Such poachers as visited the woods came from a distance.  Two determined raids were carried out by strangers, who escaped.  Every now and then wires were found that had been abandoned, but the poaching ceased to be more than is usual on most properties.  So far as the inhabitants of the parish were concerned it almost ceased altogether; but every now and then the strollers, gipsies, and similar characters carried off a pheasant or a hare, or half a dozen rabbits.  These offenders when detected were usually charged before the Bench at a market town not many miles distant.  Let us follow one there.

The little town of L——­, which has not even a branch railway, mainly consists of a long street.  In one part this street widens out, so that the houses are some forty yards or more apart, and it then again contracts.  This irregularly shaped opening is the market-place, and here in the centre stands a rude-looking building.  It is supported upon thick short pillars, and was perhaps preceded by a wooden structure.  Under these pillars there is usually a shabby chaise or two run in for cover, and the spot is the general rendezvous of all the dogs in the town.

This morning there are a few loafers hanging round the place; and the tame town pigeons have fluttered down, and walk with nodding heads almost up to them.  These pigeons always come to the edge of a group of people, mindful of the stray grain and peas that fall from the hands of farmers and dealers examining samples on market days.  Presently, two constables come across carrying a heavy, clumsy box between them.  They unlock a door, and take the box upstairs into the hall over the pillars.  After them saunters a seedy man, evidently a clerk, with a rusty black bag; and after him again—­for the magistrates’ Clerk’s clerk must have his clerk—­a boy with some leather-bound books.

Some of the loafers touch their hats as a gentleman—­a magistrate—­rides up the street.  But although the church clock is striking the hour fixed for the sessions to begin he does not come over to the hall upon dismounting in the inn-yard, but quietly strolls away to transact some business with the wine-merchant or the saddler.  There really is not the least hurry.  The Clerk stands in the inn porch calmly enjoying the September sunshine, and chatting with the landlord.  Two or three more magistrates drive up; presently the chairman strolls over on foot from his house, which is almost in the town, to the inn, and joins in the pleasant gossip going on there, of course in a private apartment.

Up in the justice-room the seedy Clerk’s clerk is leaning out of the window and conversing with a man below who has come along with a barrow-load of vegetables from his allotment.  Some boys are spinning tops under the pillars.  On the stone steps that lead up to the hall a young mother sits nursing her infant; she is waiting to ‘swear’ the child.  In the room itself several gipsy-looking men and women lounge in a corner.  At one end is a broad table and some comfortable chairs behind it.  In front of each chair, on the table, two sheets of clean foolscap have been placed on a sheet of blotting-paper.  These and a variety of printed forms were taken from the clumsy box that is now open.