Before we proceed with our narrative, perhaps it will be better to
explain what may appear very strange to the reader. Joseph Rushbrook,
who has just left the cottage with his son and his dog, was born in the
village in which he was then residing. During his younger days, some
forty years previous to his present introduction to the reader, the law
was not so severe, or the measures taken against poachers so strong as
they were at the period of which we write. In his youth he had been
very fond of carrying a gun--as his father had been before him--but he
never was discovered; and after having poached for many years, and
gained a perfect knowledge of the country for miles round, he was
persuaded, in a fit of semi-intoxication, at a neighbouring fair, to
enlist in a marching regiment. He had not been more than three months
at the depot when he was ordered out to India, where he remained eleven
years before he was recalled. He had scarcely been six months in
England, when the exigency of the war demanded the services of the
regiment in the Mediterranean, where he remained for twelve years, and
having received a severe wound in the head, he was then pensioned off
and discharged. He resolved to return to his native village, and settle
down quietly, hoping by moderate labour and his pension, to gain a
comfortable living. On his return he was hardly known; many had
emigrated to a foreign clime; many had been transported for offences
against the laws, particularly for the offence of poaching: and as most
of his former allies had been so employed, he found himself almost a
stranger where he expected to meet with friends. The property also
about the village had changed hands. People recollected Squire
So-and-So, and the Baronet, but now their lands were held by wealthy
manufacturers or retired merchants. All was new to Joe Rushbrook, and
he felt himself anywhere but at home. Jane Ashley, a very beautiful
young woman, who was in service at the Hall, the mansion appertaining to
the adjacent property, and the daughter of one of his earliest friends,
who had been transported for poaching, was almost the only one who could
talk to him after his absence of twenty-four years; not that she knew
the people at the time, for she was then an infant, but she had grown up
with them after Joe had left, and could narrate anecdotes of them, and
what had been their eventual destinies. Jane having been the daughter
of a man who had been transported for poaching, was to Joe a sort of
recommendation, and it ended in his taking her for his wife. They had
not been long settled in their cottage before Joe's former propensities
returned; in fact, he could not be idle, he had carried a musket too
long, and had lived such a life of excitement in the service of his
country, that he found it impossible to exist without shooting at
something. All his former love of poaching came strong upon him, and
his wife, so far from checking him, encouraged him in his feelings. The
consequence was, that two years after his marriage, Joe Rushbrook was
the most determined poacher in the county. Although often suspected, he
had never been detected; one great cause of this was his appearing to be
such a drunkard, a plan hit upon by his wife, who had observed that
drunken men were not suspected of being poachers. This scheme had
therefore been hit upon, and very successfully; for proving before a
magistrate that a man was carried home dead drunk and speechless at
midnight, was quite as good an _alibi_ as could be brought forward. Joe
Rushbrook had, therefore, the credit of being a worthless drunken
fellow, who lived upon his pension and what his wife could earn; but no
one had an idea that he was not only earning his livelihood, but laying
by money from his successful night labours. Not that Joe did not like a
drop occasionally--on the contrary, he would sometimes drink freely;
but, generally speaking, the wounds in his head were complained of; and
he would, if the wind was fresh and set in the right quarter, contrive
to be carried home on the night in which he had most work to do. Such
was the case, as we have represented in the first chapter.
Little Joey, who, as the reader may anticipate, will be our future hero,
was born the first year after marriage, and was their only child. He
was a quiet, thoughtful, reflective boy for his years, and had imbibed
his father's love of walking out on a dark night to an extraordinary
degree: it was strange to see how much prudence there was, mingled with
the love of adventure, in this lad. True it is, his father had trained
him early, first to examine the snares and conceal the game, which a
little shrimp like Joey could do, without being suspected to be
otherwise employed than in picking blackberries. Before he was seven
years old, Joey could set a springe as well as his father, and was well
versed in all the mystery and art of unlawful taking of game. Indeed,
he was very valuable to his father, and could do what his father could
not have ventured upon without exciting suspicion. It was, perhaps,
from his constant vigils, that the little boy was so small in size; at
all events, his diminutive size was the cause of there being no
suspicion attached to him. Joey went very regularly to the day-school
of Mr Furness; and although often up the best part of the night, he was
one of the best and most diligent of the scholars. No one could have
supposed that the little fair-haired, quiet-looking boy, who was so busy
with his books or his writing, could have been out half the night on a
perilous excursion, for such it was at the time we are speaking of. It
need hardly be observed that Joey had learned one important lesson,
which was to be _silent_; not even _Mum_, the dog, who could not speak,
was more secret or more faithful.
It is astonishing how much the nature and disposition of a child may be
altered by early tuition. Let a child be always with its nurse, even
under the guidance of a mother, regularly brought up as children usually
are, and it will continue to be a child, and even childish, after
childhood is gone. But take the same child, put it by degrees in
situations of peril, requiring thought and observation beyond its years,
accustom it to nightly vigils, and to watching, and to hold its tongue,
and it is astonishing how the mind of that child, however much its body
may suffer, will develop itself so as to meet the demand upon it. Thus
it is with lads that are sent early to sea, and thus it was with little
Joey. He was a man in some points, although a child in others. He
would play with his companions, laugh as loudly as the others, but still
he would never breathe a hint of what was his father's employment. He
went to church every Sunday, as did his father and mother; for they
considered that poaching was no crime, although punished as such by the
laws; and he, of course, considered it no crime, as he only did what his
father and mother wished. Let it not be thought, therefore, that the
morals of our little hero were affected by his father's profession, for
such was not the case.
Having entered into this necessary explanation, we will now proceed. No
band of North American Indians could have observed a better trail than
that kept by our little party. Rushbrook walked first, followed by our
hero and the dog Mum. Not a word was spoken; they continued their route
over grass-lands and ploughed fields, keeping in the shade of the
hedgerows: if Rushbrook stopped for a while to reconnoitre, so did Joey,
and so did Mum at their relative distances, until the march was resumed.
For three miles and a half did they thus continue, until they arrived
at a thick cover. The wind whistled through the branches of the bare
trees, chiefly oak and ash; the cold, damp fog was now stationary, and
shrouded them as they proceeded cautiously by the beaten track in the
cover, until they had passed through it, and arrived on the other side,
where the cottage of a gamekeeper was situated. A feeble light was
burning, and shone through the diamond-paned windows.
Rushbrook walked out clear of the cover, and held up his hand to
ascertain precisely the direction of the wind. Having satisfied
himself; he retreated into the cover, in a direction so as to be exactly
to leeward of the keeper's house, that the noise of the report of his
gun might not be heard. Having cleared the hedge, he lowered his gun,
so as to bring the barrel within two or three inches of the ground, and
walked slowly and cautiously through the brushwood, followed, as before,
by Joey and Mum. After about a quarter of a mile's walk, a rattling of
metal was heard, and they stopped short; it was the barrel of the
fowling-piece which had brushed one of the wires attached to a
spring-gun, set for the benefit of poachers. Rushbrook lifted up his
left hand, as a sign to Joey not to move; and following the wire, by
continually rattling his barrel against it, he eventually arrived at the
gun itself; opened the pan, threw out all the priming, leaving it with
the pan open, so that it could not go off; in case they fell in with
another of the wires. Rushbrook then proceeded to business, for he well
knew that the gun would be set where the pheasants were most accustomed
to roost; he put a small charge of powder in his fowling-piece, that,
being so near, he might not shatter the birds, and because the noise of
the report would be much less; walking under an oak-tree he soon
discovered the round black masses which the bodies of the roosting
pheasants presented between him and the sky, and raising his piece, he
fired; a heavy bound on the earth near his feet followed the discharge;
Joey then slipped forward and put the pheasant into his bag; another and
another shot, and every shot brought an increase to Joey's load.
Seventeen were already in it when Mum gave a low growl. This was the
signal for people being near. Rushbrook snapped his finger; the dog
came forward to his side, and stood motionless, with ears and tail
erect. In a minute's time was heard the rustling of branches as the
party forced their way through the underwood. Rushbrook stood still,
waiting the signal from Mum, for the dog had been taught, if the parties
advancing had another dog with them, always to raise his fore-feet up to
Rushbrook's knees, but not otherwise; Mum made no such sign, and then
Rushbrook lay down in the brushwood, his motions being closely followed
by his son and his dog.
Voices in whispers were now heard, and the forms of two men with guns
were to be seen not four yards from where they were lying.
"Somewhere about here, I'll swear," said one.
"Yes, I think so; but it may be further on--the wind has brought down
the sound."
"Very true, let's follow them, and they may fall back upon the
spring-gun."
The parties then advanced into the cover, and were soon out of sight;
after a time Rushbrook held his ear to the wind, and, satisfied that all
was safe, moved homewards, and arrived without further adventure, having
relieved Joey of the heavy sack as soon as they were in the open fields.
At three o'clock in the morning, he tapped at the back door of the
cottage. Jane opened it, and the spoils of the night having been put
away in a secret place, they were all soon in bed and fast asleep.