"Good morning," said Horne Fisher, pleasantly. "I thought at first
you were a murderer. But it seems unlikely, somehow, that the
partridge rushed between us and died for love of me, like the
heroines in the romances; so I suppose you are a poacher."
"I suppose you would call me a poacher," answered the man; and his
voice was something of a surprise coming from such a scarecrow; it
had that hard fastidiousness to be found in those who have made a
fight for their own refinement among rough surroundings. "I consider
I have a perfect right to shoot game in this place. But I am well
aware that people of your sort take me for a thief, and I suppose
you will try to land me in jail."
"There are preliminary difficulties," replied Fisher. "To begin
with, the mistake is flattering, but I am not a gamekeeper. Still
less am I three gamekeepers, who would be, I imagine, about your
fighting weight. But I confess I have another reason for not wanting
to jail you."
"And what is that?" asked the other.
"Only that I quite agree with you," answered Fisher. "I don't
exactly say you have a right to poach, but I never could see that it
was as wrong as being a thief. It seems to me against the whole
normal notion of property that a man should own something because it
flies across his garden.
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