LUKE, THE RABBIT CONTRACTOR: THE BROOK-PATH
The waggon-track leading to the Upper Woods almost always presented
something of interest, and often of beauty. The solitude of the place
seemed to have attracted flowers and ferns as well as wild animals and
birds. For though flowers have no power of motion, yet seeds have a
negative choice and lie dormant where they do not find a kindly
welcome. But those carried hither by the birds or winds took root and
flourished, secure from the rude ploughshare or the sharp scythe.
The slow rumble of waggon-wheels seldom disturbed the dreamy silence,
or interrupted the song of the birds; so seldom that large docks and
thistles grew calmly beside the ruts untouched by hoofs. From the thick
hedges on either side trailing brambles and briars stretched far out,
and here and there was a fallen branch, broken off by the winds, whose
leaves had turned brown and withered while all else was green. Round
sarsen stones had been laid down in the marshy places to form a firm
road, but the turf had long since covered most of them. Where the
smooth brown surfaces did project mosses had lined the base, and rushes
leaned over and hid the rest.
In the ditches, under the shade of the brambles, the hart’s-tongue fern
extended its long blade of dark glossy green. By the decaying stoles
the hardy fern flourished, under the trees on the mounds the lady fern
could be found, and farther up nearer the wood the tall brake almost
supplanted the bushes. Oak and ash boughs reached across: in the ash
the wood-pigeons lingered. Every now and then the bright colours of the
green woodpeckers flashed to and fro their nest in a tree hard by. They
would not have chosen it had not the place been nearly as quiet as the
wood itself.
Blackthorn bushes jealously encroached on the narrow stile that entered
the lane from a meadow—a mere rail thrust across a gap. The gates, set
in deep recesses—short lanes themselves cut through the mounds—were
rotten and decayed, so as to scarcely hold together, and not to be
moved without care. Hawthorn branches on each side pushed forward and
lessened the opening; on the ground, where the gateposts had rotted
nearly off, fungi came up in thick bunches.
The little meadows to which they led were rich in oaks, growing on the
“shore” of the ditches, tree after tree. The grass in them was not
plentiful, but the flowers were many; in the spring the orchis sent up
its beautiful purple, and in the heat of summer the bird’s-foot lotus
flourished in the sunny places. Farther up, nearer the wood, the lane
became hollow—worn down between high banks, at first clothed with fern,
and then, as the hill got steeper, with fir trees.
Where firs are tall and thick together the sunbeams that fall aslant
between them seem to be made more visible than under other trees, by
the motes or wood dust in the air. Still farther the banks became even
steeper, till nothing but scanty ash stoles could grow upon them, the
fir plantations skirting along the summit. Then suddenly, at a turn,
the ground sank into a deep hollow, where in spring the eye rested with
relief and pleasure on the tops of young firs, acre after acre, just
freshly tinted with the most delicate green. From thence the track went
into the wood.
By day all through the summer months there was always something to be
seen in the lane—a squirrel, a stoat; always a song-bird to listen to,
a flower or fern to gather. By night the goatsucker visited it, and the
bat, and the white owl gliding down the slope. In winter when the
clouds hung low the darkness in the hollow between the high banks,
where the light was shut out by the fir trees, was like that of a
cavern. It was then that night after night a strange procession wended
down it.
First came an old man, walking stiffly—not so much from age as
rheumatism—and helping his unsteady steps on the slippery sarsen stones
with a stout ground-ash staff. Behind him followed a younger man, and
in the rear a boy. Sometimes there was an extra assistant, making four;
sometimes there was only the old man and one companion. Each had a long
and strong ash stick across his shoulder, on which a load of rabbits
was slung, an equal number in front and behind, to balance. The old
fellow, who was dressed shabbily even for a labourer, was the
contractor for the rabbits shot or ferreted in these woods.
He took the whole number at a certain fixed price all round, and made
what he could out of them. Every evening in the season he went to the
woods to fetch those that had been captured during the day, conveying
them to his cottage on the outskirts of the village. From thence they
went by carrier’s cart to the railway. Old Luke’s books, such as they
were, were quite beyond the understanding of any one but himself and
his wife; nor could even they themselves tell you exactly how many
dozen he purchased in the year. But in his cups the wicked old
hypocrite had often been known to boast that he paid the lord of the
manor as much money as the rent of a small farm.
One of Luke’s eyes was closed with a kind of watery rheum, and was
never opened except when he thought a rabbit was about to jump into a
net. The other was but half open, and so overhung with a thick grey
eyebrow as to be barely visible. His cheeks were the hue of clay, his
chin scrubby, and a lanky black forelock depended over one temple. A
battered felt hat, a ragged discoloured slop, and corduroys stained
with the clay of the banks completed his squalid costume.
A more miserable object or one apparently more deserving of pity it
would be hard to imagine. To see him crawl with slow and feeble steps
across the fields in winter, gradually working his way in the teeth of
a driving rain, was enough to arouse compassion in the hardest heart:
there was something so utterly woebegone in his whole aspect—so
weather-beaten, as if he had been rained upon ever since childhood. He
seemed humbled to the ground—crushed and spiritless.
Now and then Luke was employed by some of the farmers to do their
ferreting for them and to catch the rabbits in the banks by the
roadside. More than once benevolent people driving by in their cosy
cushioned carriages, and seeing this lonely wretch in the bitter wind
watching a rabbit’s hole as if he were a dog well beaten and thrashed,
had been known to stop and call the poor old fellow to the carriage
door. Then Luke would lay his hand on his knee, shake his head, and
sorrowfully state his pains and miseries: “Aw, I be ter-rable bad, I
be,” he would say; “I be most terrable bad: I can’t but just drag my
leg out of this yer ditch. It be a dull job, bless ’ee, this yer.” The
tone, the look of the man, the dreary winter landscape all so
thoroughly agreed together that a few small silver coins would drop
into his hand, and Luke, with a deep groaning sigh of thankfulness,
would bow and scrape and go back to his “dull job.”
Luke, indeed, somehow or other was always in favour with the “quality.”
He was as firmly fixed in his business as if he had been the most
clever courtier. It was not of the least use for any one else to offer
to take the rabbits, even if they would give more money. No, Luke was
the trusty man; Luke, and nobody else, was worthy. So he grovelled on
from year to year, blinking about the place. When some tenant found a
gin in the turnip field, or a wire by the clover, and quietly waited
till Luke came fumbling by and picked up the hare or rabbit, it did not
make the slightest difference though he went straight to the keeper and
made a formal statement.
Luke had an answer always ready: he had not set the wire, but had
stumbled on it unawares, and was going to take it to the keeper; or he
had noticed a colony of rats about, and had put the gin for them. Now,
the same excuse might have been made by any other poacher; the
difference lay in this—that Luke was believed. At all events, such
little trifles were forgotten, and Luke went on as before. He did a
good deal of the ferreting in the hedges outside the woods himself: if
he took home three dozen from the mound and only paid for two dozen,
that scarcely concerned the world at large.
If in coming down the dark and slippery lane at night somebody with a
heavy sack stepped out from the shadow at the stile, and if the
contents of the sack were rapidly transferred to the shoulder-sticks,
or the bag itself bodily taken along—why, there was nobody there to
see. As for the young man and the boy who helped, those discreet
persons had always a rabbit for their own pot, or even for a friend;
and indeed it was often remarked that old Luke could always get plenty
of men to work for him. No one ever hinted at searching the dirty shed
at the side of his cottage that was always locked by day, or looking
inside the disused oven that it covered. But if fur or feathers had
been found there, was not he the contractor? And clearly if a pheasant
_was_ there he could not be held responsible for the unauthorised acts
of his assistants.
The truth was that Luke was the most thorough-paced poacher in the
place—or, rather, he was a wholesale receiver. His success lay in
making it pleasant for everybody all round. It was pleasant for the
keeper, who could always dispose of a few hares or pheasants if he
wanted a little money. The keeper, in ways known to himself, made it
pleasant for the bailiff. It was equally pleasant for the
under-keepers, who had what they wanted (in reason), and enjoyed a
little by-play on their own account. It was pleasant for his men; and
it was pleasant—specially pleasant—at a little wayside inn kept by
Luke’s nephew, and, as was believed, with Luke’s money. Everybody
concerned in the business could always procure refreshment there,
including the policeman.
There was only one class of persons whom Luke could not conciliate; and
they were the tenants. These very inconsiderate folk argued that it was
the keepers’ and Luke’s interest to maintain a very large stock of
rabbits, which meant great inroads on their crops. There seemed to be
even something like truth in their complaints; and once or twice the
more independent carried their grievances to headquarters so
effectually as to elicit an order for the destruction of the rabbits
forthwith on their farms. But of what avail was such an order when the
execution of it was entrusted to Luke himself?
In time the tenants got to put up with Luke; and the wiser of them
turned round and tried to make it still more pleasant for _him_: they
spoke a good word for him; they gave him a quart of ale, and put little
things in his way, such as a chance to buy and sell faggots at a small
profit. Not to be ungrateful, Luke kept their rabbits within reasonable
bounds; and he had this great recommendation—that whether they bullied
him or whether they gave him ale and bread-and-cheese, Luke was always
humble and always touched his hat.
His wife kept a small shop for the sale of the coarser groceries and a
little bacon. He had also rather extensive gardens, from which he sold
quantities of vegetables. It was more than suspected that the carrier’s
cart was really Luke’s—that is, he found the money for horsing it, and
could take possession if he liked. The carrier’s cart took his rabbits,
and the game he purchased of poachers, to the railway, and the
vegetables from the gardens to the customers in town.
At least one cottage besides his own belonged to him; and some would
have it that this was one of the reasons of his success with the
“quality.” The people at the great house, anxious to increase their
influence, wished to buy every cottage and spare piece of land. This
was well known, and many small owners prided themselves upon spiting
the big people at the great house by refusing to sell, or selling to
another person. The great house was believed to have secured the first
“refuse” of Luke’s property, if ever he thought of selling. Luke, in
fact, among the lower classes was looked upon as a capitalist—a miser
with an unknown hoard. The old man used to sit of a winter’s evening,
after he had brought down the rabbits, by the hearth, making
rabbit-nets of twine. Almost everybody who came along the road, home
from the market town, stopped, lifted the latch without knocking, and
looked in to tell the news or hear it. But Luke’s favourite manoeuvre
was to take out his snuff-box, tap it, and offer it to the person
addressing him. This he would do to a farmer, even though it were the
largest tenant of all. For this snuff-box was a present from the lady
at the great house, who took an interest in poor old Luke’s
infirmities, and gave him the snuff-box, a really good piece of
workmanship, well filled with the finest snuff, to console his
wretchedness.
Of this box Luke was as proud as if it had been the insignia of the
Legion of Honour, and never lost an opportunity of showing it to every
one of standing. When the village heard of this kindly present it ran
over in its mind all that it knew about the stile, and the sacks, and
the disused oven. Then the village very quietly shrugged its shoulders,
and though it knew not the word irony, well understood what that term
conveys.
At the foot of the hill on which the Upper Woods were situate there
extended a level tract of meadows with some cornfields. Through these
there flowed a large slow brook, often flooded in winter by the water
rushing down from the higher lands. It was pleasant in the early year
to walk now and then along the footpath that followed the brook, noting
the gradual changes in the hedges.
When the first swallow of the spring wheels over the watery places the
dry sedges of last year still stand as they grew. They are supported by
the bushes beside the meadow ditch where it widens to join the brook,
and the water it brings down from the furrows scarcely moves through
the belt of willow lining the larger stream. As the soft west wind runs
along the hedge it draws a sigh from the dead dry stalks and leaves
that will no more feel the rising sap.
By the wet furrows the ground has still a brownish tint, for there the
floods lingered and discoloured the grass. Near the ditch pointed flags
are springing up, and the thick stems of the marsh marigold. From
bunches of dark green leaves slender stalks arise and bear the golden
petals of the marsh buttercups, the lesser celandine. If the wind blows
cold and rainy they will close, and open again to the sunshine.
At the outside of the withies, where the earth is drier, stand tall
horse-chestnut trees, aspen, and beech. The leaflets of the
horse-chestnut are already opening; but on the ground, half-hidden
under beech leaves not yet decayed, and sycamore leaves reduced to
imperfect grey skeletons, there lies a chestnut shell. It is sodden,
and has lost its original green—the prickles, too, have decayed and
disappeared; yet at a touch it falls apart, and discloses two
chestnuts, still of a rich, deep polished brown.
On the very bank of the brook there grows a beech whose bare boughs
droop over, almost dipping in the water, where it comes with a swift
rush from the narrow arches of a small bridge whose bricks are green
with moss. The current is still slightly turbid, for the floods have
not long subsided, and the soaked meadows and ploughed fields send
their rills to swell the brook and stain it with sand and earth. On the
surface float down twigs and small branches forced from the trees by
the gales: sometimes an entangled mass of aquatic weeds—long, slender
green filaments twisted and matted together—comes more slowly because
heavy and deep in the water.
A little bird comes flitting silently from the willows and perches on
the drooping beech branch. It is a delicate little creature, the breast
of a faint and dull yellowy green, the wings the lightest brown, and
there is a pencilled streak over the eye. The beak is so slender it
scarce seems capable of the work it should do, the legs and feet so
tiny that they are barely visible. Hardly has he perched than the keen
eyes detect a small black speck that has just issued from the arch,
floating fast on the surface of the stream and borne round and round in
a tiny whirlpool.
He darts from the branch, hovers just above the water, and in a second
has seized the black speck and returned to the branch. A moment or two
passes, and again he darts and takes something—this time invisible—from
the water. A third time he hovers, and on this occasion just brushes
the surface. Then, suddenly finding that these movements are watched,
he flits—all too soon—up high into the beech and away into the narrow
copse. The general tint and shape of the bird are those of the willow
wren, but it is difficult to identify the species in so brief a glance
and without hearing its note.
The path now trends somewhat away from the stream and skirts a ploughed
field, where the hedges are cropped close and the elms stripped of the
lesser boughs about the trunks, that the sparrows may not find shelter.
But all the same there are birds here too—one in the thick low hedge,
two or three farther on, another in the ditch perching on the dead
white stems of last year’s plants that can hardly support an ounce
weight, and all calling to each other. It is six marsh tits, as busy as
they can well be.
One rises from the ditch to the trunk of an elm where the thick bark is
green with lichen: he goes up the tree like a woodpecker, and peers
into every crevice. His little beak strikes, peck, peck, at a place
where something is hidden: then he proceeds farther up the trunk: next
he descends a few steps in a sidelong way, and finally hops down some
three inches head foremost, and alights again on the all but
perpendicular bark. But his tail does not touch the tree, and in
another minute down he flies again to the ditch.
A shrill and yet low note that sounds something like “skeek-skeek”
comes from a birch, and another “skeek-skeek” answers from an elm. It
is like the friction of iron against iron without oil on the bearings.
This is the tree-climber calling to his mate. He creeps over the boles
of the birch, and where the larger limbs join the trunk, trailing his
tail along the bark, and clinging so closely that but for the sharp
note he would be passed. Even when that has called attention, the
colour of his back so little differs from the colour of bark that if he
is some height up the tree it is not easy to detect him.
The days go on and the hedges become green—the sun shines, and the
blackbirds whistle in the trees. They leave the hedge, and mount into
the elm or ash to deliver their song; then, after a pause, dive down
again to the bushes. Up from the pale green corn that is yet but a few
inches high rises a little brown bird, mounting till he has attained to
the elevation of the adjacent oak. Then, beginning his song, he extends
his wings, lifts his tail, and gradually descends slanting
forward—slowly, like a parachute—sing, sing, singing all the while till
the little legs, that can be seen against the sky somewhat depending,
touch the earth and the wheat hides him. Still from the clod comes the
finishing bar of his music.
In a short time up he rises again, and this time from the summit of his
flight sinks in a similar manner singing to a branch of the oak. There
he sings again; and, again rising, comes back almost to the same bough
singing as he descends. But he is not alone: from an elm hard by come
the same notes, and from yet another tree they are also repeated. They
cannot rest—now one flits from the topmost bough of an elm to another
topmost bough; now a second comes up from feeding, and cries from the
branches. They are tree-pipits; and though the call is monotonous, yet
it is so cheerful and pleasing that one cannot choose but stay and
listen.
Suddenly, two that have been vigorously calling start forward together
and meet in mid-air. They buffet each other with their wings; their
little beaks fiercely strike; their necks are extended; they manoeuvre
round each other, trying for an advantage. They descend, heedless in
the rage of their tiny hearts, within a few yards of the watcher, and
then in alarm separate. But one flies to the oak branch and defiantly
calls immediately.
Over the meadows comes the distant note of the cuckoo. When he first
calls his voice is short and somewhat rough, but in a few days it gains
power. Then the second syllable has a mellow ring: and as he cries from
the tree, the note, swiftly repeated and echoed by the wood, dwells on
the ear something like the “hum” or vibration of a beautiful bell.
As the hedges become green the ivy leaves turn brown at the edge and
fall; the wild ivy is often curiously variegated. At the foot of the
tree up which it climbs the leaves are five-angled, higher up they lose
the angles and become rounded, though growing on the same plant.
Sometimes they have a grey tint, especially those that trail along the
bank; sometimes the leaves are a reddish brown with pale green ribs.
By the brook now the meadow has become of a rich bright green, the
stream has sunk and is clear, and the sunlight dances on the ripples.
The grasses at the edge—the turf—curl over and begin to grow down the
steep side that a little while since was washed by the current. Where
there is a ledge of mud and sand the yellow wagtail runs; he stands on
a stone and jerks his tail.
The ploughed field that comes down almost to the brook—a mere strip of
meadow between—is green too with rising wheat, high enough now to hide
the partridges. Before it got so tall it was pleasant to watch the pair
that frequent it; they were so confident that they did not even trouble
to cower. At any other time of year they would have run, or flown; but
then, though scarcely forty yards away and perfectly visible, they
simply ceased feeding but showed no further alarm.
Upon the plough birds in general should look as their best friend, for
it provides them with the staff of life as much as it does man. The
earth turned up under the share yields them grubs and insects and
worms: the seed is sown and the clods harrowed, and they take a second
toll; the weeds are hoed or pulled up, and at their roots there are
more insects; from the stalk and ears and the bloom of the rising corn
they seize caterpillars; when it is ripe they enjoy the grain; when it
is cut and carried there are ears in the stubble, and they can then
feast on the seeds of the innumerable plants that flowered among it;
finally comes the plough again. It is as if the men and horses worked
for the birds.
The horse-chestnut trees in the narrow copse bloom; the bees are
humming everywhere and summer is at hand. Presently the brown
cockchafers will come almost like an army of locusts, as suddenly
appearing without a sign. They seem to be particularly numerous where
there is much maple in the hedges.
Resting now on the sward by the stream—contracted in seeming by the
weeds and flags and fresh sedges—there comes the distant murmur of
voices and the musical laugh of girls. The ear tries to distinguish the
words and gather the meaning; but the syllables are intertangled—it is
like listening to a low sweet song in a language all unknown. This is
the water falling gently over the mossy hatch and splashing faintly on
the stones beneath; the blue dragon-flies dart over the smooth surface
or alight on a broad leaf—these blue dragon-flies when thus resting
curl the tail upwards.
Farther up above the mere there is a spot where the pool itself ends,
or rather imperceptibly disappears among a vast mass of aquatic weeds.
To these on the soft oozy mud succeed acres of sedge and rush and great
turfs of greyish grass. Low willows are scattered about, and alder at
the edge and where the ground is firmer. This is the home of the
dragon-flies, of the coots, whose white bald foreheads distinguish them
at a distance, and of the moorhens.
A narrow lane crosses it on a low bank or causeway but just raised
above the level of the floods. It is bordered on either side by thick
hawthorn hedges, and these again are further rendered more impassable
by the rankest growth of hemlocks, “gicks,” nettles, hedge-parsley, and
similar coarse plants. In these the nettle-creeper (white-throat) hides
her nest, and they have so encroached that the footpath is almost
threatened. This lane leads from the Upper Woods across the marshy
level to the cornfields, being a branch from that down which Luke the
contractor carried his rabbits.
Now a hare coming from the uplands beyond the woods, or from the woods,
and desirous of visiting the cornfields of the level grounds below,
found it difficult to pass the water. For besides the marsh itself, the
mere, and the brook, another slow, stagnant stream, quite choked with
sedges and flags, uncut for years, ran into it, or rather joined it,
and before doing so meandered along the very foot of the hill-side over
which the woods grew. To a hare or a rabbit, therefore, there was but
one path or exit without taking to the water in this direction for
nearly a mile, and that was across this narrow raised causeway. The
pheasants frequently used it, as if preferring to walk than to fly.
Partridges came too, to seat themselves in the dry dust—a thing they do
daily in warm weather.
Hares were constantly passing from the cornfields to the wood, and the
wood to the cornfields; and they had another reason for using this
track, because so many herbs and plants, whose leaves they like better
than grass, flourished at the sides of the hedges. No scythe cuts them
down, as it does by the hedges in the meadows; nor was a man sent round
with a reaping hook to chop them off, as is often done round the arable
fields. There was, therefore, always a feast here, to which, also, the
rabbits came.
The poachers were perfectly well aware of all this, and as a
consequence this narrow lane became a most favourite haunt of theirs. A
wire set in the runs that led to the causeway, or in the causeway
itself, was almost certain to be thrown. At one time it was
occasionally netted; and now and then a bolder fellow hid himself in
the bushes with a gun, and took his choice of pheasant, partridge,
hare, or rabbit. These practices were possible, because although so
secluded, there was a public right-of-way along the lane.
But of recent years, as game became more valued and the keepers were
increased, a check was put upon it, though even now wires are
frequently found which poachers have been obliged to abandon. They are
loth to give up a place that has a kind of poaching reputation. As if
in revenge for the interference, they have so ransacked the marsh every
spring for the eggs of the waterfowl that the wild duck will not lay
there, but seek spots safer from such enemies. The marsh is left to the
coots and moorhens that from thence stock the brooks.