The footpaths through the plantations and across the fields have no
milestones by which the pedestrian can calculate the distance traversed;
nor is the time occupied a safe criterion, because of the varying nature
of the soil--now firm and now slippery--so that the pace is not regular.
But these crooked paths--no footpath is ever straight--really represent
a much greater distance than would be supposed if the space from point
to point were measured on a map. So that the keeper as he goes his
rounds, though he does not rival the professional walker, in the course
of a year covers some thousands of miles. He rarely does less than ten,
and probably often twelve miles a day, visiting certain points twice--
i.e. in the morning and evening--and often in addition, if he has any
suspicions, making _detours_. It is easy to walk a mile in a single
field of no great dimensions when it is necessary to go up and down each
side of four long hedgerows, and backwards and forwards, following the
course of the furrows.
The keeper's eye is ever on the alert for the poacher's wires; and where
the grass is tall to discover these is often a tedious task, since he
may go within a few yards and yet pass them. The ditches and the great
bramble-bushes are carefully scanned, because in these the poacher often
conceals his gun, nets, or game, even when not under immediate
apprehension of capture. The reason is that his cottage may perhaps be
suddenly searched: if not by authority, the policeman on some pretext or
other may unexpectedly lift the latch or peer into the outhouses, and
feathers and fur are apt to betray their presence in the most unexpected
manner. One single feather, one single fluffy little piece of fur
overlooked, is enough to ruin him, for these are things of which it is
impossible to give an acceptable explanation.
In dry weather the poacher often hides his implements: especially is
this the case after a more than usually venturesome foray, when he knows
that his house is tolerably certain to be overhauled and all his motions
watched. A hollow tree is a common resource--the pollard willow
generally becomes hollow in its old age--and with a piece of the
decaying "touchwood" or a strip of dead bark his tools are ingeniously
covered up. Under the eaves of sheds and outhouses the sparrows make
holes by pulling out the thatch and roost in these sheltered places in
severe weather, warmly protected from the frost; other small birds, as
wrens and tomtits, do the same; and the poacher avails himself of these
holes to hide his wires.
A gun has been found before now concealed in a heap of manure, such as
are frequently seen in the corners of the fields. These heaps sometimes
remain for a year or more in order that the materials may become
thoroughly decomposed, and the surface is quickly covered with a rank
growth of weeds. The poacher, choosing the side close to the hedge,
where no one would be likely to go, excavated a place beneath these
weeds, (partly filled it in with dry straw, and laid his gun on this. A
rough board placed over it shielded it from damp; and the aperture was
closed with "bull-polls"--that is, the rough grass of the furrows
chopped up (not unlike the gardener's "turves")--and thrown on the
manure-heap to decay. If the keeper detects anything of this kind he
allows it to stay undisturbed, but sets a watch, and so surprises the
owner of the treasure.
The keeper is particularly careful to observe the motions of the
labourers engaged in the fields; especially at luncheon-time, when men
with a hunch of bread and a slice of bacon--kept on the bread with a
small thumb-piece of crust, and carved with a pocket-knife--are apt to
ramble round the hedges, of course with the most innocent of motives,
admiring the beauties of nature. Slowly wandering like this, they cast
a sidelong glance at their wire, set up in a "drock"--i.e. a bridge over
a ditch formed of a broad flat stone--which chances to be a favourite
highway of the rabbits. Nowadays, in this age of draining, short barrel
drains of brick or large glazed pipes are often let through thick banks;
these are dry for weeks together, and hares slip through them. A wire
or trap set here is quite out of ordinary observation; and the keeper,
who knows that he cannot examine every inch of ground, simplifies the
process by quietly noting the movements of the men. As he passes and
repasses a field where they are at work day after day, and understands
agricultural labour, he is aware that they have no necessity to visit
hedgerows and mounds a hundred yards distant, and should he see anything
of that kind the circle of his suspicions gradually narrows till he hits
the exact spot and person.
The gateways and gaps receive careful attention--unusual footmarks in
the mud are looked for. Sometimes he detects a trace of fur or
feathers, or a bloodstain on the spars or rails, where a load of rabbits
or game has been hung for a few minutes while the bearer rested. The
rabbit-holes in the banks are noted: this becomes so much a matter of
habit as to be done almost unconsciously and without effort as he walks;
and anything unusual--as the sand much disturbed, the imprint of a boot,
the bushes broken or cut away for convenience of setting a net--is seen
in an instant. If there be any high ground--woods are often on a
slope--the keeper has here a post whence to obtain a comprehensive
survey, and he makes frequent use of this natural observatory,
concealing himself behind a tree trunk.
The lanes and roads and public footpaths that cross the estate near the
preserves are a constant source of uneasiness. Many fields are
traversed by a perfect network of footpaths, half of which are of very
little use but cannot be closed. Nothing causes so much ill-will in
rural districts as the attempt to divert or shut up a track like this.
Cottagers are most tenacious of these "rights," and will rarely exchange
them for any advantage. "There always wur a path athwert thuck mead in
the ould volk's time" is their one reply endlessly reiterated; and the
owner of the property, rather than make himself unpopular, desists from
persuasion. The danger to game from these paths arises from the
impossibility of stopping a suspicious character at once. If he breaks
through a hedge it is different; but the law is justly jealous of the
subject's liberty on a public footpath, and you cannot turn him back.
Neither is it of any use to search a man whose tools, to a moral
certainty, are concealed in some hedge. With his hands in his pockets,
and a short pipe in his mouth, he can saunter along the side of a
preserve if only a path, as is often the case, follows the edge; and
by-and-by it grows dusk, and the keeper or keepers cannot be everywhere
at once. There is nothing to prevent such fellows as these from
sneaking over an estate with a lurcher dog at their heels--a kind of dog
gifted with great sagacity, nearly as swift as a greyhound, and much
better adapted for picking up the game when overtaken, which is the
greyhound's difficulty. They can be taught to obey the faintest sign or
sound from their owners. If the latter imagine watchers to be about,
the lurcher slinks along close behind, keeping strictly to the path.
Presently, if the poacher but lifts his finger, away dashes the dog, and
will miss nothing he comes across. The lurcher has always borne an evil
repute, which of course is the due not of the dog but of his master. If
a man had to get his living by the chase in Red Indian fashion, probably
this would be the best breed for his purpose. Many shepherds' dogs now
have a cross of the lurcher in their strain, and are good at poaching.
Sunday is the gamekeeper's worst day; the idle, rough characters from
the adjacent town pour out into the country, and necessitate extra
watchfulness. On Sunday the keeper, out of respect to the day, does not
indeed carry his gun, but he works yet harder than on week-days. While
the chimes are ringing to church he is on foot by the edge of the
preserves. He has to maintain a sort of surveillance over the
beer-houses in the village, which is done with the aid of the district
policeman, for they are not only the places where much of the game is
sold, but the rendezvous of those who are planning a raid.
If the policeman notices an unusual stir, or the arrival of strange men
without any apparent business, he acquaints the keeper, who then takes
care to double his sentinels, and personally visit them during the
night. This night-work is very trying after his long walks by day. A
great object is to be about early in the morning--just before the dawn:
that is the time when the poachers return to examine their wires. By
day he often varies his rounds so as to appear upon the scene when least
expected; and has regular trysting places, where his assistants meet him
with their reports.
The gipsies, who travel the road in caravans, give him endless trouble;
they are adepts at poaching, and each van is usually accompanied by a
couple of dogs. The movements of these people are so irregular that it
is impossible to be always ready for them. They are suspected of being
recipients of poached game, purchasing it from the local professionals.
Under pretence of cutting skewer-wood, often called dogwood, which they
split and sharpen for the butchers they wander across the open downs
where it grows, camping in wild, unfrequented places, and finding plenty
of opportunities for poaching. Down land is most difficult to watch.
Then the men who come out from the towns, ostensibly to gather primroses
in the early spring, or ferns, which they hawk from door to door; and
the watercress men, who are about the meadows and brooks twice a year,
in spring and autumn, require constant supervision. An innocent-looking
basket or small sack-bag of mushrooms has before now, when turned upside
down, been discovered to contain a couple of rabbits or a fine young
leveret. This detective work is, in fact, never finished. There is no
end to the tricks and subterfuges practised, and with all his experience
and care the gamekeeper is frequently outwitted.
The relations between the agricultural labourers and the keeper are not
of the most cordial character; in fact, there is a ceaseless distrust
upon the one hand and incessant attempts at over-reaching upon the
other. The ploughmen, the carters, shepherds, and foggers have so many
opportunities as they go about the fields, and they never miss the
chance of a good dinner or half-a-crown when presented to them. Higher
wages have not in the slightest degree diminished poaching, regular or
occasional; on the contrary, from whatever cause, there is good reason
to believe it on the increase. If a labourer crossing a field sees a
hare or rabbit crouching in his form, what is to prevent him from
thrusting his prong like a spear suddenly through the animal and pinning
him to the turf? There are plenty of ways of hiding dead game, under
straw or hay, in the thick beds of nettles which usually spring up
outside or at the back of a cowshed.
Why does the keeper take such a benevolent interest in the progress of
spade-husbandry, as exemplified in allotment gardens near the village,
which allotments are generally in a field set apart by the principal
landowner for the purpose? In person or by proxy the keeper is very
frequently seen looking over the close-cropped hedge which surrounds the
spot, and now and then he takes a walk up and down the narrow paths
between the plots. His dog sniffs about among the heaps of rubbish or
under the potato-vines. The men at work are remarkably civil and
courteous to the gentleman in the velveteen jacket, who, on his side, is
equally chatty with them; but both in their hearts know very well the
why and wherefore of this interest in agriculture. Almost all kinds of
game are attracted by gardens, presupposing, of course, that they are
situated at a distance from houses, as these allotments are. There is a
supply of fresh, succulent, food of various kinds: often too, after a
large plot has been worked for garden produce, the tenant will sow it
for barley or beans or oats, on the principle of rotation; and these
small areas of grain have a singular fascination for pheasants, and
hares linger in them.
Rabbits, if undisturbed, are particularly fond of garden vegetables. In
spring and early summer they will make those short holes in which they
bring forth their young under the potato-vines, finding the soil easy to
work, dry, and the spot sheltered by the thick green stems and leaves.
Both rabbits and hares do considerable damage if they are permitted the
run of the place unchecked. The tenants of the allotments, however,
instead of driving them off, are anxious that they should come sniffing
and limping over the plots in the gloaming, and are strongly suspected
of allowing crops specially pleasing to game to remain in the ground
till the very latest period in order that they may snare it.
Much kindly talk has been uttered over allotments, and undoubtedly they
are a great encouragement to the labourer; yet even this advantage is
commonly abused. The tenants have no ground of complaint as to damage
to their crops, because the keeper, at a word from them, would lose not
a moment of time in killing or driving away the intruder; and as an
acknowledgment of honesty and in reparation of the mischief, if any, a
couple of rabbits would be presented to the man who carried the
complaint. But the labourer, if he spies the tracks of a hare running
into his plot of corn, or suspects that a pheasant is hiding there,
carefully keeps that knowledge to himself. He knows that a pheasant, if
you can get close enough to it before it rises, is a clumsy bird, and
large enough to offer a fair mark, and may be brought down with a stout
stick dexterously thrown. As very probably the pheasant is a young one
and (not yet having undergone its baptism of fire) only recently
regularly fed, it is almost tame and may be approached without
difficulty. This is why the keeper just looks round the allotment
gardens now and then, and lets his dogs run about; for their noses are
much more clever at discovering hidden fur or feathers than his eyes.
In winter if the weather be severe, hares and rabbits are very bold, and
will enter gardens though attached to dwelling-houses. Sometimes when a
vast double-mound hedge is grubbed, the ditches each side are left, and
the interior space is ultimately converted into an osier-bed, osiers
being rather profitable at present. But before these are introduced it
is necessary that the ground be well dug up, for it is full of roots and
the seeds of weeds, which perhaps have lain dormant for years, but now
spring up in wonderful profusion. In consideration of cleansing the
soil, and working it by digging, burning the weeds and rubbish, etc, the
farmer allows one or two of his labourers to use it as a garden for the
growth of potatoes, free of rent, for say a couple of years. Potatoes
are a crop which flourish in fresh-turned soil, and so they do very well
over the arrangement. But unfortunately as they dig and weed, etc, in
the evenings after regular work, they have an excuse for their presence
in the fields, and perhaps near preserves at a tempting period of the
twenty-four hours. The keeper, in short, is quite aware that some sly
poaching goes on in this way.
Another cause of unpleasantness between him and the cottagers arises
from the dogs they maintain, generally curs, it is true, and not to all
appearance capable of harm. But in the early summer a mongrel cur can
do as much mischief as a thoroughbred dog. Young rabbits are easily
overtaken when not much larger than rats, and at other seasons, when the
game has grown better able to take care of itself, any kind of dog
rambling loose in the woods and copses frightens it and unsettles it to
an annoying degree. Consequently, when a dog once begins to trespass,
it is pretty sure to disappear for good--it is not necessary to indicate
how--and though no actual evidence can be got against the keeper, he is
accused of the destruction of the ugly, ill-bred "pet." If a dog
commences to hunt on his own account, he can only be broken of the habit
by the utmost severity; and so it sometimes happens that other dogs
besides those of the cottagers come to an untimely end by shot and gin.
The keeper being a man with some true sense of sport, dislikes shooting
dogs, though compelled to do so occasionally; he never fires at his own,
and candidly admits that he hates to see a sportsman give way to anger
in that manner. The custom of "peppering" with shot a dog for
disobedience or wildness, which was once very common in the field, has
however gone a great deal into disuse.
Shepherds, who often have to visit their flocks in the night--as at this
season of the year, while lambing is in progress--who, in fact,
sometimes sleep in the fields in a little wooden house on wheels built
for the purpose, are strongly suspected of tampering with the hares
scampering over the turnips by moonlight. At harvest-time many strange
men come into the district for the extra wages of reaping. They rarely
take lodgings--which, indeed, they might find some difficulty in
obtaining--but in the warm summer weather sleep in the outhouses and
sheds, with the permission of the owner. Others camp in the open in the
corner of a meadow, where the angle made by meeting hedges protects them
from the wind, crouching round the embers of the fire which boils the
pot and kettle. This influx of strangers is not without its attendant
anxiety to the keeper, who looks round now and then to see what is going
on.
Despite the ill-will in their hearts, the labourers are particularly
civil to the keeper; he is, in fact, a considerable employer of labour--
not on his own account--but in the woods and preserves. He can often
give men a job in the dead of winter, when farm work is scarce and the
wages paid for it are less; such as hedge-cutting, mending the gaps in
the fences, cleaning out ditches or the watercourses through the wood.
Then there is an immense amount of ferreting to be done, and there is
such an instinctive love of sport in every man's breast, that to assist
in this work is almost an ambition; besides which, no doubt the chances
afforded of an occasional private "bag" form a secret attraction. One
would imagine that there could be but little pleasure in crouching all
day in a ditch, perhaps ankle-deep in ice-cold water, with flakes of
snow driving in the face, and fingers numbed by the biting wind as it
rushes through the bare hawthorn bushes, just to watch a rabbit jump out
of a hole into a net, and to break his neck afterwards. Yet so it is;
and some men become so enamoured of this slow sport as to do nothing
else the winter through; and as of course their employment depends
entirely upon the will of the keeper, they are anxious to conciliate
him.
Despite therefore of missing cur dogs and straying cats which never
return, the keeper is treated with marked deference by the cottagers.
He is, nevertheless, fully aware of the concealed ill-will towards him;
and perhaps this knowledge has contributed to render him more morose,
and sharper of temper, and more suspicious of human nature than he would
otherwise have been; for it never improves a man's character to have to
be constantly watching his fellows.
The streams are no more sacred from marauders than the woods and
preserves. The brooks and upper waters are not so full of fish as
formerly, the canal into which they fall being netted so much; and
another cause of the diminution is the prevalence of fish-poaching,
especially for jack, during the spawning season and afterwards. Though
the keepers can check this within their own boundaries, it is not of
much use.
Fish-poaching is simple and yet clever in its way. In the spawning time
jack fish, which at other periods are apparently of a solitary
disposition, go in pairs, and sometimes in trios, and are more tame than
usual. A long slender ash stick is selected, slender enough to lie
light in the hand and strong enough to bear a sudden weight. A loop and
running noose are formed of a piece of thin copper wire, the other end
of which is twisted round and firmly attached to the smaller end of the
stick. The loop is adjusted to the size of the fish--it should not be
very much larger, else it will not draw up quick enough, nor too small,
else it may touch and disturb the jack. It does not take much practice
to hit the happy medium. Approaching the bank of the brook quietly, so
as not to shake the ground, to the vibrations of which fish are
peculiarly sensitive, the poacher tries if possible to avoid letting his
shadow fall across the water.
Some persons' eyes seem to have an extraordinary power of seeing through
water, and of distinguishing at a glance a fish from a long swaying
strip of dead brown flag, or the rotting pieces of wood which lie at the
bottom. The ripple of the breeze, the eddy at the curve, or the sparkle
of the sunshine cannot deceive them; while others, and by far the
greater number, are dazzled and see nothing. It is astonishing how few
persons seem to have the gift of sight when in the field.
The poacher, having marked his prey in the shallow yonder, gently
extends his rod slowly across the water three or four yards higher up
the stream, and lets the wire noose sink without noise till it almost or
quite touches the bottom. It is easier to guide the noose to its
destination when it occasionally touches the mud, for refraction
distorts the true position of objects in water, and accuracy is
important. Gradually the wire swims down with the current, just as if
it were any ordinary twig or root carried along, such as the jack is
accustomed to see, and he therefore feels no alarm. By degrees the loop
comes closer to the fish, till with steady hand the poacher slips it
over the head, past the long vicious jaws and gills, past the first
fins, and pauses when it has reached a place corresponding to about
one-third of the length of the fish, reckoning from the head. That end
of the jack is heavier than the other, and the "lines" of the body are
there nearly straight. Thus the poacher gets a firm hold--for a fish,
of course, is slippery--and a good balance. If the operation is
performed gently the jack will remain quite still, though the wire rubs
against his side: silence and stillness have such a power over all
living creatures. The poacher now clears his arm and, with a sudden
jerk, lifts the fish right out of the stream and lands him on the sward.
So sharp is the grasp of the wire that it frequently cuts its way
through the scales, leaving a mark plainly visible when the jack is
offered for sale. The suddenness and violence of the compression seem
to disperse the muscular forces, and the fish appears dead for the
moment. Very often, indeed, it really is killed by the jerk. This
happens when the loop either has not passed far enough along the body or
has slipped and seized the creature just at the gills. It then garottes
the fish. If, on the other hand, the wire has been passed too far
towards the tail, it slips off that way, the jack falling back into the
water with a broad white band where the wire has scraped the scales.
Fish thus marked may not unfrequently be seen in the stream. The jack,
from its shape, is specially liable to capture in this manner; long and
well balanced, the wire has every chance of holding it. This poaching
is always going on; the implement is so easily obtained and concealed.
The wire can be carried in the pocket, and the stick may be cut from an
adjacent copse.
The poachers observe that after a fish has once escaped from an attempt
of the kind it is ever after far more difficult of capture. The first
time the jack was still and took no notice of the insidious approach of
the wire gliding along towards it; but the next--unless a long interval
elapses before a second trial--the moment it comes near he is away. At
each succeeding attempt, whether hurt or not, he grows more and more
suspicious, till at last to merely stand still or stop while walking on
the bank is sufficient for him; he is off with a swish of the tail to
the deeper water, leaving behind him a cloud, so to say, of mud swept up
from the bottom to conceal the direction of his flight. For it would
almost seem as if the jack throws up this mud on purpose; if much
disturbed he will quite discolour the brook. The wire does a good deal
to depopulate the stream, and is altogether a deadly implement.
But a clever fish-poacher can land a jack even without a wire, and with
no better instrument than a willow stick cut from the nearest osier-bed.
The willow, or withy as it is usually called, is remarkably pliant, and
can be twisted into any shape. Selecting a long slender wand, the
poacher strips it of leaves, gives the smaller end a couple of twists,
making a noose and running knot of the stick itself. The mode of using
it is precisely similar to that followed with a wire, but it requires a
little more dexterity, because, of course, the wood, flexible as it is,
does not draw up so quickly or so closely as the metal, neither does it
take so firm a grip. A fish once caught by a wire can be slung about
almost anyhow, it holds so tightly. The withy noose must be jerked up
the instant it passes under that part of the jack where the weight of
the fish is balanced--the centre of gravity; if there is an error in
this respect it should be towards the head, rather than towards the
tail. Directly the jack is thrown out upon the sward he must be seized,
or he will slip from the noose, and possibly find his way back again
into the water. With a wire there is little risk of that; but then the
withy does not cut its way into the fish.
This trick is often accomplished with the common withy--not that which
grows on pollard-trees, but in osier-beds; that on the trees is brittle.
But a special kind is sought for the purpose, and for any other
requiring extreme flexibility. It is, I think, locally called the stone
osier, and it does not grow so tall as the common sorts. It will tie
like string. Being so short, for poaching fish it has to be fastened to
a thicker and longer stick, which is easily done; and some prefer it to
wire because it looks more natural in the water and does not alarm the
fish, while, should the keeper be about, it is easily cut up in several
pieces and thrown away. I have heard of rabbits, and even hares, being
caught with a noose of this kind of withy, which is as "tough as wire;"
and yet it seems hardly possible, as it is so much thicker and would be
seen. Still, both hares and rabbits, when playing and scampering about
at night, are sometimes curiously heedless, and foolish enough to run
their necks into anything.
With such a rude implement as this some fish-poachers will speedily land
a good basket of pike. During the spawning season, as was observed
previously, jack go in pairs, and now and then in trios, and of this the
poacher avails himself to take more than one at a haul. The fish lie so
close together--side by side just at that time--that it is quite
practicable, with care and judgment, to slip a wire over two at once.
When near the bank two may even be captured with a good withy noose:
with a wire a clever hand will make a certainty of it. The keeper says
that on one occasion he watched a man operating just without his
jurisdiction, who actually succeeded in wiring three jacks at once and
safely landed them on the grass. They were small fish, about a pound to
a pound and a half each, and the man was but a few minutes in
accomplishing the feat. It sometimes happens that after a heavy flood,
when the brook has been thick with suspended mud for several days, so
soon as it has gone down fish are more than usually plentiful, as if the
flood had brought them up-stream: poachers are then particularly busy.
Fresh fish--that is, those who are new to that particular part of the
brook--are, the poachers say, much more easily captured than those who
have made it their home for some time. They are, in fact, more easily
discovered; they have not yet found out all the nooks and corners, the
projecting roots and the hollows under the banks, the dark places where
a black shadow falls from overhanging trees and is with difficulty
pierced even by a practised eye. They expose themselves in open places,
and meet an untimely fate.
Besides pike, tench are occasionally wired, and now and then even a
large roach; the tench, though a bottom fish, in the shallow brooks may
be sometimes detected by the eye, and is not a difficult fish to
capture. Every one has heard of tickling trout: the tench is almost
equally amenable to titillation. Lying at full length on the sward,
with his hat off lest it should fall into the water, the poacher peers
down into the hole where he has reason to think tench may be found.
This fish is so dark in colour when viewed from above that for a minute
or two, till the sight adapts itself to the dull light of the water, the
poacher cannot distinguish what he is searching for. Presently, having
made out the position of the tench, he slips his bared arm in slowly,
and without splash, and finds little or no trouble as a rule in getting
his hand close to the fish without alarming it: tench, indeed, seem
rather sluggish. He then passes his fingers under the belly and gently
rubs it. Now it would appear that he has the fish in his power, and has
only to grasp it. But grasping is not so easy; or rather it is not so
easy to pull a fish up through two feet of superincumbent water which
opposes the quick passage of the arm. The gentle rubbing in the first
place seems to soothe the fish, so that it becomes perfectly quiescent,
except that it slowly rises up in the water, and thus enables the hand
to get into proper position for the final seizure. When it has risen up
towards the surface sufficiently far--the tench must not be driven too
near the surface, for it does not like light and will glide away--the
poacher suddenly snaps as it were; his thumb and fingers, if he possibly
can manage it, closing on the gills. The body is so slimy and slippery
that there alone a firm hold can be got, though the poacher will often
flick the fish out of water in an instant so soon as it is near the
surface. Poachers evidently feel as much pleasure in practising these
tricks as the most enthusiastic angler using the implements of
legitimate sport.
No advantage is thought too unfair to be taken of fish; nothing too
brutally unsportsmanlike. I have seen a pike killed with a prong as he
lay basking in the sun at the top of the water. A labourer stealthily
approached, and suddenly speared him with one of the sharp points of the
prong or hayfork he carried: the pike was a good sized one too.
The stream, where not strictly preserved, is frequently netted without
the slightest regard to season. The net is stretched from bank to bank,
and watched by one man, while the other walks up the brook thirty or
forty yards, and drives the fish down the current into the bag. With a
long pole he thrashes the water, making a good deal of splash, and
rousing up the mud, which fish dislike and avoid. The pole is thrust
into every hiding-place, and pokes everything out. The watcher by the
net knows by the bobbing under of the corks when a shoal of roach and
perch, or a heavy pike, has darted into it, and instantly draws the
string and makes his haul. In this way, by sections at a time, the
brook, perhaps for half a mile, is quite cleared out. Jack, however,
sometimes escape; they seem remarkably shrewd and quick to learn. If
the string is not immediately drawn when they touch the net, they are
out of it without a moment's delay: they will double back up-stream
through all the splashing and mud, and some will even slide as it were
between the net and the bank if it does not quite touch in any place,
and so get away.
In its downward course the brook irrigates many water meadows, and to
drive the stream out upon them there are great wooden hatches.
Sometimes a gang of men, discovering that there is a quantity of fish
thereabouts, will force down a hatch which at once shuts off or greatly
diminishes the volume of water flowing down the brook, and then rapidly
construct a dam across the current below it with the mud of the shore.
Above this dam they thrash the water with poles and drive all the fish
towards it, and then make a second dam above the first so as to enclose
them in a short space. In the making of these dams speed is an object,
or the water will accumulate and flow over the hatch; so hurdles are
used, as they afford a support to the mud hastily thrown up. Then with
buckets, bowls, and "scoops," they bale out the water between the two
dams, and quickly reduce their prey to wriggling helplessness. In this
way whole baskets full of fish have been taken, together with eels; and
nothing so enclosed can escape.
The mere or lake by the wood is protected by sharp stakes set at the
bottom, which would tear poachers' nets; and the keeper does not think
any attempt to sweep it has been made of late years, it is too well
watched. But he believes that night lines are frequently laid: a
footpath runs along one shore for some distance, and gives easy access,
and such lines may be overlooked. He is certain that eels are taken in
that way despite his vigilance.
Trespassing for crayfish, too, causes much annoyance. I have known men
to get bodily up to the waist into the great ponds, a few of which yet
remain, after carp. These fish have a curious habit of huddling up in
hollows under the banks; and those who know where these hollows and
holes are situate can take them by hand if they can come suddenly upon
them. It is said that now and then fish are raked out of the ponds with
a common rake (such as is used in haymaking) when, lying on the mud in
winter.