FERRETING: A RABBIT-HUNTER
The ferreting season commences when the frosts have caused the leaves
to drop, and the rabbits grow fat from feeding on bark. Early one
December morning, Orion and I started, with our man Little John, to
ferret a double-mound for our old friend Farmer “Willum” at Redcote.
Little John was a labourer—one of those frequently working at odd times
for Luke, the Rabbit-Contractor. We had nicknamed him Little John
because of his great size and unwieldy proportions. He was the most
useful man we knew for such work; his heart was so thoroughly in it.
He was waiting for us before we had finished breakfast, with his tools
and implements, having carefully prepared these while yet it was dark
at home in his cottage. The nets require looking to before starting, as
they are apt to get into a tangle, and there is nothing so annoying as
to have to unravel strings with chilled fingers in a ditch. Some have
to be mended, having been torn; some are cast aside altogether because
weak and rotten. The twine having been frequently saturated with water
has decayed. All the nets are of a light yellow colour from the clay
and sand that has worked into the string.
These nets almost filled a sack, into which he also cast a pair of
“owl-catchers,” gloves of stout white leather, thick enough to turn a
thorn while handling bushes, or to withstand the claws of an owl
furiously resisting capture. His ferrets cost him much thought, which
to take and which to leave behind. He had also to be particular how he
fed them—they must be eager for prey, and yet they must not be starved,
else they would gorge on the blood of the first rabbit, and become
useless for hunting.
Two had to be muzzled—an operation of some difficulty that generally
results in a scratched hand. A small piece of small but strong twine is
passed through the jaws behind the tusk-like teeth, and tightly tied
round, so tightly as almost to cut into the skin. This is the old way
of muzzling a ferret, handed down from generations: Little John scorns
the muzzles that can be bought at shops, and still more despises the
tiny bells to hang round the neck. The first he says often come off,
and the second embarrass the ferret and sometimes catch in projecting
rootlets and hold it fast. He has, too, a line—many yards of stout
twine wound about a short stick—to line a ferret if necessary.
The ferrets are placed in a smaller bag, tightly tied at the top—for
they will work through and get out if any aperture be left. Inside the
bag is a little hay for them to lay on. He prefers the fitchew ferret
as he calls it; that is the sort that are coloured like a polecat. He
says they are fiercer, larger of make and more powerful. But he has
also a couple of white ones with pink eyes. Besides the sack of nets,
the bag of ferrets, and a small bundle in a knotted handkerchief—his
“nuncheon”—which in themselves make a tolerable load, he has brought a
billhook, and a “navigator,” or draining-tool.
This is a narrow spade of specially stout make; the blade is hollow and
resembles an exaggerated gouge, and the advantage is that in digging
out a rabbit the tool is very apt to catch under a root, when an
ordinary spade may bend and become useless. The “navigator” will stand
anything, and being narrow is also more handy. All these implements
Little John has prepared by the dim light of a horn lantern in the shed
at the back of his cottage. A mug of ale while we get our guns greatly
cheers him, and unlooses his tongue.
All the way to Redcote he impresses on us the absolute necessity of
silence while ferreting, and congratulates us on having a nearly still
day. He is a little doubtful about Orion’s spaniel and whether it will
keep quiet or not.
When we reach the double-mound, his talk entirely ceases: he is as
silent and as rugged as a pollard oak. By the top of the mound the sack
of nets is thrown down on the sward and opened. As there are more holes
on the other side of the hedge Orion goes over with Little John, and I
proceed to set up the nets on mine.
I found some difficulty in getting at the bank, the bushes being so
thick, and had to use the billhook and chop a way in: I heard Little
John growling about this in a whisper to Orion. Very often before going
with the ferrets, people send a man or two a few hours previously to
chop and clear the bushes. The effect is that the rabbits will not bolt
freely. They hear the men chopping, and the vibration of the earth as
they clumsily climb over the banks, and will not come out till
absolutely forced. If it is done at all, it should be done a week
beforehand. That was why Little John grumbled at my chopping though he
knew it was necessary.
To set up a rabbit net you must arrange it so that it covers the whole
of the mouth of the hole, for if there is any opening between it and
the bank the rabbit will slip through. He will not face the net unless
obliged to. Along the upper part, if the bank is steep, so that the net
will not lie on it of itself, two or three little twigs should be
thrust through the meshes into the earth to suspend it.
These twigs should be no larger than are used by birds in constructing
their nests; just strong enough to hold the net in place and no more.
On the other hand, care must be taken that no stout projecting root
catches a corner of the net, else it will not draw up properly and the
rabbit will escape.
Little John, not satisfied with my assurance that I had netted all the
holes my side, now came over—crawling on hands and knees that he might
not jar the bank—to examine for himself. His practised eye detected two
holes that I had missed: one on the top of the mound much overhung by
dead grass, and one under a stole. These he attended to. He then
crawled up on the mound two or three yards below the end of the bury,
and with his own hands stretched a larger net right across the top of
the bank, so that if a rabbit did escape he would run into this. To be
still more sure he stretched another similar net across the whole width
of the mound at the other end of the bury.
He then undid the mouth of the ferret-bag, holding it between his
knees—the ferrets immediately attempted to struggle out: he selected
two and then tied it up again. With both these in his own hands, for he
would trust nothing to another, he slipped quietly back to Orion’s
side, and so soon as he saw I was standing well back placed them in
different holes.
Almost the next instant one came out my side disarranging a net. I got
into the ditch, hastily reset the net, and put the ferret to an
adjacent hole, lifting up the corner of the net there for it to creep
in. Unlike the weasel, a ferret once outside a hole seems at a loss,
and wanders slowly about, till chance brings him to a second. The
weasel used to hunting is no sooner out of one hole than he darts away
to the next. But this power the ferret has partially lost from
confinement.
For a moment the ferret hesitated inside the hole, as if undecided
which of two passages to take: then he started, and I lost sight of his
tail. Hardly had I got back to my stand than I heard Little John leap
into the ditch his side: the next minute I saw the body of the rabbit
which he had killed thrown out into the field.
I stood behind a somewhat advanced bush that came out into the meadow
like a buttress, and kept an eye on the holes along the bank. It is
essential to stand well back from the holes, and, if possible, out of
sight. In a few moments something moved, and I saw the head of a rabbit
at the mouth of a hole just behind the net. He looked through the
meshes as through a lattice, and I could see his nostrils work, as he
considered within himself how to pass this thing. It was but for a
moment; the ferret came behind, and wild with hereditary fear, the
rabbit leaped into the net.
The force of the spring not only drew the net together, but dragged out
the peg, and rabbit and net inextricably entangled rolled down the bank
to the bottom of the ditch. I jumped into the ditch and seized the net;
when there came a hoarse whisper: “Look sharp you, measter: put up
another net fust—_he_ can’t get out; hould un under your arm, _or in
your teeth_.”
I looked up, and saw Little John’s face peering over the mound. He had
thrust himself up under the bushes; his hat was off; his weather-beaten
face bleeding from a briar, but he could not feel the scratch so
anxious was he that nothing should escape. I pulled another net from my
pocket, and spread it roughly over the hole; then more slowly took the
rabbit from the other net.
You should never hold a rabbit up till you have got fast hold of his
hind legs; he will so twist and work himself as to get free from any
other grasp. But when held by the hind legs and lifted from the ground
he can do nothing. I now returned to my buttress of bushes and waited.
The rabbits did not bolt my side again for a while. Every now and then
I saw, or heard, Orion or Little John leap into their ditch, and well
knew what it meant before the dead rabbit was cast out to fall with a
helpless thud upon the sward.
Once I saw a rabbit’s head at the mouth of a hole, and momentarily
expected him to dart forth driven by the same panic fear. But either
the ferret passed, or there was another side-tunnel—the rabbit went
back. Some few minutes afterwards Little John exclaimed: “Look out,
you; ferret’s out!” One of the ferrets had come out of a hole and was
aimlessly—as it appeared—roaming along the bank.
As he came nearest my side, I got quietly into the ditch and seized
him, and put him into a hole. To my surprise he refused to go in—I
pushed him: he returned and continued to try to come out till I gave
him a sharp fillip with the finger, when he shook the dust and
particles of dry earth from his fur with a shiver, as if in protest,
and slowly disappeared inside the hole.
As I was creeping out of the deep ditch on hands and knees, I heard
Orion call angrily to the spaniel to come to heel. Hitherto the spaniel
had sat on his haunches behind Orion fairly quiet and still, though not
without an occasional restless movement. But now he broke suddenly from
all control, and disregarding Orion’s anger—though with hanging
tail—rushed into the hedge, and along the top of the mound where there
was a thick mass of dead grass. Little John hurled a clod of clay at
him, but before I was quite out of the ditch the spaniel gave tongue,
and at the same moment I saw a rabbit come from the ditch and run like
mad across the field.
The dog gave chase—I rushed for my gun, which was some yards off,
placed against a hollow withy tree. The haste disconcerted the aim—the
rabbit too was almost fifty yards away when I fired. But the shot broke
one hind leg—it trailed behind—and the spaniel had him instantly. “Look
at yer nets,” said Little John in a tone of suppressed indignation, for
he disliked the noise of a gun, as all other noises.
I did look, and found that one net had been partly pushed aside; yet to
so small an extent that I should hardly have believed it possible for
the rabbit to have crept through. He must have slipped out without the
slightest sound and quietly got on the top of the mound without being
seen. But there, alas! he found a wide net stretched right across the
bank so that to slip down the mound on the top was impossible. This
would certainly have been his course had not the net been there.
It was now doubtless that the spaniel caught wind of him, and the scent
was so strong that it overcame his obedience. The moment the dog got on
the bank, the rabbit slipped down into the rushes in the ditch—I did
not see him because my back was turned in the act to scramble out.
Then, directly the spaniel gave tongue the rabbit darted for the open,
hoping to reach the buries in the hedge on the opposite side of the
meadow.
This incident explained why the ferret seemed so loth to go back into
the hole. He had crept out some few moments behind the rabbit and in
his aimless uncertain manner was trying to follow the scent along the
bank. He did not like being compelled to give up this scent and to
search again for another. “Us must be main careful how us fixes our
nets, you,” said Little John, going as far as he could in reproof of my
negligence.
The noise of the gun, the barking, and talking was of course heard by
the rabbits still in the bury, and as if to show that Little John was
right, for a while they ceased to bolt. Standing behind the
bushes—against which I now placed the gun to be nearer at hand—I
watched the nets till my eye was caught by the motions of the
ferret-bag. It lay on the grass and had hitherto been inert. But now
the bag reared itself up, and then rolled over, to again rise and again
tumble. The ferrets left in it in reserve were eager to get out—sharp
set on account of a scanty breakfast—and their motions caused the bag
to roll along a short distance.
I could see Orion on the other side of the mound tolerably well because
he was standing up and the leaves had fallen from the upper part of the
bushes. Little John was crouched in the ditch: the dead grasses,
“gicks,” withered vines of bryony, the thistles, and dark shrivelled
fern concealed him.
There was a round black sloe on the blackthorn beside me, the beautiful
gloss, or bloom, on it made it look like a tiny plum. It tasted not
only sour, but seemed to positively fill the mouth with a rough acid.
Overhead light grey clouds, closely packed but not rainy, drifted very
slowly before a N.E. upper current. Occasionally a brief puff of wind
came through the bushes rustling the dead leaves that still remained on
the oaks.
Despite the cold, something of Little John’s intense concentration
communicated itself to us: we waited and watched with eager patience.
After a while he got out of the ditch where he had been listening with
his ear close against the bank, and asked me to pass him the
ferret-bag. He took out another ferret and lined it—that is, attached
one end of a long string to its neck, and then sent it in.
He watched which way the ferret turned, and then again placed his head
upon the hard clay to listen. Orion had to come and hold the line,
while he went two or three yards farther down, got into the ditch and
once more listened carefully. “He be about the middle of the mound
you,” he said to me; “he be between you and I. Lor! look out.”
There was a low rumbling sound—I expected to see a rabbit bolt into one
of my nets, I heard Little John moving some leaves, and then he
shouted, “Give I a net, you—quick. Lor! here be another hole: he’s
coming!” I looked over the mound and saw Little John, his teeth set and
staring at a hole which had no net, his great hands open ready to
pounce instantly like some wild animal on its prey. In an instant the
rabbit bolted—he clutched it and clasped it tight to his chest. There
was a moment of struggling, the next the rabbit was held up for a
moment and then cast across his knee.
It was always a sight to see Little John’s keen delight in “wristing”
their necks. He affected utter unconsciousness of what he was doing,
looked you in the face, and spoke about some indifferent subject. But
all the while he was feeling the rabbit’s muscles stretch before the
terrible grasp of his hands, and an expression of complacent
satisfaction flitted over his features as the neck gave with a sudden
looseness, and in a moment what had been a living straining creature
became limp.
The ferret came out after the rabbit; he immediately caught it and
thrust it into his pocket. There were still two ferrets in—one that was
suspected to be gorging on a rabbit in a _cul de sac_, and the other
lined, and which had gone to join that sanguinary feast. The use of the
line was to trace where the loose ferret lay. “Chuck I the show’l,
measter,” said Little John.
I gave the “navigator” tool a heave over the hedge; it fell and stuck
upright in the sward. Orion handed it to him. He first filled up the
hole from which a rabbit had just bolted with a couple of “spits,”
_i.e._ spadefuls, and then began to dig on the top of the mound.
This digging was very tedious. The roots of the thorn bushes and trees
constantly impeded it, and had to be cut. Then upon at last getting
down to the hole, it was found that the right place had not been hit by
several feet. Here was the line and the lined ferret—he had got hitched
in a projecting root, and was furiously struggling to go forward to the
feast of blood.
Another spell of digging—this time still slower because Little John was
afraid lest the edge of his tool should suddenly slip through and cut
his ferret on the head, and perhaps kill it. At last the place was
reached and the ferret drawn forth still clinging to its victim. The
rabbit was almost beyond recognition as a rabbit. The poor creature had
been stopped by a _cul de sac_, and the ferret came upon him from
behind.
As the hole was small the rabbit’s body completely filled it, and the
ferret could not scramble past to get at the spot behind the ear where
it usually seizes. The ferret had therefore deliberately gnawn away the
hindquarters and so bored a passage. The ferret being so gorged was
useless for further hunting and was replaced in the bag. But Little
John gave him a drink of water first from the bottom of the ditch.
Orion and I, wearied with the digging, now insisted on removing to the
next bury, for we felt sure that the remaining rabbits in this one
would not bolt. Little John had no choice but to comply, but he did so
with much reluctance and many rueful glances back at the holes from
which he took the nets. He was sure, he said, that there were at least
half-a-dozen still in the bury: he only wished he might have all that
he could get out of it. But we imperiously ordered a removal.
We went some thirty yards down the mound, passing many smaller buries,
and chose a spot perfectly drilled with holes. While Little John was in
the ditch putting up nets, we slily undid the ferret-bag and turned
three ferrets at once loose into the holes. “Lor! measter, measter,
what be you at?” cried Little John, quite beside himself. “You’ll spoil
all on it. Lor!”
A sharp report as Orion fired at a rabbit that bolted almost under
Little John’s fingers drowned his remonstrances, and he had to scramble
out of the way quick. Bang! bang! right and left: the firing became
rapid. There being no nets to alarm the rabbits and three ferrets
hunting them, they tumbled out in all directions as fast as we could
load. Now the cartridges struck branches and shattered them. Now the
shot flattened itself against sarsen stones imbedded in the mound. The
rabbits had scarce a yard to bolt from one hole to another, so that it
was sharp work.
Little John now gave up all hope, and only pleaded piteously for his
ferrets. “Mind as you doan’t hit ’em, measter; doant’ee shoot into a
hole, you.” For half an hour we had some really good shooting: then it
began to slacken, and we told him to catch his ferrets and go on to the
next bury. I am not sure that he would not have rebelled outright but
just then a boy came up carrying a basket of provisions, and a large
earthenware jar with a bung cork, full of humming ale. Farmer Willum
had sent this, and the strong liquor quite restored Little John’s good
humour. It really was ale—such as is not to be got for money.
The boy said that he had seen Farmer Willum’s hereditary enemy, the
keeper, watching us from his side of the boundary, doubtless attracted
by the sound of the firing. He said also that there was a pheasant in a
little copse beside the brook. We sent him out again to reconnoitre: he
returned and repeated that the keeper had gone, and that he thought he
saw him enter the distant fir plantations. So we left the boy to help
Little John at the next bury—a commission that made him grin with
delight, and suited the other very well, since the noisy guns were
going away, and he could use his nets.
We took the lined ferret with us, and started after the pheasant. Just
as we approached the copse, the spaniel gave tongue on the other side
of the hedge. Orion had tied him up to a bush, wishing to leave him
with Little John. But the spaniel tore and twisted till he got loose
and had followed us—keeping out of sight—till now crossing the scent of
a rabbit he set up his bark. We called him to heel, and I am afraid he
got a kick. But the pheasant was alarmed, and rose before we could
properly enfilade the little copse, where we should most certainly have
had him. He flew high and straight for the fir plantations, where it
was useless to follow.
However, we leaped the brook and entered the keeper’s territory under
shelter of a thick double-mound. We slipped the lined ferret into a
small bury, and succeeded in knocking over a couple of rabbits. The
object of using the lined ferret was because we could easily recover
it. This was pure mischief, for there were scores of rabbits on our own
side. But then there was just a little spice of risk in this, and we
knew Willum would gloat over it.
After firing these two shots we got back again as speedily as possible,
and once more assisted Little John. We could not, however, quite resist
the pleasure of shooting a rabbit occasionally and so tormenting him.
We left one hole each side without a net, and insisted on the removal
of the net that stretched across the top of the bank. This gave us a
shot now and then, and the removal of the cross net allowed the rabbit
some little law.
Notwithstanding these drawbacks—to him—Little John succeeded in making
a good bag. He stayed till it was quite dark to dig out a ferret that
had killed a rabbit in the hole. He took his money for his day’s work
with indifference: but when we presented him with two couple of clean
rabbits his gratitude was too much for him to express. The gnawn and
“blown” rabbits [by shot] were his perquisite, the clean rabbits an
unexpected gift. It was not their monetary value; it was the fact that
they were rabbits.
The man’s instinct for hunting was so strong that it seemed to overcome
everything else. He would walk miles—after a long day’s farm work—just
to help old Luke, the rabbit contractor, bring home the rabbits in the
evening from the Upper Woods. He worked regularly for one farmer, and
did his work well: he was a sober man too as men go, that is he did not
get drunk more than once a month. A strong man must drink now and then:
but he was not a sot, and took nine-tenths of his money faithfully home
to his wife and children.
In the winter when farm work is not so pressing he was allowed a week
off now and then, which he spent in ferreting for the farmers, and
sometimes for Luke, and of course he was only too glad to get such an
engagement as we gave him. Sometimes he made a good thing of his
ferreting: sometimes when the weather was bad it was a failure. But
although a few shillings were of consequence to him, it really did not
seem to be the money-value but the sport that he loved. To him that
sport was all-absorbing.
His ferrets were well looked after, and he sometimes sold one for a
good price to keepers. As a rule a man who keeps ferrets is suspected:
but Little John was too well understood, and he had no difficulty in
begging a little milk for them.
His tenacity in pursuit of a rabbit was always a source of wonder to
me. In rain, in wind, in frost; his feet up to the ankle in the
ice-cold slush at the bottom of a ditch: no matter what the weather or
how rough, he patiently stood to his nets. I have known him stand the
whole day long in a snowstorm—the snow on the ground and in the holes,
the flakes drifting against his face—and never once show impatience.
All he disliked was wind—not on account of discomfort, but because the
creaking of the branches and the howling of the blast made such a noise
that it was impossible to tell where the rabbit would bolt.
He congratulated himself that evening because he had recovered all his
ferrets. Sometimes one will lie in and defy all efforts to bring it
out. One plan is to place a dead fresh rabbit at the mouth of the hole
which may tempt the ferret to come and seize it. In large woods there
are generally one or more ferrets wandering loose in the season, that
have escaped from the keepers or poachers.
If the keeper sees one he tries to catch it; failing that, he puts a
charge of shot into it. Some keepers think nothing of shooting their
own ferrets if they will not come when called by the chirrup with the
lips, or displease them in other ways. They do not care, because they
can have as many as they like. Little John made pets of his: they
obeyed him very well as a rule.
Poaching men are sometimes charged with stealing ferrets, _i.e._ with
picking up and carrying off those that keepers have lost. A ferret is,
however, a difficult thing to identify and swear to.
Those who go poaching with ferrets choose a moonlight night: if it is
dark it is difficult to find the holes. Small buries are best because
so much more easily managed, and the ferret is usually lined. If a
large bury is attempted, they take the first half-dozen that bolt and
then move on to another. The first rabbits come out rapidly; the rest
linger as if warned by the fate of their companions. Instead of wasting
time over them it is best to move to another place.
Unless a keeper should chance to pass up the hedgerow there is
comparatively little risk, for the men are in the ditch and invisible
ten yards away under the bushes and make no noise. It is more difficult
to get home with the game: but it is managed. Very small buries with
not more than four or five holes may be ferreted even on the darkest
nights by carefully observing beforehand where the holes are situate.