The Amateur Poacher

such people alone; but it occurred to me that the mail-cart was due; with two horses harnessed tandem-fashion, and travelling at full speed, the mail would probably go over him. So I seized the

oduced a couple of cock pheasants from under his coat, the tail feathers much crumpled, but otherwise in fine condition. These he placed on the table, remarking, 'I ain't forgot as you drawe

and was the most determined poacher of a neighbouring district-a notorious fighting man-hardened against shame, an Ishmaelite openly contemning authori

ge as belongs to her. My brother have got a van and travels the country; and sometimes I and my wife goes with him. I larned to set up a w

wouldn't buy for ten quid. They used to spread out like, and sweep the fields as clean as the crownd of your hat. Keepers weren't no good at all, and besides they never knowed which place us was going to make for. One of the chaps gave I a puppy,

ould give it up, and she come and paid me out of gaol. It was a wonder as I didn't break her neck; only her was a good woman, you see, to I. But I wouldn't have parted with that hound for a quart-full of sovereign

mebody else the keepers were waiting for and as didn't come. I goes to work every day the same as the rest, only I always take piece-work, which I can come to when I fancy, and stay as late in the evening as suits me with a good

ds and little copses as the pheasants wanders off to in the autumn. I keeps a 'nation good look-out after the keeper and his men, and sees their dodges-which way they walks, and how they comes back sudden and unexpected on p

are in the parish, and all his runs and all the double mounds and copses, and the little covers in the corners of the fields. When I be at work on one place I sets my wires about half a mile away on a farm as I ain't been working on for a month, and where the keeper don't ke

s, and do it as well as any man in the country, and they be glad to get me on for 'em. They farmers as have got their shooting be sharper than the keepers, and you can't do much there; but they as haven't

ils a-sweeping in the faces of them as fed 'em. The same with the hares and the rabbits; and so they'd just as soon as I had 'em-and a dalled deal sooner-out of spite. Lord bless you! if I was to walk through their courtyards at night with a sack over my shoulders full of you knows what, a

after a ferreting job or some wood-cutting, and the Christmas charities. It be enough to make a man sick to see they. This yer parish be a very

ow of oaks as grows in the hedge behind our house. One of 'em leaned over the roof, and one of the limbs was like to fall; but they wouldn't cut him, just to spite us, and the rain dripping spoilt the thatch. So I just had

s you know of come and said as they did it when they was tight, and so I got off. They said as 'twas I that put the poison for the hounds when three on 'em took it and died while the hunt was on. It were the dalledest lie! I wouldn't hurt a dog not for nothing. The keeper h

he licence to sell game as haves most of my hares; the keeper selled he a lot as the money never got to my lard's pocket and the steward never knowed of. Look at

the road; I've threshed more than one of 'em, but I ain't going to jump into that trap. I've been before the bench, at one place and t'other, heaps of times, and paid the fine for trespass. Last time the chairman said to I, "So

he don't dare, nor the policeman as I telled you, and the rest be got used to me and my ways. And I does very well one week with t'other. One week I don't take nothing, and th

r hand along the runs as you want to stop, or spit on 'em, or summat like that; for a hare won't pass nothing of that sort. So pussy goes back and comes by the run as I've chose: if she comes quick she don't holler; if she com

ing stretched along as you be pretty sure to kick against, and then, bang! and all the dogs sets up a yowling. Of course it's only powder, but it brings the keepers along. But when the acorns and the berries be ripe, the pheasants comes out along the hedges after 'em, and gets up

ree more. I mostly shoots 'em with just a little puff of powder as you wouldn't hear across one field, especially if it's a windy night. I had a air-gun,

nd be always in the fields, and always work one parish till you knows

ere about all the year round, and seemed to live in, or by the hedges, as much as the mice

n to be caused by flanges projecting from the under surface, almost like stands. They are sometimes connected in such a way that the parallel flanges appear like the letter 'h' with the two down-strokes much prolonged. In the morning the chalky rubble brought from the pits upon the Downs and used for mending gateways leading into t

e end of January the occasional sunbeams give some faint hope of spring, he wanders through the lanes carrying a decoy bird in a

f corn have passed through gates the bushes often catch some straws, and the tops of the gateposts, being decayed and ragged, hold others. These are neglected while the seeds among the stubble, t

o the ear, and outspread her wings, keeping them rigid. The draught acted on the wings, just as the breeze does on a paper kite, and there the bird remained supported without an effort while the ear was picked. Now and then the

arefully tended, the poor creature died next day: it was so weak it could scarcely roll itself into a ball. As the vital heat declined the fleas deserted their host and issued from among the spines. In February, u

is too old-he hacks it off with as much of the root as possible. The lesser branches are cut, and the stem generally trimmed; it is then sold to the gardeners as the stock on which to graft standard roses. In a few hour

gs allows them, till the discoloured yellow water almost touches the lower part of the breast. The moucher searches for small shell snails, of which quantities are sold as food for cage birds,

s with the weather: in a mild winter some may be found early in January; if the frost has been severe there may be none till March. These the moucher gathers by stealth; he speedily fills a sack, and goes off with it

g flowers, as violets. This spring [1879], owing to the severity of the season, there were practically none to gather, and when the weather moderated the garden flowers preceded those of the hedge. Till the

ds up a stalk surrounded with faintly rosy scales. Several such stalks often spring from a single clod: lift the heavy clod, and you have half a dozen flowers, a whole bunch, without a singl

ches above the soil. They are chasing their skittish loves, instead of soberly dreaming the day away in a bunch of grass. The ploughman walks in the furrow his share has made, and presently stops to measure the 'lands' with the spud. His horses halt dead in the tenth of a second at the sound o

disappears. Great burdock stems lie prostrate. Thick and hard as they are while the sap is still in them, in winter the wet ground rots the lower part till the blast overthrows the stalk. The hollow 'gicks' too, that lately stood almost to the shoulder, is down, or slanting, temporarily supported by some branc

stle, clover, and so forth, as food for the tame rabbits kept in towns. If his haunt be not far from a rive

abbits, young squirrels, even the nest of the harvest-trow mouse, and occasionally a snake, bring him in a little money. He picks the forget-me-nots from the streams and the 'blue-bottle' from the corn: bunches of the latter are s

reat crop; the quantity he brings in to the town is astonishing, and still there is always a customer. The blackberry harvest lasts for several weeks, as the berries do not all ripen at once, but successively, and is supplemented by elderberries and sloes. The mou

e certain farmhouses where he calls once now and then and gets a slice of bread and cheese and a pint of ale. He brings to the farmhouse a duck's egg that has been dropped in the brook by some negligent bird, or carries intelligence of the nest mad

he sense of entering coverts, or even snaring a rabbit. If the pheasants are so numerous and so tame that passing carters have to whip them out of the way of the horses, it is hardly wonderful if one should disappear now an

is feet go 'pad, pad' on the thick white dust, and he easily overtakes a good walker and keeps up the pace for miles without exertion. The watercress is a great staple, because it lasts for so many months. Seeing the nimble way in which he gathers it, thrusting aside the brook-lim

sh slime that glistens on the surface of the dark water; and as you step there is a hissing sound as the spongy earth yields, and a tiny spout

ick. In sheer pity he is committed every now and then to prison for vagabondage-not for punishment, but in order to save him from himself. It is in vain: the moment he is out he returns to his habits. All he wants is a little beer-he is not a drunkard-and a little tobacc

en disappear. The rain falls. The moucher moves uneasily in his sleep; instinctively he rolls or crawls towards the warmth, and presently li

ing stones, sunk below the rim, the presentment of a skeleton formed of the purest white ashes-a ghastly spe