OBY AND HIS SYSTEM: THE MOUCHER’S CALENDAR
One dark night, as I was walking on a lonely road, I kicked against
something, and but just saved myself from a fall. It was an intoxicated
man lying at full length. As a rule, it is best to let such people
alone; but it occurred to me that the mail-cart was due; with two
horses harnessed tandem-fashion, and travelling at full speed, the mail
would probably go over him. So I seized the fellow by the collar and
dragged him out of the way. Then he sat up, and asked in a very
threatening tone who I was. I mentioned my name: he grunted, and fell
back on the turf, where I left him.
The incident passed out of my mind, when one afternoon a labourer
called, asking for me in a mysterious manner, and refusing to
communicate his business to any one else. When admitted, he produced a
couple of cock pheasants from under his coat, the tail feathers much
crumpled, but otherwise in fine condition. These he placed on the
table, remarking, “I ain’t forgot as you drawed I out of the raud thuck
night.” I made him understand that such presents were too embarrassing;
but he seemed anxious to do “summat,” so I asked him to find me a few
ferns and rare plants.
This he did from time to time; and thus a species of acquaintanceship
grew up, and I learned all about him. He was always called “Oby”
(_i.e._ Obadiah), and was the most determined poacher of a neighbouring
district—a notorious fighting man—hardened against shame, an Ishmaelite
openly contemning authority and yet not insensible to kindness. I give
his history in his own language—softening only the pronunciation, that
would otherwise be unintelligible.
“I lives with my granny in Thorney-lane: it be outside the village. My
mother be married agen, you see, to the smith: her have got a cottage
as belongs to her. My brother have got a van and travels the country;
and sometimes I and my wife goes with him. I larned to set up a wire
when I went to plough when I were a boy, but never took to it regular
till I went a-navigating [navvying] and seed what a spree it were.
“There ain’t no such chaps for poaching as they navigators in all
England: I means where there be a railway a-making. I’ve knowed forty
of ’em go out together on a Sunday, and every man had a dog, and some
two; and good dogs too—lots of ’em as you wouldn’t buy for ten quid.
They used to spread out like, and sweep the fields as clean as the
crownd of your hat. Keepers weren’t no good at all, and besides they
never knowed which place us was going to make for. One of the chaps
gave I a puppy, and he growed into the finest greyhound as you’d find
in a day’s walk. The first time I was took up before the bench I had to
go to gaol, because the contractor had broke and the works was stopped,
so that my mates hadn’t no money to pay the fine.
“The dog was took away home to granny by my butty [comrade], but one of
the gentlemen as seed it in the court sent his groom over and got it
off the old woman for five pound. She thought if I hadn’t the hound I
should give it up, and she come and paid me out of gaol. It was a
wonder as I didn’t break her neck; only her was a good woman, you see,
to I. But I wouldn’t have parted with that hound for a quart-full of
sovereigns. Many’s a time I’ve seed his name—they changed his name, of
course—in the papers for winning coursing matches. But we let that gent
as bought him have it warm; we harried his pheasants and killed the
most of ’em.
“After that I came home, and took to it regular. It ain’t no use unless
you do it regular. If a man goes out into the fields now and then
chance-like he don’t get much, and is most sure to be caught—very
likely in the place of somebody else the keepers were waiting for and
as didn’t come. I goes to work every day the same as the rest, only I
always take piece-work, which I can come to when I fancy, and stay as
late in the evening as suits me with a good excuse. As I knows
navigating, I do a main bit of draining and water-furrowing, and I gets
good wages all the year round, and never wants for a job. You see, I
knows more than the fellows as have never been at nothing but plough.
“The reason I gets on so well poaching is because I’m always at work
out in the fields, except when I goes with the van. I watches
everything as goes on, and marks the hare’s tracks and the rabbit
buries, and the double mounds and little copses as the pheasants
wanders off to in the autumn. I keeps a nation good look-out after the
keeper and his men, and sees their dodges—which way they walks, and how
they comes back sudden and unexpected on purpose. There’s mostly one
about with his eyes on me—when they sees me working on a farm they puts
a man special to look after me. I never does nothing close round where
I’m at work, so he waits about a main bit for nothing.
“You see by going out piece-work I visits every farm in the parish. The
other men they works for one farmer for two or three or maybe twenty
years; but I goes very nigh all round the place—a fortnight here and a
week there, and then a month somewhere else. So I knows every hare in
the parish, and all his runs and all the double mounds and copses, and
the little covers in the corners of the fields. When I be at work on
one place I sets my wires about half a mile away on a farm as I ain’t
been working on for a month, and where the keeper don’t keep no special
look-out now I be gone. As I goes all round, I knows the ways of all
the farmers, and them as bides out late at night at their friends’, and
they as goes to bed early; and so I knows what paths to follow and what
fields I can walk about in and never meet nobody.
“The dodge is always to be in the fields and to know everybody’s ways.
Then you may do just as you be a-mind. All of ’em knows I be
a-poaching; but that don’t make no difference for work; I can use my
tools, and do it as well as any man in the country, and they be glad to
get me on for ’em. They farmers as have got their shooting be sharper
than the keepers, and you can’t do much there; but they as haven’t got
the shooting don’t take no notice. They sees my wires in the grass, and
just looks the other way. If they sees I with a gun I puts un in ditch
till they be gone by, and they don’t look among the nettles.
“Some of them as got land by the wood would like I to be there all day
and night. You see, their clover and corn feeds the hares and
pheasants; and then some day when they goes into the market and passes
the poultry-shop there be four or five score pheasants a-hanging up
with their long tails a-sweeping in the faces of them as fed ’em. The
same with the hares and the rabbits; and so they’d just as soon as I
had ’em—and a dalled deal sooner—out of spite. Lord bless you! if I was
to walk through their courtyards at night with a sack over my shoulders
full of you knows what, and met one of ’em, he’d tell his dog to stop
that yowling, and go in doors rather than see me. As for the rabbits,
they hates they worse than poison. They knocks a hare over now and then
themselves on the quiet—bless you! I could tell tales on a main few,
but I bean’t such a fellow as that.
“But, you see I don’t run no risk except from the keeper hisself, the
men as helps un, and two or three lickspittles as be always messing
round after a ferreting job or some wood-cutting, and the Christmas
charities. It be enough to make a man sick to see they. This yer parish
be a very big un, and a be preserved very high, and I can do three
times as much in he as in the next un, as ain’t much preserved. So I
sticks to this un.
“Of course they tried to drive I out of un, and wanted the cottage; but
granny had all the receipts for the quit-rent, and my lard and all the
lawyers couldn’t shove us out, and there we means to bide. You have
seed that row of oaks as grows in the hedge behind our house. One of
’em leaned over the roof, and one of the limbs was like to fall; but
they wouldn’t cut him, just to spite us, and the rain dripping spoilt
the thatch. So I just had another chimney built at that end for an
oven, and kept up the smoke till all the tree that side died. I’ve had
more than one pheasant through them oaks, as draws ’em: I had one in a
gin as I put in the ditch by my garden.
“They started a tale as ’twas I as stole the lambs a year or two ago,
and they had me up for it; but they couldn’t prove nothing agen me.
Then they had me for unhinging the gates and drowning ’em in the water,
but when they was going to try the case they two young farmers as you
know of come and said as they did it when they was tight, and so I got
off. They said as ’twas I that put the poison for the hounds when three
on ’em took it and died while the hunt was on. It were the dalledest
lie! I wouldn’t hurt a dog not for nothing. The keeper hisself put that
poison, I knows, ’cause he couldn’t bear the pack coming to upset the
pheasants. Yes, they been down upon I a main bit, but I means to bide.
All the farmers knows as I never touched no lamb, nor even pulled a
turmot, and they never couldn’t get no witnesses.
“After a bit I catched the keeper hisself and the policeman at it; and
there be another as knows it, and who do you think that be? It be the
man in town as got the licence to sell game as haves most of my hares;
the keeper selled he a lot as the money never got to my lard’s pocket
and the steward never knowed of. Look at that now! So now he shuts his
eye and axes me to drink, and give me the ferreting job in Longlands
Mound; but, Lord bless ’ee, I bean’t so soft as he thinks for.
“They used to try and get me to fight the keeper when they did catch me
with a wire, but I knowed as hitting is transporting, and just put my
hands in my pockets and let ’em do as they liked. _They_ knows I bean’t
afraid of ’em in the road; I’ve threshed more than one of ’em, but I
ain’t going to jump into _that_ trap. I’ve been before the bench, at
one place and t’other, heaps of times, and paid the fine for trespass.
Last time the chairman said to I, ‘So you be here again, Oby; we hear a
good deal about you.’ I says, ‘Yes, my lard, I be here agen, but people
never don’t hear nothing about _you_.’ That shut the old duffer up.
Nobody never heard nothing of he, except at rent-audit.
“However, they all knows me now—my lard and the steward, and the keeper
and the bailies, and the farmers; and they don’t take half the notice
of I as they used to. The keeper he don’t dare, nor the policeman as I
telled you, and the rest be got used to me and my ways. And I does very
well one week with t’other. One week I don’t take nothing, and the next
I haves a good haul, chiefly hares and rabbits; ’cause of course I
never goes into the wood, nor the plantations. It wants eight or ten
with crape masks on for that job.
“I sets up about four wires, sometimes only two; if you haves so many
it is a job to look after ’em. I stops the hare’s other runs, so that
she is sure to come along mine where I’ve got the turnpike up: the
trick is to rub your hand along the runs as you want to stop, or spit
on ’em, or summat like that; for a hare won’t pass nothing of that
sort. So pussy goes back and comes by the run as I’ve chose: if she
comes quick she don’t holler; if she comes slow she squeals a bit
sometimes before the wire hangs her. Very often I bean’t fur off and
stops the squealing. That’s why I can’t use a gin—it makes ’em holler
so. I ferrets a goodish few rabbits on bright nights in winter.
“As for the pheasants, I gets them mostly about acorn-time; they comes
out of the plantations then. I keeps clear of the plantations, because,
besides the men a-watching, they have got dogs chained up, and
alarm-guns as goes off if you steps on the spring; and some have got a
string stretched along as you be pretty sure to kick against, and then,
bang! and all the dogs sets up a yowling. Of course it’s only powder,
but it brings the keepers along. But when the acorns and the berries be
ripe, the pheasants comes out along the hedges after ’em, and gets up
at the haws and such like. They wanders for miles, and as they don’t
care to go all the way back to roost they bides in the little copses as
I told you of. They come to the same copses every year, which is
curious, as most of them as will come this year will be shot before
next.
“If I can’t get ’em the fust night, I just throws a handful or two of
peas about the place, and they’ll be sure to stay, and likely enough
bring two or three more. I mostly shoots ’em with just a little puff of
powder as you wouldn’t hear across one field, especially if it’s a
windy night. I had a air-gun, as was took from me, but he weren’t much
go: I likes a gun as throws the shot wide, but I never shoots any but
roosters, unless I catch ’em standing still.
“All as I can tell you is as the dodge is this: you watch everybody,
and be always in the fields, and always work one parish till you knows
every hare in un, and always work by yourself and don’t have no mates.”
There were several other curious characters whom we frequently saw at
work. The mouchers were about all the year round, and seemed to live
in, or by the hedges, as much as the mice. These men probably see more
than the most careful observer, without giving it a thought.
In January the ice that freezes in the ditches appears of a dark
colour, because it lies without intervening water on the dead brown
leaves. Their tint shows through the translucent crystal, but near the
edge of the ice three white lines or bands run round. If by any chance
the ice gets broken or upturned, these white bands are seen to be
caused by flanges projecting from the under surface, almost like
stands. They are sometimes connected in such a way that the parallel
flanges appear like the letter “h” with the two down-strokes much
prolonged. In the morning the chalky rubble brought from the pits upon
the Downs and used for mending gateways leading into the fields
glistens brightly. Upon the surface of each piece of rubble there
adheres a thin coating of ice: if this be lightly struck it falls off,
and with it a flake of the chalk. As it melts, too, the chalk splits
and crumbles; and thus in an ordinary gateway the same process may be
seen that disintegrates the most majestic cliff.
The stubbles—those that still remain—are full of linnets, upon which
the mouching fowler preys in the late autumn. And when at the end of
January the occasional sunbeams give some faint hope of spring, he
wanders through the lanes carrying a decoy bird in a darkened cage, and
a few boughs of privet studded with black berries and bound round with
rushes for the convenience of handling.
The female yellow-hammers, whose hues are not so brilliant as those of
the male birds, seem as winter approaches to flock together, and roam
the hedges and stubble fields in bevies. Where loads of corn have
passed through gates the bushes often catch some straws, and the tops
of the gateposts, being decayed and ragged, hold others. These are
neglected while the seeds among the stubble, the charlock, and the
autumn dandelion are plentiful and while the ears left by the gleaners
may still be found. But in the shadowless winter days, hard and cold,
each scattered straw is sought for.
A few days before the new year [1879] opened I saw a yellow-hammer
attacking, in a very ingenious manner, a straw that hung pendent, the
ear downwards, from the post of a windy gateway. She fluttered up from
the ground, clung to the ear, and outspread her wings, keeping them
rigid. The draught acted on the wings, just as the breeze does on a
paper kite, and there the bird remained supported without an effort
while the ear was picked. Now and then the balance was lost, but she
was soon up again, and again used the wind to maintain her position.
The brilliant cockbirds return in the early spring, or at least appear
to do so, for the habits of birds are sometimes quite local.
It is probable that in severe and continued frost many hedgehogs die.
On January 19 [1879], in the midst of the sharp weather, a hedgehog
came to the door opening on the garden at night, and was taken in.
Though carefully tended, the poor creature died next day: it was so
weak it could scarcely roll itself into a ball. As the vital heat
declined the fleas deserted their host and issued from among the
spines. In February, unless it be a mild season, the mounds are still
bare; and then under the bushes the ground may be sometimes seen strewn
with bulbous roots, apparently of the blue-bell, lying thickly together
and entirely exposed.
The moucher now carries a bill-hook, and as he shambles along the road
keeps a sharp look-out for briars. When he sees one the roots of which
are not difficult to get at, and whose tall upright stem is green—if
dark it is too old—he hacks it off with as much of the root as
possible. The lesser branches are cut, and the stem generally trimmed;
it is then sold to the gardeners as the stock on which to graft
standard roses. In a few hours as he travels he will get together quite
a bundle of such briars. He also collects moss, which is sold for the
purpose of placing in flowerpots to hide the earth. The moss preferred
is that growing on and round stoles.
The melting of the snow and the rains in February cause the ditches to
overflow and form shallow pools in the level meadows. Into these
sometimes the rooks wade as far as the length of their legs allows
them, till the discoloured yellow water almost touches the lower part
of the breast. The moucher searches for small shell snails, of which
quantities are sold as food for cage birds, and cuts small “turfs” a
few inches square from the green by the roadside. These are in great
request for larks, especially at this time of the year, when they begin
to sing with all their might.
Large flocks of woodpigeons are now in every field where the tender
swede and turnip tops are sprouting green and succulent. These “tops”
are the moucher’s first great crop of the year. The time that they
appear varies with the weather: in a mild winter some may be found
early in January; if the frost has been severe there may be none till
March. These the moucher gathers by stealth; he speedily fills a sack,
and goes off with it to the nearest town. Turnip tops are much more in
demand now than formerly, and the stealing of them a more serious
matter. This trade lasts some time, till the tops become too large and
garden greens take their place.
In going to and fro the fields the moucher searches the banks and digs
out primrose “mars,” and ferns with the root attached, which he hawks
from door to door in the town. He also gathers quantities of spring
flowers, as violets. This spring [1879], owing to the severity of the
season, there were practically none to gather, and when the weather
moderated the garden flowers preceded those of the hedge. Till the 10th
of March not a spot of colour was to be seen. About that time bright
yellow flowers appeared suddenly on the clayey banks and waste places,
and among the hard clay lumps of fields ploughed but not sown.
The brilliant yellow formed a striking contrast to the dull brown of
the clods, there being no green leaf to moderate the extremes of tint.
These were the blossoms of the coltsfoot, that sends up a stalk
surrounded with faintly rosy scales. Several such stalks often spring
from a single clod: lift the heavy clod, and you have half a dozen
flowers, a whole bunch, without a single leaf. Usually the young
grasses and the seed-leaves of plants have risen up and supply a
general green; but this year the coltsfoot bloomed unsupported,
studding the dark ground with gold.
Now the frogs are busy, and the land lizards come forth. Even these the
moucher sometimes captures; for there is nothing so strange but that
some one selects it for a pet. The mad March hares scamper about in
broad daylight over the corn, whose pale green blades rise in straight
lines a few inches above the soil. They are chasing their skittish
loves, instead of soberly dreaming the day away in a bunch of grass.
The ploughman walks in the furrow his share has made, and presently
stops to measure the “lands” with the spud. His horses halt dead in the
tenth of a second at the sound of his voice, glad to rest for a minute
from their toil. Work there is in plenty now, for stone-picking,
hoeing, and other matters must be attended to; but the moucher lounges
in the road decoying chaffinches, or perhaps earns a shilling by
driving some dealer’s cattle home from fair and market.
By April his second great crop is ready—the watercress; the precise
time of course varies very much, and at first the quantities are small.
The hedges are now fast putting on the robe of green that gradually
hides the wreck of last year’s growth. The withered head of the teazle,
black from the rain, falls and disappears. Great burdock stems lie
prostrate. Thick and hard as they are while the sap is still in them,
in winter the wet ground rots the lower part till the blast overthrows
the stalk. The hollow “gicks” too, that lately stood almost to the
shoulder, is down, or slanting, temporarily supported by some branch.
Just between the root and the stalk it has decayed till nothing but a
narrow strip connects the dry upper part with the earth. The moucher
sells the nests and eggs of small birds to townsfolk who cannot
themselves wander among the fields, but who love to see something that
reminds them of the green meadows.
As the season advances and the summer comes he gathers vast quantities
of dandelion leaves, parsley, sowthistle, clover, and so forth, as food
for the tame rabbits kept in towns. If his haunt be not far from a
river, he spends hours collecting bait—worm and grub and fly—for the
boatmen, who sell them again to the anglers.
Again there is work in the meadows—the haymaking is about, and the
farmers are anxious for men. But the moucher passes by and looks for
quaking grass, bunches of which have a ready sale. Fledgeling
goldfinches and linnets, young rabbits, young squirrels, even the nest
of the harvest-trow mouse, and occasionally a snake, bring him in a
little money. He picks the forget-me-nots from the streams and the
“blue-bottle” from the corn: bunches of the latter are sometimes sold
in London at a price that seems extravagant to those who have seen
whole fields tinted with its beautiful azure. By-and-by the golden
wheat calls for an army of workers; but the moucher passes on and
gathers groundsel.
Then come the mushrooms: he knows the best places, and soon fills a
basket full of “buttons” picking them very early in the morning. These
are then put in “punnets” by the greengrocers and retailed at a high
price. Later the blackberries ripen and form his third great crop; the
quantity he brings in to the town is astonishing, and still there is
always a customer. The blackberry harvest lasts for several weeks, as
the berries do not all ripen at once, but successively, and is
supplemented by elderberries and sloes. The moucher sometimes sleeps on
the heaps of disused tan in a tanyard; tanyards are generally on the
banks of small rivers. The tan is said to possess the property of
preserving those who sleep on it from chills and cold, though they may
lie quite exposed to the weather.
There is generally at least one such a man as this about the outskirts
of market towns, and he is an “original” best defined by negatives. He
is not a tramp, for he never enters the casual wards and never
begs—that is, of strangers; though there are certain farmhouses where
he calls once now and then and gets a slice of bread and cheese and a
pint of ale. He brings to the farmhouse a duck’s egg that has been
dropped in the brook by some negligent bird, or carries intelligence of
the nest made by some roaming goose in a distant withy-bed. Or once,
perhaps, he found a sheep on its back in a narrow furrow, unable to get
up and likely to die if not assisted, and by helping the animal to gain
its legs earned a title to the owner’s gratitude.
He is not a thief; apples and plums and so on are quite safe, though
the turnip-tops are not: there is a subtle casuistry involved here—the
distinction between the quasi-wild and the garden product. He is not a
poacher in the sense of entering coverts, or even snaring a rabbit. If
the pheasants are so numerous and so tame that passing carters have to
whip them out of the way of the horses, it is hardly wonderful if one
should disappear now and then. Nor is he like the Running Jack that
used to accompany the more famous packs of fox-hounds, opening gates,
holding horses, and a hundred other little services, and who kept up
with the hunt by sheer fleetness of foot.
Yet he is fleet of foot in his way, though never seen to run; he _pads_
along on naked feet like an animal, never straightening the leg, but
always keeping the knee a little bent. With a basket of watercress
slung at his back by a piece of tar-cord, he travels rapidly in this
way; his feet go “pad, pad” on the thick white dust, and he easily
overtakes a good walker and keeps up the pace for miles without
exertion. The watercress is a great staple, because it lasts for so
many months. Seeing the nimble way in which he gathers it, thrusting
aside the brook-lime, breaking off the coarser sprays, snipping away
pieces of root, sorting and washing, and thinking of the amount of work
to be got through before a shilling is earned, one would imagine that
the slow, idling life of the labourer, with his regular wages, would be
far more enticing.
Near the stream the ground is perhaps peaty: little black pools appear
between tufts of grass, some of them streaked with a reddish or
yellowish slime that glistens on the surface of the dark water; and as
you step there is a hissing sound as the spongy earth yields, and a
tiny spout is forced forth several yards distant. Some of the drier
part of the soil the moucher takes to sell for use in gardens and
flower-pots as peat.
The years roll on, and he grows old. But no feebleness of body or mind
can induce him to enter the workhouse; he cannot quit his old haunts.
Let it rain or sleet, or let the furious gale drive broken boughs
across the road, he still sleeps in some shed or under a straw-rick. In
sheer pity he is committed every now and then to prison for
vagabondage—not for punishment, but in order to save him from himself.
It is in vain: the moment he is out he returns to his habits. All he
wants is a little beer—he is not a drunkard—and a little tobacco, and
the hedges. Some chilly evening, as the shadows thicken, he shambles
out of the town, and seeks the limekiln in the ploughed field, where,
the substratum being limestone, the farmer burns it. Near the top of
the kiln the ground is warm; there he reclines and sleeps.
The night goes on. Out from the broken blocks of stone now and again
there rises a lambent flame, to shine like a meteor for a moment and
then disappear. The rain falls. The moucher moves uneasily in his
sleep; instinctively he rolls or crawls towards the warmth, and
presently lies extended on the top of the kiln. The wings of the
water-fowl hurtle in the air as they go over; by-and-by the heron
utters his loud call.
Very early in the morning the quarryman comes to tend his fire, and
starts to see on the now redhot and glowing stones, sunk below the rim,
the presentment of a skeleton formed of the purest white ashes—a
ghastly spectacle in the grey of the dawn, as the mist rises and the
peewit plaintively whistles over the marshy meadow.