CHAPTER II. THE OLD PUNT: A CURIOUS “TURNPIKE”
CHAPTER III. TREE-SHOOTING: A FISHING EXPEDITION
CHAPTER IV. EGG-TIME: A “GIP”-TRAP
CHAPTER V. WOODLAND TWILIGHT: TRAITORS ON THE GIBBET
CHAPTER VI. LURCHER-LAND: “THE PARK”
CHAPTER VII. OBY, AND HIS SYSTEM: THE MOUCHER’S CALENDAR
CHAPTER VIII. CHURCHYARD PHEASANTS: BEFORE THE BENCH
CHAPTER IX. LUKE, THE RABBIT-CONTRACTOR: THE BROOK PATH
CHAPTER X. FARMER WILLUM’S PLACE: SNIPE-SHOOTING
CHAPTER XI. FERRETING: A RABBIT-HUNTER
CHAPTER XII. A WINTER NIGHT: OLD TRICKS:
PHEASANT-STALKING: MATCHLOCK VERSUS BREECH-LOADER: CONCLUSION
PREFACE
The following pages are arranged somewhat in the order of time,
beginning with the first gun, and attempts at shooting. Then come the
fields, the first hills, and woods explored, often without a gun, or
any thought of destruction: and next the poachers, and other odd
characters observed at their work. Perhaps the idea of shooting with a
matchlock, or wheel-lock, might, if put in practice, at least afford
some little novelty.
R.J.
THE AMATEUR POACHER
CHAPTER I
THE FIRST GUN
They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the
garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely.
Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did
not come by his death fairly. Otherwise his pelt would not have been so
perfect. And why else was he put away up there out of sight?—and so
magnificent a brush as he had too. But there he stood, and mounted
guard over the old flintlock that was so powerful a magnet to us in
those days. Though to go up there alone was no slight trial of moral
courage after listening to the horrible tales of the carters in the
stable, or the old women who used to sit under the hedge in the shade,
on an armful of hay, munching their crusts at luncheon time.
The great cavernous place was full of shadows in the brightest summer
day; for the light came only through the chinks in the shutters. These
were flush with the floor and bolted firmly. The silence was intense,
it being so near the roof and so far away from the inhabited parts of
the house. Yet there were sometimes strange acoustical effects—as when
there came a low tapping at the shutters, enough to make your heart
stand still. There was then nothing for it but to dash through the
doorway into the empty cheese-room adjoining, which was better lighted.
No doubt it was nothing but the labourers knocking the stakes in for
the railing round the rickyard, but why did it sound just exactly
outside the shutters? When that ceased the staircase creaked, or the
pear-tree boughs rustled against the window. The staircase always
waited till you had forgotten all about it before the loose worm-eaten
planks sprang back to their place.
Had it not been for the merry whistling of the starlings on the thatch
above, it would not have been possible to face the gloom and the teeth
of Reynard, ever in the act to snap, and the mystic noises, and the
sense of guilt—for the gun was forbidden. Besides which there was the
black mouth of the open trapdoor overhead yawning fearfully—a standing
terror and temptation; for there was a legend of a pair of pistols
thrown up there out of the way—a treasure-trove tempting enough to make
us face anything. But Orion must have the credit of the courage; I call
him Orion because he was a hunter and had a famous dog. The last I
heard of him he had just ridden through a prairie fire, and says the
people out there think nothing of it.
We dragged an ancient linen-press under the trapdoor, and put some
boxes on that, and finally a straight-backed oaken chair. One or two of
those chairs were split up and helped to do the roasting on the kitchen
hearth. So, climbing the pile, we emerged under the rafters, and could
see daylight faintly in several places coming through the starlings’
holes. One or two bats fluttered to and fro as we groped among the
lumber, but no pistols could be discovered; nothing but a cannon-ball,
rusty enough and about as big as an orange, which they say was found in
the wood, where there was a brush in Oliver’s time.
In the middle of our expedition there came the well-known whistle,
echoing about the chimneys, with which it was the custom to recall us
to dinner. How else could you make people hear who might be cutting a
knobbed stick in the copse half a mile away or bathing in the lake? We
had to jump down with a run; and then came the difficulty; for black
dusty cobwebs, the growth of fifty years, clothed us from head to foot.
There was no brushing or picking them off, with that loud whistle
repeated every two minutes.
The fact where we had been was patent to all; and so the chairs got
burned—but one, which was rickety. After which a story crept out, of a
disjointed skeleton lying in a corner under the thatch. Though just a
little suspicious that this might be a _ruse_ to frighten us from a
second attempt, we yet could not deny the possibility of its being
true. Sometimes in the dusk, when I sat poring over “Koenigsmark, the
Robber,” by the little window in the cheese-room, a skull seemed to
peer down the trapdoor. But then I had the flintlock by me for
protection.
There were giants in the days when that gun was made; for surely no
modern mortal could have held that mass of metal steady to his
shoulder. The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however,
a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of
the window at the old mare feeding in the meadow below by the brook,
and a “bead” could be drawn upon Molly, the dairymaid, kissing the
fogger behind the hedge, little dreaming that the deadly tube was
levelled at them. At least this practice and drill had one useful
effect—the eye got accustomed to the flash from the pan, instead of
blinking the discharge, which ruins the shooting. Almost everybody and
everything on the place got shot dead in this way without knowing it.
It was not so easy as might be supposed to find proper flints. The best
time to look for them was after a heavy storm of rain had washed a
shallow channel beside the road, when you might select some hardy
splinters which had lain hidden under the dust. How we were found out
is not quite clear: perhaps the powder left a smell of sulphur for any
one who chanced to go up in the garret.
But, however that may be, one day, as we came in unexpectedly from a
voyage in the punt, something was discovered burning among the logs on
the kitchen hearth; and, though a desperate rescue was attempted,
nothing was left but the barrel of our precious gun and some crooked
iron representing the remains of the lock. There are things that are
never entirely forgotten, though the impression may become fainter as
years go by. The sense of the cruel injustice of that act will never
quite depart.
But they could not burn the barrel, and we almost succeeded in fitting
it to a stock of elder. Elder has a thick pith running down the centre:
by removing that the gouge and chisel had not much work to do to make a
groove for the old bell-mouthed barrel to lie in. The matchlock, for as
such it was intended, was nearly finished when our hopes were dashed to
the ground by a piece of unnatural cunning. One morning the breechpiece
that screwed in was missing. This was fatal. A barrel without a
breechpiece is like a cup without a bottom. It was all over.
There are days in spring when the white clouds go swiftly past, with
occasional breaks of bright sunshine lighting up a spot in the
landscape. That is like the memory of one’s youth. There is a long dull
blank, and then a brilliant streak of recollection. Doubtless it was a
year or two afterwards when, seeing that the natural instinct could not
be suppressed but had better be recognised, they produced a real gun
(single-barrel) for me from the clock-case.
It stood on the landing just at the bottom of the dark flight that led
to the garret. An oaken case six feet high or more, and a vast dial,
with a mysterious picture of a full moon and a ship in full sail that
somehow indicated the quarters of the year, if you had been imitating
Rip Van Winkle and after a sleep of six months wanted to know whether
it was spring or autumn. But only to think that all the while we were
puzzling over the moon and the ship and the queer signs on the dial a
gun was hidden inside! The case was locked, it is true; but there are
ways of opening locks, and we were always handy with tools.
This gun was almost, but not quite so long as the other. That dated
from the time between Stuart and Hanover; this might not have been more
than seventy years old. And a beautiful piece of workmanship it was: my
new double breechloader is a coarse common thing to compare with it.
Long and slender and light as a feather, it came to the shoulder with
wonderful ease. Then there was a groove on the barrel at the breech and
for some inches up which caught the eye and guided the glance like a
trough to the sight at the muzzle and thence to the bird. The stock was
shod with brass, and the trigger-guard was of brass, with a kind of
flange stretching half-way down to the butt and inserted in the wood.
After a few minutes’ polishing it shone like gold, and to see the
sunlight flash on it was a joy.
You might note the grain of the barrel, for it had not been browned;
and it took a good deal of sand to get the rust off. By aid of a little
oil and careful wiping after a shower it was easy to keep it bright.
Those browned barrels only encourage idleness. The lock was a trifle
dull at first, simply from lack of use. A small screwdriver soon had it
to pieces, and it speedily clicked again sweet as a flute. If the
hammer came back rather far when at full-cock, that was because the
lock had been converted from a flint, and you could not expect it to be
absolutely perfect. Besides which, as the fall was longer the blow was
heavier, and the cap was sure to explode.
By old farmhouses, mostly in exposed places (for which there is a
reason), one or more huge walnut trees may be found. The provident folk
of those days planted them with the purpose of having their own
gunstocks cut out of the wood when the tree was thrown. They could then
be sure it was really walnut, and a choice piece of timber thoroughly
well seasoned. I like to think of those times, when men settled
themselves down, and planted and planned and laid out their gardens and
orchards and woods, as if they and their sons and sons’ sons, to the
twentieth generation, were sure to enjoy the fruit of their labour.
The reason why the walnuts are put in exposed places, on the slope of a
rise, with open aspect to the east and north, is because the walnut is
a foolish tree that will not learn by experience. If it feels the
warmth of a few genial days in early spring, it immediately protrudes
its buds; and the next morning a bitter frost cuts down every hope of
fruit for that year, leaving the leaf as black as may be. Wherefore the
east wind is desirable to keep it as backward as possible.
There was a story that the stock of this gun had been cut out of a
walnut tree that was thrown on the place by my great-grandfather, who
saw it well seasoned, being a connoisseur of timber, which is, indeed,
a sort of instinct in all his descendants. And a vast store of
philosophy there is in timber if you study it aright.
After cleaning the gun and trying it at a mark, the next thing was to
get a good shot with it. Now there was an elm that stood out from the
hedge a little, almost at the top of the meadow, not above
five-and-twenty yards from the other hedge that bounded the field. Two
mounds could therefore be commanded by any one in ambush behind the
elm, and all the angular corner of the mead was within range.
It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression
there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the
roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm,
with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms
and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the
verge of the prairie with the backwoods close by.
The rabbits had scratched the yellow sand right out into the grass—it
is always very much brighter in colour where they have just been at
work—and the fern, already almost yellow too, shaded the mouths of
their buries. Thick bramble bushes grew out from the mound and filled
the space between it and the elm: there were a few late flowers on them
still, but the rest were hardening into red sour berries. Westwards,
the afternoon sun, with all his autumn heat, shone full against the
hedge and into the recess, and there was not the shadow of a leaf for
shelter on that side.
The gun was on the turf, and the little hoppers kept jumping out of the
grass on to the stock: once their king, a grasshopper, alighted on it
and rested, his green limbs tipped with red rising above his back.
About the distant wood and the hills there was a soft faint haze, which
is what Nature finishes her pictures with. Something in the atmosphere
which made it almost visible: all the trees seemed to stand in a liquid
light—the sunbeams were suspended in the air instead of passing
through. The butterflies even were very idle in the slumberous warmth;
and the great green dragon-fly rested on a leaf, his tail arched a
little downwards, just as he puts it when he wishes to stop suddenly in
his flight.
The broad glittering trigger-guard got quite hot in the sun, and the
stock was warm when I felt it every now and then. The grain of the
walnut-wood showed plainly through the light polish: it was not
varnished like the stock of the double-barrel they kept padlocked to
the rack over the high mantelpiece indoors. Still you could see the
varnish. It was of a rich dark horse-chestnut colour, and yet so bright
and clear that if held close you could see your face in it. Behind it
the grain of the wood was just perceptible; especially at the grip,
where hard hands had worn it away somewhat. The secret of that varnish
is lost—like that of the varnish on the priceless old violins.
But you could feel the wood more in my gun: so that it was difficult to
keep the hand off it, though the rabbits would not come out; and the
shadowless recess grew like a furnace, for it focussed the rays of the
sun. The heat on the sunny side of a thick hedge between three and four
in the afternoon is almost tropical if you remain still, because the
air is motionless: the only relief is to hold your hat loose; or tilt
it against your head, the other edge of the brim on the ground. Then
the grass-blades rise up level with the forehead. There is a delicious
smell in growing grass, and a sweetness comes up from the earth.
Still it got hotter and hotter; and it was not possible to move in the
least degree, lest a brown creature sitting on the sand at the mouth of
his hole, and hidden himself by the fern, should immediately note it.
And Orion was waiting in the rickyard for the sound of the report, and
very likely the shepherd too. We knew that men in Africa, watched by
lions, had kept still in the sunshine till, reflected from the rock, it
literally scorched them, not daring to move; and we knew all about the
stoicism of the Red Indians. But Ulysses was ever my pattern and model:
that man of infinite patience and resource.
So, though the sun might burn and the air become suffocating in that
close corner, and the quivering line of heat across the meadow make the
eyes dizzy to watch, yet not a limb must be moved. The black flies came
in crowds; but they are not so tormenting if you plunge your face in
the grass, though they titillate the back of the hand as they run over
it. Under the bramble bush was a bury that did not look much used; and
once or twice a great blue fly came out of it, the buzz at first
sounding hollow and afar off and becoming clearer as it approached the
mouth of the hole. There was the carcass of a dead rabbit inside no
doubt.
A humble-bee wandering along—they are restless things—buzzed right
under my hat, and became entangled in the grass by my ear. Now we knew
by experience in taking their honey that they could sting sharply if
irritated, though good-tempered by nature. How he “burred” and buzzed
and droned!—till by-and-by, crawling up the back of my head, he found
an open space and sailed away. Then, looking out again, there was a
pair of ears in the grass not ten yards distant: a rabbit had come out
at last. But the first delight was quickly over: the ears were short
and sharply pointed, and almost pinkly transparent.
What would the shepherd say if I brought home one of his hated enemies
no bigger than a rat? The young rabbit made waiting still more painful,
being far enough from the hedge to get a clear view into the recess if
anything attracted his notice. Why the shepherd hated rabbits was
because the sheep would not feed where they had worn their runs in the
grass. Not the least movement was possible now—not even that little
shifting which makes a position just endurable: the heat seemed to
increase; the thought of Ulysses could hardly restrain the almost
irresistible desire to stir.
When, suddenly, there was a slight rustling among the boughs of an oak
in the other hedge, as of wings against twigs: it was a woodpigeon,
better game than a rabbit. He would, I knew, first look round before he
settled himself to preen his feathers on the branch, and, if everything
was still while that keen inspection lasted, would never notice me.
This is their habit—and the closer you are underneath them the less
chance of their perceiving you: for a pigeon perched rarely looks
straight downwards. If flying, it is just the reverse; for then they
seem to see under them quicker than in any other direction.
Slowly lifting the long barrel of the gun—it was fortunate the sunlight
glancing on the bright barrel was not reflected towards the oak—I got
it to bear upon the bird; but then came a doubt. It was all
eight-and-twenty yards across the angle of the meadow to the oak—a
tremendous long shot under the circumstances. For they would not trust
us with the large copper powder-flask, but only with a little
pistol-flask (it had belonged to the pair of pistols we tried to find),
and we were ordered not to use more than a charge and a half at a time.
That was quite enough to kill blackbirds. (The noise of the report was
always a check in this way; such a trifle of powder only made a slight
puff.)
Shot there was in plenty—a whole tobacco-pipe bowl full, carefully
measured out of the old yellow canvas money-bag that did for a shot
belt. A starling could be knocked off the chimney with this charge
easily, and so could a blackbird roosting in a bush at night. But a
woodpigeon nearly thirty yards distant was another matter; for the old
folk (and the birdkeepers too) said that their quills were so hard the
shot would glance aside unless it came with great force. Very likely
the pigeon would escape, and all the rabbits in the buries would be too
frightened to come out at all.
A beautiful bird he was on the bough, perched well in view and clearly
defined against the sky behind; and my eye travelled along the groove
on the breech and up the barrel, and so to the sight and across to him;
and the finger, which always would keep time with the eye, pulled at
the trigger.
A mere puff of a report, and then a desperate fluttering in the tree
and a cloud of white feathers floating above the hedge, and a heavy
fall among the bushes. He was down, and Orion’s spaniel (that came
racing like mad from the rickyard the instant he heard the discharge)
had him in a moment. Orion followed quickly. Then the shepherd came up,
rather stiff on his legs from rheumatism, and stepped the distance,
declaring it was thirty yards good; after which we all walked home in
triumph.
Molly the dairymaid came a little way from the rickyard, and said she
would pluck the pigeon that very night after work. She was always ready
to do anything for us boys; and we could never quite make out why they
scolded her so for an idle hussy indoors. It seemed so unjust. Looking
back, I recollect she had very beautiful brown eyes.
“You mind you chaws the shot well, measter,” said the shepherd, “afore
you loads th’ gun. The more you chaws it the better it sticks
the-gither, an’ the furder it kills um;” a theory of gunnery that which
was devoutly believed in in his time and long anticipated the wire
cartridges. And the old soldiers that used to come round to haymaking,
glad of a job to supplement their pensions, were very positive that if
you bit the bullet and indented it with your teeth, it was perfectly
fatal, no matter to what part of the body its billet took it.
In the midst of this talk as we moved on, I carrying the gun at the
trail with the muzzle downwards, the old ramrod, long disused and
shrunken, slipped half out; the end caught the ground, and it snapped
short off in a second. A terrible disaster this, turning everything to
bitterness: Orion was especially wroth, for it was his right next to
shoot. However, we went down to the smithy at the inn, to take counsel
of the blacksmith, a man of knowledge and a trusty friend. “Aha!” said
he, “it’s not the first time I’ve made a ramrod. There’s a piece of
lancewood in the store overhead which I keep on purpose; it’s as tough
as a bow—they make carriage-shafts of it; you shall have a better rod
than was ever fitted to a Joe Manton.” So we took him down some
pippins, and he set to work on it that evening.