WORKERS IN WOODCRAFT.
I.
The gamekeeper's cottage stands at the end of the oak lane. An orchard
surrounds his dwelling, the brown boughs now drooping with ripened
fruit. Under an overhanging sycamore is a kennel of silky-coated
setters and a brace of spaniels. The former have beautifully-domed
heads and large soft eyes. The spaniels with their pendulous ears are a
black and a brown. Pheasant pens are scattered about the orchard, each
containing half-a-dozen birds. In a disused shed are traps for taking
game, and nets and snares found in rabbit runs or taken from poachers.
The keeper does not always take these engines when he finds them, but
waits quietly until they are visited by the "moucher;" then he makes a
double capture. Few of the poachers, however, leave their traps after
dark, and only the casual is caught in this way. At the other end of
the orchard divisional boxes are ranged round an old barn-like building
where pheasants' eggs are hatched. A shaggy terrier, with fresh mould
upon its nose, peeps from beneath the shed doorway. Drowsy bluebottles
buzz about the vermin larder, and under the apple-trees are
straw-thatched hives. Contented pigeons coo and bask on the hot slates
of the barn roof, and bird-sounds are everywhere. These blocks, upon
which sit their falcons, act as a reminder of an old English sport fast
passing away. These are merlins and peregrines, kept for a friend by
the keeper, who is fond of hawking. The merlins can pull down
partridges, while the peregrines are flown at larger game. No sport so
exhilarating as falconry, none so fascinating.
The interior of the keeper's cottage is as characteristic as its
surroundings. Here are guns of every description--from the
old-fashioned fowling piece and matchlock to the ponderous duck-gun.
Above the chimney-piece hangs a modern breechloader with Damascus
barrels. The keeper admires the delicate mechanism of this, but
deprecates the spirit of the age which produced it. Such
cunningly-devised engines will make old-fashioned sport, or what he
calls "wild shooting," extinct. By this he means the traversing of
rough ground in healthful anticipation of a miscellaneous and always
uncertain bag. It is this very uncertainty which gives the chief zest
to sport. Against the walls are cases of stuffed birds, with a red
squirrel or a white stoat to relieve the feathers. In one case a
knot-hole is imitated from which peer three young weasels; and an old
one is descending the hole with a dead bird in its mouth. All these are
portrayed to the life by the keeper's own hand. Looking at the contents
of the cases, he deplores his want of ornithological knowledge in
earlier years. Among the stuffed specimens are a Greenland falcon, a
pair of hobbies, several rare owls, swallow-tailed kite, hoopoe,
rose-coloured pastor, and others equally rare.
The gamekeeper's life is essentially an outdoor one. He is far from
populous towns, and needs but little assistance. Poachers rarely come
to his preserves in gangs, and a couple of village mouchers he can
easily manage. His powerful frame has once been the seat of great
strength, though now it needs but a glance to show that his eye is less
keen and his hand less firm. Still he is quick to detect, and with his
hard-hitting muzzle-loader he rarely misses. Given favourable
conditions he is almost infallible with the gun, though he gives his
game law. He cannot now cover his extended ground in a single day, and
perhaps does less night watching than formerly. His beat covers a
widely diversified district with almost every species of game. The
pheasants wander about the woods and copses; the partridge are among
the corn and stubble; and rabbits pop in and out everywhere. Hares
haunt the meadows and upland fields, and snipe go away from the
marshes. Woodcock come to the wet woods, and a host of sea-haunting
creatures feed along the bay. There is a heronry in the wood, and
pigeons build in the larches. Of the habits of these creatures the
keeper is full; and if he is garrulous he is always instructive. By
observing, he has found that animals and birds have stated times and
well-defined routes. Exactly at the same hour, according to the sun,
the partridges and pheasants resort to the same spots. Hares follow the
tracks day by day, and rooks fly morning and evening along the same
valleys. Nightly, herons stalk the pools and the otter traces the
mountain burns to their source. At noon a sparrow-hawk speeds by the
covert, and at evening a kestrel hangs over the rickyard. In the
afternoon, regularly, weasels run along the old wall; and as these
things the flowers in their times of opening and closing are not less
constant.
The keeper's domain encloses a park in which are red deer and fallow.
Sometimes he has to shoot a fawn for the "great house." This he
singles out, hitting it if possible just behind the shoulder. In
season he must provide a certain "head" of game. Twice weekly he
procures this, and takes it to the hall. For its proper hanging in
the larder he is responsible. When the keeper wants game he knows to
a yard where it may be found--where the birds will get up and in what
direction they will go away. If a hare, he knows the gate or smoot
through which it will pass, and out of this latter fact he makes
capital. It is well known to poachers that when once a hare has been
netted there is no chance of its being taken again in like manner.
Rather than go through a second time, even though a "lurcher" be but
a yard behind, it will either "buck" the gate or take the fence.
Consequently the keeper has netted every hare on his ground. This
greatly reduces the poacher's chances, and wire snares are now the
only engines that can be successfully used. Spring and summer are
taken up with breeding and rearing pheasants, and this is an anxious
time. The work is not difficult but arduous. And then so much of the
keeper's work is estimated by the head of game he can turn out. This
result is tangible, and one that can be seen by both his master and
visitors. There is nothing to show for long and often fruitless
night-watching but rheumatism; and so the keeper appreciates all the
more readily the praise accorded him for the number of well-grown
birds he can show at the covert side. After pheasant-shooting in
October the serious winter work of the keeper begins. Each week he
has to kill from three to five hundred rabbits, which are sent to the
markets of the large manufacturing towns. He can employ what engines
against them he pleases, but the number must be produced. Firing a
hundred shots a day is now more jarring than it was once; it has made
him slightly deaf, and he adopts other means of destruction. He works
the warrens in winter, but long waiting for a glutted ferret in frost
and snow is not pleasant. Under favourable conditions, however, a
great many rabbits may be taken in this way. Iron spring traps are
used in the rabbit tracks, but these are impracticable on a large
scale; and the pheasants and partridges, which run much, are apt to
be caught in them. Moreover it is now illegal to set these traps in
the open. The most certain and wholesale method of capture is by the
"well-trap." This is a pit, placed immediately opposite to a hole in
the fence through which the rabbits run from the woods to the field
or pasture. Through the "run" a wooden trough is inserted, and as the
rabbits pass through the floor opens beneath their weight and they
drop into the "well." Immediately the pressure is removed the floor
springs back to its original position; and thus a score or more
rabbits may often be taken in a single night. In the construction
of these traps rough and unbarked wood is used, and even then the
rabbits will not take them for weeks. Then they become familiar, the
weather washes away all scent, and the "well-trap" is a wholesale
engine of capture. The rabbits of course are taken alive. These the
keeper stretches across his knee, dislocating the spine. English
rabbits are degenerating in size, and the introduction of some of the
continental varieties would be beneficial. With the rabbits in autumn
great quantities of wood-pigeons are sent away, the birds at this
time becoming exceedingly plump and fat. An almost incredible number
of acorns may be found in the crop of a single bird when the former
have fallen.
These are a few of the keeper's duties. He himself has a russet,
weather-beaten face, bounded by silvery hair. He might stand for a
picture of a highly-idealised member of his class. So secluded is his
cottage that he locks the door but once a year, and that on Christmas
Eve. He can remember when there was larger game than now, when badgers
and wild cats were not uncommon. One of his ancestors was an inveterate
deer-stealer, as the parish books show. Then the red-deer roamed almost
wild on the fells. To-day he has but one regret--that he was not
contemporary with the wolf, the wild boar, and the bear. Of these in
Britain he has just read an account, together with the vast primitive
forests through which they roamed.
II.
THE CHARCOAL BURNERS.
The humid climate of the north-west of England is peculiarly favourable
to the growth of coppice-wood; and scattered along the slopes of the
valleys copses prevail, consisting for the most part of oak, ash,
birch, and hazel. This growth beautifully clothes the hill-slopes, and
in addition to taking away the bareness, brings to them much animal and
bird life; and besides this, the young timber is fairly remunerative.
The coppice woods are cut every fifteen years, and the ground set apart
to it pays about equal to that devoted to grazing. This is owing to the
fact that every part of the wood is well suited to some particular use,
and finds a ready market. What these uses are will be presently seen.
As to the beauty and well-woodedness which the copses give to the
north-west valleys there can be no question; and that life abounds in
them which was foreign to the bare Fells is made equally clear by
traversing them at almost any season of the year. Shelter they give,
too, which is always important in districts subject to mountain storms.
Metallic-lustred and brightly-coloured lichens light up the floor of
the wood, the rabbits rustle through; innumerable birds are there, and
dormice hang their ball-like nests among the hazel boughs. As the
coppice grows the squirrel comes to the nuts, wood pigeons coo, and
jays screech in the glades. Even a few pheasants have wandered here,
and an occasional woodcock breeds among the dead oak leaves.
Just as the kindly sheltering woods have brought birds which are
foreign to the district, so they have brought human settlers, and
standing above on the bare Common we see rising from the trees columns
of pale blue smoke. In the primitive cottages from whence these come
reside the charcoal burners. Men they are whose lives glide on almost
without influence from the outside world--quiet workers of many
virtues. They observe well times and seasons, are full of country
proverbs, wise as to signs of wind and weather, and draw deductions
from the nature around them. Their occupation is such as keeps them in
the woods for months at a spell, not even leaving them on Sundays. And
so it comes that the decay of the black bryony berries and the rustle
of the dead oak leaves have lessons for them; and as the winds of
autumn sough through the bare branches, they are conscious that a time
will come when they too must pass away. Piety in men so lived may seem
strange, but when a man stands face to face with nature, by far the
best elements of his nature are developed. He is brought, as it were,
back to his primitive life, and is more a man than the dweller in
towns.
During the summer we have tramped through the coppice woods. These will
be felled when autumn comes round, having grown their fifteen years.
And to one unaccustomed to such rapid growth the progress made would be
somewhat astonishing. The trees are spindle high. The ash-poles are
straight and smooth, the young oaks radiant in rich chestnut, the
hazels catkin-covered, and the frail birch--the lady of the
woods--towers her silvery stem afar up. Of course, when cut, each
species of tree has some special virtue--some quality in which it most
excels. The young oaks, for instance, are felled at the time of
ascending sap in early summer, as then the bark is easily "peeled."
This is extensively used in the process of tanning. The torn staves are
used in making baskets and hoops. The "afflictive birch, cursed by
unlettered idle youth," has other uses than that which the quotation
would seem likely to imply. The variously sized boughs are used in
making crates, and the wood is also extensively used by the cottagers
as fire "eldin," which may be detected when in proximity to the
cottages. The use, however, to which the majority of the wood is put is
bobbin-turning--quite an extensive and important industry in the
northern valleys.
The enemies of the trees, and the only ones which stop their growth,
are two. Insects with their borings, and rabbits. The latter, in severe
winters, eat the bark of the young trees to a surprising height from
the ground, and by so doing impede their growth.
The second industry to which the coppice woods give rise, and by far
the most interesting, is the charcoal burning, almost peculiar to this
part of the country. We shall detail it as practised in the extensive
Honeybee Woods. At the felling of the copse the wood is roughly divided
into two "sets." The thick upright poles, of whatever tree, are stacked
for "bobbin wood," and the thinner parts await the charcoal burners.
These are also the men that from autumn to spring are busily employed
in cutting, stacking, and arranging the wood.
The first months of spring are employed in peeling the oak for its
bark, and from early summer into autumn the actual charcoal burning is
done. The men who take part in the lonely trade live in rude huts in
the woods, thatched with heather and bracken. Heaps of dried ferns
serve them for beds, and their wants are few. Their huts are fixed
first as to shelter and the presence of water, then with regard to
proximity to their labours. From this ground they are never absent, the
burning wood heaps requiring constant attention and aid from a quick
eye as to change of wind and the coming of rain. The burning is
conducted as follows: The faggots (from one to four feet in length and
about one and a half inches thick) are built up round a vertical stake,
which forms the centre of the mass, until the heap has attained
considerable dimensions. It is round, and represents a low stack
terminating in an apex at the top. When sufficient faggots have been
piled up, the whole is covered with turf and wet sand, so as to exclude
the air. The heap, now about thirty feet in diameter, is flattened by
beating with spades, and made to present a smooth dome-like surface.
The vertical stake is withdrawn from the centre, and lights are dropped
down the passage left, to ignite the wood. The air has been carefully
excluded so as to regulate the burning of the heap. From the centre the
fire gradually spreads outwards until it reaches the edges. The burners
always have in readiness large screens to regulate the supply of air,
and these are planted on that side of the heap from which the wind
blows. The screens consist of wooden hurdles intertwined with dead
grass, dried fern, and bracken. Of course success depends upon the slow
and equal burning of the whole mass. A shifting wind sometimes ill
regulates the supply of air and fires the heap. When this occurs
nothing can stop it, and the charcoal is completely spoiled. This,
however, from the great watchfulness of the men, is generally avoided.
To return to the heap. The products of combustion escape by the channel
occasioned by the withdrawal of the vertical stake. The process is
continued from twenty to thirty hours, when smoke and fumes seem to
come off every part alike. This is a sign to put out the fire, which is
done by applying water. The faggots have now been converted into
charcoal. The critical part of the operation, and the one that wants
most experience, is to catch the heap when it is "enough"--that is when
it is neither overdone nor underdone. After allowing half a day for
cooling, the charcoal is taken out, put into sacks, and carted away.
Three or four men generally work together and have four heaps in hand
at one time. At night, especially when there is much wind, the burners
work by shifts. The charcoal when carted away is just half the weight
of the wood from which it has been prepared. Much of the charcoal
prepared hereabouts is used in smelting at the Backbarrow and other
neighbouring ironworks. Iron so smelted is of much higher commercial
value than that obtained by the ordinary processes. Charcoal burning,
consequently, is likely to continue a lucrative employment for many
years to come, especially as coppice woods--the raw material--thrive so
abundantly in the district.
To watch these men at their lonely employment in the woods is well
worth a visit. They and their work are alike interesting, and the woods
which provide their employment are fascinating at all seasons. A nearer
acquaintance with the workers will reveal the fact that they know the
"herbs and simples of the woods," and also much of the contents of an
old "herbal" lying in the hut. In the virtues of plants they have great
belief, and can tell of interesting traits in the life-history of wild
flowers. We believe, too, that they exercise "free right and warren" of
the woods where they reside, and of this no one seems to care to
deprive them. They are pleasant, primitive fellows wonderfully
intelligent as to out-door questions, and command the respect of every
one with whom they come in contact. We might have said that their
necessary victuals are supplied periodically from the outside world,
but in domestic matters they do all things for themselves.
III.
THE FORESTER.
Walking in the woods, we met the old man standing over the prostrate
form of a fallen monster that had been uprooted by the wind. He was
about to lop off the branches, and was trimming the bole with an axe.
The tree had brought several others with it of younger growth, and he
had just finished clearing to obtain a space wherein to work. Black
bryony berries were twined about the lower branches, as were the dead
leaves of honeysuckle. These are among the natural enemies of the old
man, as he considers them injurious to timber. His woods are wide, and
constitute his little world. There is little in or of them which he
does not know, even to the flowers and birds. For these he has quaint
provincial names of his own. Thus he speaks of the fallowchat, the
nettle-creeper, and the reed-wren--meaning the wheatear, white-throat,
and reed-warbler. The frail anemone he knows as the wind-flower,
coltsfoot is one of his rustic remedies for coughs, and the early
purple orchids are to him "crow's feet." His "little red mouse that
rustles among the dead leaves and is coloured like a hare" is our
wood-mouse; and sometimes he finds among the hazel branches the
ball-like nests of the dormice. He knows that wherever fungi grows
there is death, and the tree lighted up by the brightly-coloured bosses
he marks with a red cross, which is as signing the warrant of its doom.
He follows the yaffle, and wherever it pecks the trees he knows that
decay has begun within. This applies to all the woodpeckers, who are
infallible valuers of growing timber, and all trees which they attack
are marked out for the axe. Often on the outside the boles are
apparently sound, and it is hard to believe that the heart-wood is
decayed; but the winged wood-prophets never err.
It matters not what living thing crosses our path, the old man names
it, even to the insects. He tells how these are instrumental in
producing the oak-galls, and points out the insidious attacks and
borings of weevils. Of all trees the elm has most enemies. He tears off
a bit of bark from a still growing tree, and reveals a labyrinth of
channels radiating on two sides from a central line. The
_Scolytus_ he simply calls "elm-borer," though from his
conversation it is plain that he is a close observer, and knows the
whole life-history of the insect. And thus, in addition to his special
knowledge of woodcraft, he knows the time of the coming of the birds,
of the retiring of the insect hosts, and the habitats of the flowers.
The woodman lives in a stone hut, near the confines of what was once an
extensive forest, through which trooped vast herds of deer, both red
and fallow. His weather-beaten face, which in colour resembles a ripe
russet apple, tells of long exposure to summer's sun and winter's cold.
His hair is white, and his form as yet but slightly bowed. The only
other occupant of the hut is a girl grandchild, who has long lived with
him. Neither have ever been more than a dozen miles from the spot, nor
care to. Nominally the old man's work is to look after the woods of one
valley. This has been his life-work, and he has no longing for change.
He knows nothing of what goes on without a narrow circle, and his Bible
and an occasional country newspaper constitute his sole literature.
As becomes his craft he never tires of talking of trees. In his woods
the giant oak is common, with its gnarled and twisted bole, its wildly
reticulated branches, its lichens, and its host of insect visitors. He
has himself detected the two varieties of the oak, and points out the
difference. In one case the acorns are borne on stalks, in the other
they are sessile. Of these he speaks as the long and short-stalked
kinds. He has no confidence in the popular theory that the wood of the
one greatly excels that of the other. He has worked both, and has not
discovered any substantial difference. In late autumn he gathers from
beneath the oaks huge sacksful of acorns, of which he disposes to the
farmers. Next comes the majestic beech, with its smooth bole and
olive-grey bark. The old man recalls its wondrous flood of green in
spring, and its not less glorious gold in autumn.
Some modern Orlando even haunts the forest hereabouts, and abuses the
young trees with carving not Rosalind but "Emilie" on their barks. The
sentiment which stops the growth of the young beeches appeals to no
finer sense within the bosom of the old man. And so he roundly
denounces the wandering lover who has carved thereon the name he
adores, in no unmeasured terms.
In summer a few purple beeches light up the wood, and the old man is
surprised to learn that all trees of this variety sprang from a single
tree which was found growing wild in the midst of one of the immense
forests of Thuringia. But more than all the interest that attaches to
the trees are the uses to which their wood is put. The little church on
the Fellside opposite consists internally of oak from this very wood;
and so, too, do half the beams and rafters in the parish. The hard,
close-grained wood of the beech, too, is used for a great variety of
purposes as well as fuel. Interspersed throughout the wood are numbers
of ash-trees, soon to be arrayed in feathery lightness, but now more
reminding us of Tennyson's naturalistic simile, "Black as ashbuds in
March." The toughness and elasticity of the wood of the ash are well
known, and here is an opportunity for the display of the timber genius
of our old friend. There is, he tells us, little else than this about
the yard of the village wheelwright. Cart shafts are made from it, as
are the primitive agricultural implements used in the valley; of like
wood is his own axe handle and spade shaft. In the country infinite
almost are the uses of the ash.
In the middle of the wood, and coming down to the stream sides, are a
retinue of fringed elms, both Campestris and Montana. Some of these
have attained to an immense size, and are at one with the scenery. But
in the open spots of the wood--in the glades where life most
prevails--are the beautiful birches, with their striped, silvery bark.
Well does this tree merit its appellation of "lady of the woods." There
is none so frail, so graceful, nor so generally beautiful. Almost every
part of the birch is used and for a great variety of purposes. In
spring the delicate green of the larch hangs in trailing tassels, and
contrasts well with the dark green foliage of the indigenous pine. The
old forester has an "Unter den Linden" equal, at least in beauty, to
any in Europe, and in summer the trees are a veritable haunt of summer
wings. The field maple and the sycamore are here, and interspersed in
the open spaces a few white stemmed walnuts. These in autumn yield a
rich harvest to the forester. The horse-chestnut is common, and then
come a host of trees of minor growth. All the wild fruit trees are
here, and hang out glories of snowy and pink blossoms in spring--the
pear, the cherry, and the wild apple. Sombre yews that set off the pale
green of the woodlands are plentiful, and in them the cushats and the
jays build. In addition to these there are the wild service tree, white
beam, and mountain ash, the last called by the old man the rowan.
Planting and thinning and felling constitute the work of the woodman
throughout the year. But there are a thousand little offshoots of
woodcraft of which he has knowledge and which he indulges at times.
Like the charcoal burners, he holds free right and warren of the woods.
He can make many primitive lures for taking wild creatures, and is an
adept at "gins" and "springs" for destroying vermin. In winter he sets
snares for woodcock and snipe. He is a great favourite with the
resident boys at the neighbouring grammar school, and procures them
mice and squirrels and birds' eggs. He makes wooden pegs and teeth for
the farmers, and various little articles for the farm women. He sells
bundles of faggots and sticks for supporting peas, and a dozen other
perquisites, all products of the woodlands. The embrowned nuts of
autumn he turns to profitable account. In the forest are numerous hazel
copses, together forming many acres. In autumn the old man was
surprised to receive a visit from a burly man in a gig. He told the
woodman, in a dialect differing from his own, that he was a "badger;"
and then and there made an astounding bid for the nuts. The old man
closed with the handsome offer, and this sum now adds annually to his
otherwise slight income.