Luke, the Rabbit Contractor. 161 



It was not of the least use for any one else to offer 

 to take the rabbits, even if they would give more 

 money. No, Luke was the trusty man ; Luke, 

 and nobody else, was worthy. So he grovelled on 

 from year to year, blinking about the place. When 

 some tenant found a gin in the turnip field, or a 

 wire by the clover, and quietly waited till Luke 

 came fumbling by, and picked up the hare or rabbit, 

 it did not make the slightest difference, though he 

 went straight to the keeper and made a formal 

 statement. 



Luke had an answer always ready: he had not set 

 the wire, but had stumbled on it unawares, and was 

 going to take it to the keeper ; or he had noticed 

 a colony of rats about, and had put the gin for them. 

 Now, the same excuse might have been made by any 

 other poacher ; the difference lay in this that Luke 

 was believed. At all events, such little trifles were 

 forgotten, and Luke went on as before. He did a 

 good deal of the ferreting in the hedges outside the 

 woods himself : if he took home three dozen from the 

 mound and only paid for two dozen, that scarcely con- 

 cerned the world at large. 



If in coming down the dark and slippery lane at 

 night somebody with a heavy sack stepped out from 

 the shadow at the stile, and if the contents of the sack 



If 



