He had just been poaching Mr. Boyce’s rabbits without any sort of scruple.  But the thought of Miss Boyce was not pleasant to him when he was out on these nightly raids.

Why had she meddled?  He bore her a queer sort of grudge for it.  He had just settled down to the bit of cobbling which, together with his wife’s plait, served him for a blind, and was full of a secret excitement as to various plans he had in hand for “doing” Westall, combining a maximum of gain for the winter with a maximum of safety, when Miss Boyce walked in, radiant with the news that there was employment for him at the Court, on the new works, whenever he liked to go and ask for it.

And then she had given him an odd look.

“And I was to pass you on a message from Lord Maxwell, Hurd,” she had said:  “’You tell him to keep out of Westall’s way for the future, and bygones shall be bygones.’  Now, I’m not going to ask what that means.  If you’ve been breaking some of our landlords’ law, I’m not going to say I’m shocked.  I’d alter the law to-morrow, if I could!—­you know I would.  But I do say you’re a fool if you go on with it, now you’ve got good work for the winter; you must please remember your wife and children.”

And there he had sat like a log, staring at her—­both he and Minta not knowing where to look, or how to speak.  Then at last his wife had broken out, crying: 

“Oh, miss! we should ha starved—­”

And Miss Boyce had stopped her in a moment, catching her by the hand.  Didn’t she know it?  Was she there to preach to them?  Only Hurd must promise not to do it any more, for his wife’s sake.

And he—­stammering—­left without excuse or resource, either against her charge, or the work she offered him—­had promised her, and promised her, moreover—­in his trepidation—­with more fervency than he at all liked to remember.

For about a fortnight, perhaps, he had gone to the Court by day, and had kept indoors by night.  Then, just as the vagabond passions, the Celtic instincts, so long repressed, so lately roused, were goading at him again, he met Westall in the road—­Westall, who looked him over from top to toe with an insolent smile, as much as to say, “Well, my man, we’ve got the whip hand of you now!” That same night he crept out again in the dark and the early morning, in spite of all Minta’s tears and scolding.

Well, what matter?  As towards the rich and the law, he had the morals of the slave, who does not feel that he has had any part in making the rules he is expected to keep, and breaks them when he can with glee.  It made him uncomfortable, certainly, that Miss Boyce should come in and out of their place as she did, should be teaching Willie to read, and bringing her old dresses to make up for Daisy and Nellie, while he was making a fool of her in this way.  Still he took it all as it came.  One sensation wiped out another.