The Chequers stands in a very nasty place, yet we are within easy
distance of a park which swarms with game. This game is preserved for
the amusement of a royal duke, who is kind enough to draw about twelve
thousand a year from the admiring taxpayer. He has not rendered any very
brilliant service to his adopted country, unless we reckon his nearly
causing the loss of the battle of Alma as a national benefit. He wept
piteously during the battle of Inkerman when the Guards got into a warm
corner, but, although he is pleasingly merciful towards Russians, he is
most courageous in his assaults on pheasants and rabbits, and the
country provides him with the finest sporting ground in England. I
should not like to say how many men make money by poaching in the park,
but we have a regular school of them at The Chequers, and they seem to
pick up a fair amount of drink money. The temptation is great. Every one
of these poaching fellows has the hunter's instinct strongly developed,
and neither fines nor gaol can frighten them. The keepers catch one
after another, but the work goes on all the same. You cannot stop men
from poaching, and there is an end of the matter. You may shout yourself
hoarse in trying to bring a greyhound to heel after he sights a hare;
but the dog _cannot_ obey you, for he is an automaton. The human
predatory animal has his share of reason, but he also is automatic to
some degree, and he will hunt in spite of all perils and all punishments
when he sights his prey. One comic old rascal whom I know well has been
caught thirty times and imprisoned eight times. While he is in gaol he
always occupies himself in composing songs in praise of poaching, and on
the evening of his release he is invariably called on to furnish the
company in the tap-room with his new composition. He cannot read or
write, but he learns his songs by heart, and I have taken down a large
number of them from his own lips. The things are much like Jemmy
Catnach's stuff, so far as rhyme and rhythm are concerned, but they are
interesting on account of the sly exultation that runs through them.
In one poem the lawless bard gives an account of a day's life in gaol,
and his coarse phrases make you almost feel the cold and hunger. Here
are some scraps from this descriptive work:--
"Till seven we walk around the yard,
There is a man all to you guard.
If you put your hand out so,
Untoe the guv'nor you must go;
Eight o'clock is our breakfast hour,
Those wittles they do soon devour;
Oh! dear me, how they eat and stuff,
Lave off with less than half enough.
Nine o'clock you mount the mill,
That you mayn't cramp from settin' still.
If that be ever so against your will,
You must mount on the traädin' mill.
There is a turnkey that you'll find
He is a raskill most unkind.
To rob poor prisoners he is that man,
To chaäte poor prisoners where he can.
At eleven o'clock we march upstairs
To hear the parson read the prayers.
Then we are locked into a pen--
It's almost like a lion's den.
There's iron bars big round as your thigh,
To make you of a prison shy.
At twelve o'clock the turnkey come;
The locks and bolts sound like a drum.
If you be ever so full of game,
The traädin' mill it will you tame.
At one you mount the mill again,
That is labour all in vain
If that be ever so wrong or right,
You must traäde till six at night.
Thursdays we have a jubal fraä
Wi' bread and cheese for all the day.
I'll tell you raälly, without consate,
For a hungry pig 'tis a charmin' bait.
At six you're locked into your cell,
There until the mornin' dwell;
There's a bed o' straw all to lay on,
There's Hobson's choice, there's that or none."
That is a bleak picture; but the old man winds up by bidding all his
mates "go it again, my merry boys, and never mind if they you taäke." He
told me that on several occasions he was out ferreting, or with his
lurcher, on the next night after coming out of prison. Can you keep such
a fellow out of a well-stocked park? He likes the money that he gets for
game, but what he likes far better is the wild pleasure of seeing the
deadly dogs wind on the trail of the doomed quarry; he likes the danger,
the strategy, the gambling chances.
One night I got this old man to drive me about for some hours. He is a
smart hand with horses, and when I said, "Can you manage without lamps
in this dark?"--he answered, "I could find my way for twenty miles round
here if you tie my eyes up. There's nary gate that my nets hasn't been
under; there's hardly a field that I haven't been chased on." As our
trotter swung on, I found that the poacher associated almost every gate
and outhouse and copse with some wild story. For example, we passed a
clump of farm-buildings, and the poacher said; "I had a queer job in
there. Three of us had had a good night--a dozen hares--and we got
half-a-crown apiece for them, so we drank all day, and came out on the
game again at night. We put down a master lot o' wires about eleven, and
then we takes a bottle o' rum and goes to lie down on a load of hay.
Well, we all takes too much, and sleeps on and on. When I wakes, Lord,
we was covered with snow, and a marcy we was alive. We dursn't go for
our wires in the daylight, and there we has to stand and see a keeper go
and take out three hares, one after another. It was a fortnight before I
had a chance of picking up the wires again, and we was about perished."
Cold, wet, and all other inconveniences are nothing to the poacher.
Presently my man chuckled grimly. "Had a near shave over there where you
see them ar' trees. I had my old dorg out one night, and two commarades
along with me. We did werra well at that gate we just passed, so we
tries another field. Do you think that there owd dorg 'ud go in? Not he.
There never was such a one for 'cuteness. We was all in our poachin'
clothes, faces blacked, women's nightcaps on, and shirts on over our
coats. Well, the light come in the sky, and I separates from my mates,
for I sees the owd dorg put up a hare and coorse her. I follows him, and
he gits up for first turn; then puss begins to turn very quick to throw
the dorg out before she made her last run to cover. He was on the scut,
the old rip--catch him leave her--and I gits excited, and, like a fool,
I chevies him on. In a minute I sees a man running at me, and off I goes
for the gate. Now, I could run any man round here from 300 yards up to a
mile; but I knew I must be took at the gate, unless I could stop the
keeper. I had a big stick with me--about six foot long it was--and did
sometimes to beat fuzz with; so I takes the stick by one end. He come up
very sharp, and I made up my mind to let him gain on me. As soon as I
_feels_ him on me, I swings round, and the stick got him on the side of
the head. He went flat down, and I got on to the road. I picked up my
mates, and we washes our faces in a pond; then we leaves our clothes
with one of the school, and walks off to the pub. Half an hour after, in
comes the keeper and says, 'See what some of you blackguards has done
for me?' I stands him a drink and says how sorry, and we parted. Ah!
Years after that I was at a harvest supper with that keeper, and we
talks of that affair. I says, 'I'll tell you now, I was the man as
knocked you over,' and he says, 'Shake hands, Tom. It was the cleanest
thing I ever saw done.'
"Do you really like the game, then?"
"Like it! I'd die at it. If it wasn't for my crippled foot I'd be out
every night now."
Old Tom, the much-imprisoned man, never goes out with a gang now, but
his influence is potent. He is the romantic poacher, and many a man has
been set on by him. Observe that the best of these night thieves are on
perfectly friendly terms with the keepers. If they are taken, they
resign themselves to fate, and bear no ill-will. It is a game, and if
the keeper makes a good move he is admired--and forgiven.
Six regular poachers come daily to The Chequers, but there are many
others hanging around who are merely amateurs. One queer customer with
whom I have stayed out many nights is the despair of the keepers. His
resource is inexhaustible, and his courage is almost admirable. Let me
say--with a blush if you like--that I am a skilful poacher, and my
generalship has met with approval from gentlemen who have often seen the
inside of Her Majesty's prisons. Alas!
One day I was much taken with the appearance of a beautiful fawn bitch,
which lay on the seat in the room which is used by the most shady men in
the district. Her owner was a tall, thin man, with sly grey eyes, set
very near together, and a lean, resolute face. Doggy men are freemasons,
and I soon opened the conversation by speaking of the pretty fawn. She
pricked her ears, and to my amazement, they stood up like those of a
rabbit. Such a weird, out-of-the-way head I never saw, though the dog
looked a nice, well-trained greyhound when she had her ears laid back.