fixing into his mind an object to save for.

Three other companions did I select for our Cleruchia. The first was
the son of our old shepherd, who had lately married, but was not yet
encumbered with children,--a good shepherd, and an intelligent, steady
fellow. The second was a very different character. He had been the
dread of the whole squirearchy. A more bold and dexterous poacher did
not exist. Now my acquaintance with this latter person, named Will
Peterson, and more popularly "Will o' the Wisp," had commenced thus:
Bolt had managed to rear, in a small copse about a mile from the house,
--and which was the only bit of ground in my uncle's domains that might
by courtesy be called "a wood,"--a young colony of pheasants, that he
dignified by the title of a "preserve." This colony was audaciously
despoiled and grievously depopulated, in spite of two watchers, who,
with Bolt, guarded for seven nights successively the slumbers of the
infant settlement. So insolent was the assault that bang, bang! went
the felonious gun,--behind, before, within but a few yards of the
sentinels,--and the gunner was off and the prey seized, before they
could rush to the spot. The boldness and skill of the enemy soon
proclaimed him, to the experienced watchers, to be Will o' the Wisp; and
so great was their dread of this fellow's strength and courage, and so
complete their despair of being a match for his swiftness and cunning,
that after the seventh night the watchers refused to go out any longer;
and poor Bolt himself was confined to his bed by an attack of what a
doctor would have called rheumatism, and a moralist, rage. My
indignation and sympathy were greatly excited by this mortifying
failure, and my interest romantically aroused by the anecdotes I had
heard of Will o' the Wisp; accordingly, armed with a thick bludgeon, I
stole out at night, and took my way to the copse. The leaves were not
off the trees, and how the poacher contrived to see his victims I know