"She ain't all greyhound; but the best man as ever I knew always said
there never was a prick-eared one a bad 'un."
"Is she for sale?"
"There ain't enough money to buy her."
"She's so very good?"
"Never was one like her!"
I found out, when we became fast friends, that the man's statement was
quite correct. The dog's intelligence was supernatural. For the benefit
of innocents who do not know what poaching is like, I will give an idea
of this one dog's depredations. The owner--the Consumptive, I call him,
as his night work has damaged his lungs--grew very friendly one day, and
confidential. He winked and remarked, "Now, how many do you think I've
had this month?"
"How many what?"
"You know. Rabbits. Guess."
I tried, and failed. The Consumptive whispered, "Well, I keeps count,
just the same as a shopkeeper, and as true as I'm a living man I've
taken two hundred and fifty out of that park, and averaged tenpence for
'em."
"With the one bitch?"
"No. I've got a pup from her--such a pup. The old 'un's taught the baby,
and I swear I'll never let that pup come out in daylight. They work
together, and nothing can get away."
This astounding statement was true to the letter. The dogs were like
imps for cunning; they would hide skilfully at the very sound of a
strange footstep, and they would retrieve for miles if necessary. I may
say that I have seen them at work, and I earnestly wish that Frank
Buckland could have been there.
The Consumptive is a dissolute, drunken fellow, whose life is certainly
not noble. Fancy being maintained in idleness by a couple of dogs! But
the park is there, and the man cannot help stealing. I have seen his
puppy, and I wish the royal duke could see her. She is a cross between
lurcher and greyhound; her cunning head resembles that of a terrier, and
her long, slim limbs are hard as steel. Her precious owner spends his
days in tippling; he never reads, and, I fancy, never thinks; he goes
forth at dusk, and his faithful dogs proceed to work for his livelihood.
The Consumptive is, as I have said, a man of great resource; but he has
for once been within a hair's breadth of disaster. When he walks across
the park at dusk, he likes to take his wife with him, and on such
occasions he looks like a quiet workman out for a stroll with the
missus. He sometimes puts his arm round the lady's waist, and the couple
look so very loving and tender. It would never do to take the raking,
great deerhound; but the innocent little fawn dog naturally follows her
master, and looks, oh! so demure.
The lady wears a wide loose cloak, which comes to her feet, for you must
know that the mists rise very coldly from the hollows. Then these two
sentimentalists wend their way to a secluded quarter of the vast park,
and presently the faithful fawn mysteriously disappears. She moves slyly
among the bracken, and her exquisite scent serves to guide her
unerringly as she works up wind. Presently she steadies herself, takes
aim, and rushes! The rabbit only has time to turn once or twice before
the savage jaws close on him, and then the fawn makes her way carefully
towards Darby and Joan. She takes advantage of every shadow; she never
thinks of rashly crossing open ground, and Darby has only got to stamp
twice to make her lie down. She sneaks up, and, horror! she gives the
rabbit to Joan. Now under that cloak there is a useful little apparatus.
A strong strap is fastened under Joan's armpits and over her breasts.
This strap has on it a dozen strong hooks. Joan slits away the tendons
of the rabbit's hind legs from the bone, hangs the game on one of the
hooks, and the lovers wend their way peacefully, while the family
provider glides off on another murderous errand. When four or five hooks
are occupied, the lady walks homeward with the demure dog, Darby goes
and drinks at The Chequers till about eleven, and then the
mouse-coloured deerhound is taken out to do her share.
The fond couple were sitting on a bench under a tree, for Joan had
fairly tired under the weight of no less than nine rabbits which were
slung on her belt. The lurcher stole up, and quietly laid a rabbit down
at Joan's feet; then a soft-spoken man came from behind the tree, and
observed--
"I am a policeman in plain clothes, and you must go with me to the
keeper's cottage."
But Darby, the wily one, rose to the occasion. The dog is trained to
repudiate his acquaintance at a word, and when he said, "That's not my
dog; get off, you brute!" the accomplished lurcher picked up the rabbit
and vanished like lightning. Nevertheless the policeman led off Darby,
and Joan followed. The keeper was out, but the policeman searched the
Consumptive and found nothing.
The keeper said to me--even me, "My wife tells me they brought up a man
the other night, but he had no game on him. He had a woman with him that
fairly made the missus tremble. She was like a bloomin' giant out of a
show." I smiled, for the Consumptive had told me the whole tale. "My
'art was in my mouth," he remarked, and I do not wonder. Considering
that Joan was padded with the carcases of _nine_ rabbits under that
enormous cloak, it was quite natural for her bulk to seem abnormal. Ah!
if that intelligent policeman had probed the mysteries that underlay
the cloak! I am glad he did not, for the Consumptive is a most
entertaining beast of prey.
Another of our poaching men was obliged to borrow from me the money for
his dog licences, and in gratitude he allowed me to see his brace of
greyhounds work at midnight. People think that greyhounds cannot hunt by
scent, but this man has a tiny black and a large brindle that work like
basset-hounds. They are partners, and they have apparently a great
contempt for the rules of coursing. One waits at the bottom of a field,
while his partner quarters the ground with the arrowy fleetness of a
swallow. When a hare is put up by the beating dog she goes straight to
her doom.
It seems marvellous that such lawless desperadoes should be hanging
about London; but there they are, and they will have successors so long
as there is a head of game on the ground. The men are disreputable
loafers; they care only for drink and the pleasures of idleness. I grant
that. My only business is to show what a strange secret life, what a
strange secret society, may be studied almost within sight of St.
Paul's.
The very best and most daring poacher I know lives within
five-and-twenty minutes' journey from Waterloo. You may keep on framing
stringent game laws as long as you choose, but you cannot kill an
overmastering instinct.
I am not prepared to say, "Abolish the Game Laws;" but I do say that
those laws cause wild, worthless fellows to be regarded as heroes. No
stigma whatever attaches to a man who has been imprisoned for poaching;
he has won his Victoria Cross, and he is admired henceforth. You inflict
a punishment which confers honour on the culprit in the eyes of the only
persons for whose opinion he cares. Even the better sort of men who
haunt our public-houses are glad to meet and talk with the poachers. The
punishment gives a man a few weeks of privation and months of adulation.
He bears no malice; he simply goes and poaches again. No burglar ever
brags of his exploits; the poacher always boasts, and always receives
applause.