenious fellow I have heard, and can gain your bread by better means."
"How?" inquired the man, emphatically; but the moment after he added, "I will try at all events. This very morning, I was thinking I would make a change, and endeavour to live like other people; but then I fancied it would be of no use. First, people would not employ me, and I feared to try them. Next, I feared myself; for I have led a wild rambling kind of life, and have got to love it better than any other. If there were a chance of men treating me kindly and giving me encouragement, it might answer; but if I found all faces looking cold on me, and all hearts turned away from me, though perhaps I have deserved it, I am afraid I should just fall back into my old ways again. However, I will try--I will try for the child's sake, though it will be a hard struggle at first, I am sure."