The low brick parapet of the bridge is overgrown with mosses; great hedges grow each side, and the willows, long uncut, almost meet in the centre. In one hedge an opening leads to a drinking-place for cattle: peering noiselessly over the parapet between the boughs, the coots and moorhens may be seen there feeding by the shore. They have come up from the mere as the ducks and teal do in the winter. The broader waters can scarcely be netted without a boat, but the brook here is the very place for a moonlight haul. The net is stretched first across the widest spot nearest to the pool, that no fish may escape. They swim up here in the daytime in shoals, perch especially; but the night poachers are often disappointed, for the fish seem to retire to deeper waters as the darkness comes on. A black mass of mud-coated sticks, rotten twigs, and thorn bushes, entangled in the meshes, is often the only result of much toil.

Once now and then, as when a preserved pond is netted, a tremendous take occurs; but nets are rather gone by, being so unwieldy and requiring several men to manage effectually. If they are not hung out to dry properly after being used, they soon rot. Now, a large net stretched along railings or a hedge is rather a conspicuous object, and brings suspicion on the owner. It is also so heavy after use that until wrung, which takes time, a strong man can barely carry it; and if a sudden alarm comes it must be abandoned.

It is pleasant to rest awhile on the parapet in the shadow of the bushes. The low thud-thud of sculls in the rowlocks of a distant punt travels up the water. By-and-by a hare comes along, enters on the bridge, and almost reaches the gate in the middle before he spies anything suspicious. Such a spot, and, indeed, any gateway, used to be a favourite place to set a net, and then drive the hares towards it with a cur dog that ran silent. Bold must be the man that would set a net in a footpath now, with almost every field preserved by owner or tenant. With a bound the hare hies back and across the meadow: the gun comes to the shoulder as swiftly.

On the grass lit by the moon the hare looked quite distinct, but the moment the gaze is concentrated up the barrel he becomes a dim object with no defined outline. In shooting on the ground by twilight or in the moonbeams, waste no time in endeavouring to aim, but think of the hare's ears—say a couple of feet in front of his tail—and the moment the gun feels steady pull the trigger. The flash and report come together; there is a dull indescribable sound ahead, as some of the shot strikes home in fur and some drills into the turf, and then a rustling in the grass. The moorhens dive, and the coots scuttle down the brook towards the mere at the flash. While yet the sulphurous smoke lingers, slow to disperse, over the cool dewy sward, there comes back an echo from the wood behind, then another from the mere, then another and another beyond.

The distant sculls have ceased to work in the rowlocks—those in the punt are listening to the echoes; most likely they have been fishing for tench in the deep holes under the black shadow of the aspens. (Tench feed in the dark: if you wish to take a big one wait till it is necessary to fix a piece of white paper on the float.) Now put the empty cartridge in your pocket instead of throwing it aside; pull the hare's neck across your knee, and hurry off. But you may safely stay to harle him; for those very echoes that have been heard a mile round about are the best safeguard: not one man in a thousand could tell the true direction whence the sound of the explosion originated.

The pleasure of wandering in a wood was so great that it could never be resisted, and did not solely arise from the instinct of shooting. Many expeditions were made without a gun, or any implement of destruction, simply to enjoy the trees and thickets. There was one large wood very carefully preserved, and so situate in an open country as not to be easily entered. But a little observation showed that the keeper had a 'habit.' He used to come out across the wheatfields to a small wayside 'public,' and his route passed by a lonely barn and rickyard. One warm summer day I saw him come as usual to the 'public,' and while he was there quietly slipped as far as the barn and hid in it.

In July such a rickyard is very hot; heat radiates from every straw. The ground itself is dry and hard, each crevice choked with particles of white chaff; so that even the couch can hardly grow except close under the low hedge where the pink flower of the pimpernel opens to the sky. White stone staddles—short conical pillars with broad capitals—stand awaiting the load of sheaves that will shortly press on them. Every now and then a rustling in the heaps of straw indicates the presence of mice. From straw and stone and bare earth heat seems to rise up. The glare of the sunlight pours from above. The black pitched wooden walls of the barn and sheds prevent the circulation of air. There are no trees for shadow—nothing but a few elder bushes, which are crowded at intervals of a few minutes with sparrows rushing with a whirr of wings up from the standing corn.

But the high pitched roof of the barn and of the lesser sheds has a beauty of its own—the minute vegetation that has covered the tiles having changed the original dull red to an orange hue. From ridge to eaves, from end to end, it is a wide expanse of colour, only varying so much in shade as to save it from monotony. It stands out glowing, distinct against the deep blue of the sky. The 'cheep' of fledgeling sparrows comes from the crevices above; but swallows do not frequent solitary buildings so much as those by dwelling-houses, being especially fond of cattle-sheds where cows are milked.

The proximity of animals apparently attracts them: perhaps in the more exposed places there may be dangers from birds of prey. As for the sparrows, they are innumerable. Some are marked with white patches—a few so much so as to make quite a show when they fly. One handsome cock bird has a white ring half round his neck, and his wings are a beautiful partridge-brown. He looks larger than the common sort; and there are several more here that likewise appear to exceed in size, and to have the same peculiar brown.

After a while there came the sound of footsteps and a low but cheerful whistle. The keeper having slaked a thirst very natural on such a sultry day returned, and re-entered the wood. I had decided that it would be the best plan to follow in his rear, because then there would be little chance of crossing his course haphazard, and the dogs would not sniff any strange footsteps, since the footsteps would not be there till they had gone by. To hide from the eyes of a man is comparatively easy; but a dog will detect an unwonted presence in the thickest bush, and run in and set up a yelping, especially if it is a puppy.

It was not more than forty yards from the barn to the wood: there was no mound or hedge, but a narrow, deep, and dry watercourse, a surface drain, ran across. Stooping a little and taking off my hat, I walked in this, so that the wheat each side rose above me and gave a perfect shelter. This precaution was necessary, because on the right there rose a steep Down, from whose summit the level wheat-fields could be easily surveyed. So near was it that I could distinguish the tracks of the hares worn in the short grass. But if you take off your hat no one can distinguish you in a wheat-field, more particularly if your hair is light: nor even in a hedge.

Where the drain or furrow entered the wood was a wire-netting firmly fixed, and over it tall pitched palings, sharp at the top. The wood was enclosed with a thick hawthorn hedge that looked impassable; but the keeper's footsteps, treading down the hedge-parsley and brushing aside the 'gicks,' guided me behind a bush where was a very convenient gap. These signs and the smooth-worn bark of an ash against which it was needful to push proved that this quiet path was used somewhat frequently.

Inside the wood the grass and the bluebell leaves—the bloom past and ripening to seed—so hung over the trail that it was difficult to follow. It wound about the ash stoles in the most circuitous manner—now to avoid the thistles, now a bramble thicket, or a hollow filled with nettles. Then the ash poles were clothed with the glory of the woodbine—one mass of white and yellow wax-like flowers to a height of eight or nine feet, and forming a curtain of bloom from branch to branch.

After awhile I became aware that the trail was approaching the hill. At the foot it branched; and the question arose whether to follow the fork that zig-zagged up among the thickets or that which seemed to plunge into the recesses beneath. I had never been in this wood before—the time was selected because it was probable that the keeper would be extremely occupied with his pheasant chicks. Though the earth was so hard in the exposed rick-yard, here the clayey ground was still moist under the shadow of the leaves. Examining the path more closely, I easily distinguished the impression of the keeper's boot: the iron toe-plate has left an almost perfect impression, and there were the deep grooves formed by the claws of his dog as it had scrambled up the declivity and the pad slipped on the clay.

As he had taken the upward path, no doubt it led direct to the pheasants, which was sure to be on the hill itself, or a dry and healthy slope. I therefore took the other trail, since I must otherwise have overtaken him; for he would stay long among his chicks: just as an old-fashioned farmer lingers at a gate, gazing on his sheep. Advancing along the lower path, after some fifteen minutes it turned sharply to the right, and I stood under the precipitous cliff-like edge of the hill in a narrow coombe. The earth at the top hung over the verge, and beech-trees stood as it seemed in the act to topple, their exposed roots twisting to and fro before they re-entered the face of the precipice. Large masses of chalky rubble had actually fallen, and others were all but detached. The coombe, of course, could be overlooked from thence; but a moment's reflection convinced me there was no risk, for who would dare to go near enough to the edge to look down?

The coombe was full of fir-trees; and by them stood a long narrow shed—the roof ruinous, but the plank walls intact. It had originally been erected in a field, since planted for covers. This long shed, a greenish grey from age and mouldering wood, became a place of much interest. Along the back there were three rows of weasels and stoats nailed through the head or neck to the planks. There had been a hundred in each row—about three hundred altogether. The lapse of time had entirely dissipated the substance of many on the upper row; nothing remained but the grim and rusty nail. Further along there hung small strips without shape. Beyond these the nails supported something that had a rough outline still of the animal. In the second row the dried and shrivelled creatures were closely wrapped in nature's mummy-cloth of green; in the third, some of those last exposed still retained a dull brown colour. None were recent. Above, under the eaves, the spiders' webs had thickly gathered; beneath, the nettles flourished.

But the end of the shed was the place where the more distinguished offenders were gibbeted. A footpath, well worn and evidently much used, went by this end, and, as I afterwards ascertained, communicated with the mansion above and the keeper's cottage some distance below. Every passenger between must pass the gallows where the show of more noble traitors gave proof of the keeper's loyal activity. Four shorter rows rose in tiers. To the nails at the top strong beaks and black feathers adhered, much bedraggled and ruffled by weather. These crows had long been dead; the keeper when he shot a crow did not trouble to have it carried home, unless a nail was conspicuously vacant. The ignoble bird was left where he fell.

On the next row the black and white of magpies and the blue of jays alternated. Many of the magpies had been despoiled of their tails, and some of their wings, the feathers being saleable. The jays were more numerous, and untouched; they were slain in such numbers that the market for their plumage was glutted. Though the bodies were shrunken, the feathers were in fair condition. Magpies' nests are so large that in winter, when the leaves are off the trees, they cannot but be seen, and, the spot being marked, in the summer old and young are easily destroyed. Hawks filled the third row. The kestrels were the most numerous, but there were many sparrow-hawks. These made a great show, and were stuck so closely that a feather could hardly be thrust between them. In the midst, quite smothered under their larger wings, were the remains of a smaller bird—probably a merlin. But the last and lowest row, that was also nearest, or on a level with the face of a person looking at the gallows, was the most striking.

This grand tier was crowded with owls—not arranged in any order, but haphazard, causing a fine mixture of colour. Clearly this gallery was constantly renewed. The white owl gave the prevalent tint, side by side with the brown wood owls, and scattered among the rest, a few long horned owls—a mingling of white, yellowish brown, and tawny feathers. Though numerous here, yet trap and gun have so reduced the wood owls that you may listen half the night by a cover and never hear the 'Who-hoo' that seems to demand your name.

The barn owls are more liable to be shot, because they are more conspicuous; but, on the other hand, as they often breed and reside away from covers, they seem to escape. For months past one of these has sailed by my window every evening uttering a hissing 'skir-r-r.' Here, some were nailed with their backs to the wall, that they might not hide their guilty faces.

The delicate texture of the owl's feathers is very remarkable: these birds remind me of a huge moth. The owls were more showy than the hawks, though it is commonly said that without sunlight there is no colour—as in the case of plants grown in darkness. Yet the hawks are day birds, while the owls fly by night. There came the sound of footsteps; and I retreated, casting one glance backward at the black and white, the blue and brown colours that streaked the wall, while the dull green weasels were in perpetual shadow. By night the bats would flit round and about that gloomy place. It would not do to return by the same path, lest another keeper might be coming up it; so I stepped into the wood itself. To those who walk only in the roads, hawks and owls seem almost rare. But a wood is a place to which they all flock; and any wanderer from the north or west naturally tends thither. This wood is of large extent; but even to the smaller plantations of the Downs it is wonderful what a number come in the course of a year. Besides the shed just visited, there would be certain to be another more or less ornamented near the keeper's cottage, and probably others scattered about, where the commoner vermin could be nailed without the trouble of carrying them far away. Only the owls and hawks, magpies, and such more striking evidences of slaughter were collected here, and almost daily renewed.

To get into the wood was much easier than to get out, on account of the thick hedge, palings, and high sharp-sparred gates; but I found a dry ditch where it was possible to creep under the bushes into a meadow where was a footpath.



CHAPTER VI



LURCHER-LAND: 'THE PARK'

The time of the apple-bloom is the most delicious season in Sarsen village. It is scarcely possible to obtain a view of the place, although it is built on the last slope of the Downs, because just where the ground drops and the eye expects an open space, plantations of fir and the tops of tall poplars and elms intercept the glance. In ascending from the level meadows of the vale thick double mounds, heavily timbered with elm, hide the houses until you are actually in their midst.

Those only know a country who are acquainted with its footpaths. By the roads, indeed, the outside may be seen; but the footpaths go through the heart of the land. There are routes by which mile after mile may be travelled without leaving the sward. So you may pass from village to village; now crossing green meads, now cornfields, over brooks, past woods, through farmyard and rick 'barken.' But such tracks are not mapped, and a stranger misses them altogether unless under the guidance of an old inhabitant.

At Sarsen the dusty road enters the more modern part of the village at once, where the broad signs hang from the taverns at the cross-ways and where the loafers steadily gaze at the new comer. The Lower Path, after stile and hedge and elm, and grass that glows with golden buttercups, quietly leaves the side of the double mounds and goes straight through the orchards. There are fewer flowers under the trees, and the grass grows so long and rank that it has already fallen aslant of its own weight. It is choked, too, by masses of clog-weed, that springs up profusely over the site of old foundations; so that here ancient masonry may be hidden under the earth. Indeed, these orchards are a survival from the days when the monks laboured in vineyard and garden, and mayhap even of earlier times. When once a locality has got into the habit of growing a certain crop it continues to produce it for century after century; and thus there are villages famous for apple or pear or cherry, while the district at large is not at all given to such culture.

The trunks of the trees succeed each other in endless ranks, like columns that support the most beautiful roof of pink and white. Here the bloom is rosy, there white prevails: the young green is hidden under the petals that are far more numerous than leaves, or even than leaves will be. Though the path really is in shadow as the branches shut out the sun, yet it seems brighter here than in the open, as if the place were illuminated by a million tiny lamps shedding the softest lustre. The light is reflected and apparently increased by the countless flowers overhead.

The forest of bloom extends acre after acre, and only ceases where hedges divide, to commence again beyond the boundary. A wicket gate, all green with a film of vegetation over the decaying wood, opens under the very eaves of a cottage, and the path goes by the door—across a narrow meadow where deep and broad trenches, green now, show where ancient stews or fishponds existed, and then through a farmyard into a lane. Tall poplars rise on either hand, but there seem to be no houses; they stand, in fact, a field's breadth back from the lane, and are approached by footpaths that every few yards necessitate a stile in the hedge.

When a low thatched farmhouse does abut upon the way, the blank white wall of the rear part faces the road, and the front door opens on precisely the other side. Hard by is a row of beehives. Though the modern hives are at once more economical and humane, they have not the old associations that cling about the straw domes topped with broken earthenware to shoot off the heavy downfall of a thunderstorm.

Everywhere the apple-bloom; the hum of bees; children sitting on the green beside the road, their laps full of flowers; the song of finches; and the low murmur of water that glides over flint and stone so shadowed by plants and grasses that the sunbeams cannot reach and glisten on it. Thus the straggling flower-strewn village stretches along beneath the hill and rises up the slope, and the swallows wheel and twitter over the gables where are their hereditary nesting-places. The lane ends on a broad dusty road, and, opposite, a quiet thatched house of the larger sort stands, endways to the street, with an open pitching before the windows. There, too, the swallows' nests are crowded under the eaves, flowers are trained against the wall, and in the garden stand the same beautiful apple-trees. But within, the lower part of the windows—that have recess seats—are guarded by horizontal rods of iron, polished by the backs of many men. It is an inn, and the rods are to save the panes from the impact of an excited toper's arm.

The talk to-day, as the brown brandy, which the paler cognac has not yet superseded, is consumed, and the fumes of coarse tobacco and the smell of spilt beer and the faint sickly odour of evaporating spirits overpower the flowers, is of horses. The stable lads from the training stables far up on the Downs drop in or call at the door without dismounting. Once or twice in the day a tout calls and takes his 'grub,' and scribbles a report in the little back parlour. Sporting papers, beer-stained and thumb-marked, lie on the tables; framed portraits of racers hang on the walls. Burly men, who certainly cannot ride a race, but who have horse in every feature, puff cigars and chat in jerky monosyllables that to an outsider are perfectly incomprehensible. But the glib way in which heavy sums of money are spoken of conveys the impression that they dabble in enormous wealth.

There are dogs under the tables and chairs; dogs in the window-seat; dogs panting on the stone flags of the passage, after a sharp trot behind a trap, choosing the coolest spot to loll their red tongues out; dogs outside in the road; dogs standing on hind legs, and painfully lapping the water in the horse-trough; and there is a yapping of puppies in the distance. The cushions of the sofa are strewn with dogs' hairs, and once now and then a dog leisurely hops up the staircase.

Customers are served by the landlady, a decent body enough in her way: her son, the man of the house, is up in the 'orchut' at the rear, feeding his dogs. Where the 'orchut' ends in a paddock stands a small shed: in places the thatch on the roof has fallen through in the course of years and revealed the bare rafters. The bottom part of the door has decayed, and the long nose of a greyhound is thrust out sniffing through a hole. Dickon, the said son, is delighted to undo the padlock for a visitor who is 'square.' In an instant the long hounds leap up, half a dozen at a time, and I stagger backwards, forced by the sheer vigour of their caresses against the doorpost. Dickon cannot quell the uproarious pack: he kicks the door open, and away they scamper round and round the paddock at headlong speed.

What a joy it is to them to stretch their limbs! I forget the squalor of the kennel in watching their happy gambols. I cannot drink more than one tumbler of brown brandy and water; but Dickon overlooks that weakness, feeling that I admire his greyhounds. It is arranged that I am to see them work in the autumn.

The months pass, and in his trap with the famous trotter in the shafts we roll up the village street. Apple-bloom and golden fruit too are gone, and the houses show more now among the bare trees; but as the rim of the ruddy November sun comes forth from the edge of a cloud there appears a buff tint everywhere in the background. When elm and ash are bare the oaks retain their leaves, and these are illumined by the autumn beams. Over-topped by tall elms and hidden by the orchards, the oaks were hardly seen in summer; now they are found to be numerous and give the prevailing hue to the place.

Dickon taps the dashboard as the mare at last tops the hill, and away she speeds along the level plateau for the Downs. Two greyhounds are with us; two more have gone on under charge of a boy. Skirting the hills a mile or two, we presently leave the road and drive over the turf: there is no track, but Dickon knows his way. The rendezvous is a small fir plantation, the young trees in which are but shoulder-high. Below is a plain entirely surrounded by the hills, and partly green with root crops: more than one flock of sheep is down there, and two teams ploughing the stubble. Neither the ploughmen nor the shepherds take the least heed of us, except to watch for the sport. The spare couple are fastened in the trap; the boy jumps up and takes the reins. Dickon puts the slip on the couple that are to run first, and we begin to range.

Just at the foot of the hill the grass is tall and grey; there, too, are the dead dry stalks of many plants that cultivation has driven from the ploughed fields and that find a refuge at the edge. A hare starts from the very verge and makes up the Downs. Dickon slips the hounds, and a faint halloo comes from the shepherds and the ploughmen. It is a beautiful sight to see the hounds bound over the sward; the sinewy back bends like a bow, but a bow that, instead of an arrow, shoots itself; the deep chests drink the air. Is there any moment so joyful in life as the second when the chase begins? As we gaze, before we even step forward, the hare is over the ridge and out of sight. Then we race and tear up the slope; then the boy in the trap flaps the reins and away goes the mare out of sight too.

Dickon is long and rawboned, a powerful fellow, strong of limb, and twice my build; but he sips too often at the brown brandy, and after the first burst I can head him. But he knows the hills and the route the hare will take, so that I have but to keep pace. In five minutes as we cross a ridge we see the game again; the hare is circling back—she passes under us not fifty yards away, as we stand panting on the hill. The youngest hound gains, and runs right over her; she doubles, the older hound picks up the running. By a furze-bush she doubles again; but the young one turns her—the next moment she is in the jaws of the old dog.

Again and again the hounds are slipped, now one couple, now the other: we pant, and can scarcely speak with running, but the wild excitement of the hour and the sweet pure air of the Downs supply fresh strength. The little lad brings the mare anywhere: through the furze, among the flint-pits, jolting over the ruts, she rattles along with sure alacrity. There are five hares in the sack under the straw when at last we get up and slowly drive down to the highway, reaching it some two miles from where we left it. Dickon sends the dogs home by the boy on foot; we drive round and return to the village by a different route, entering it from the opposite direction.

The reason of these things is that Sarsen has no great landlord. There are fifty small proprietors, and not a single resident magistrate. Besides the small farmers, there are scores of cottage owners, every one of whom is perfectly independent. Nobody cares for anybody. It is a republic, without even the semblance of a Government. It is liberty, equality, and swearing. As it is just within the limit of a borough, almost all the cottagers have votes, and are not to be trifled with. The proximity of horse-racing establishments adds to the general atmosphere of dissipation. Betting, card-playing, ferret-breeding and dog-fancying, poaching and politics, are the occupations of the populace. A little illicit badger-baiting is varied by a little vicar-baiting; the mass of the inhabitants are the reddest of Reds. Que voulez-vous?

The edges of some large estates come up near, but the owners would hardly like to institute a persecution of these turbulent folk. If they did, where would be their influence at the next election? If a landlord makes himself unpopular, his own personal value depreciates. He is a nonentity in the committee-room, and his help rather deprecated by the party than desired. The Sarsen fellows are not such fools as to break pheasant preserves in the vale; as they are resident, that would not answer. They keep outside the sanctum sanctorum of the pheasant coverts. But with ferret, dog, and gun, and now and then a partridge net along the edge of the standing barley, they excel. So, too, with the wire; and the broad open Downs are their happy hunting grounds, especially in misty weather.

This is the village of the apple-bloom, the loveliest spot imaginable. After all, they are not such desperately bad fellows if you deduct their sins against the game laws. They are a jovial lot, and free with their money; they stand by one another—a great virtue in these cold-blooded days. If one gets in trouble with the law the rest subscribe the fine. They are full of knowledge of a certain sort, and you may learn anything, from the best way to hang a dog upwards.

When we reach the inn, and Dickon calls for the brown brandy, there in the bar sits a gamekeeper, whose rubicund countenance beams with good humour. He is never called upon to pay his score. Good fellow! in addition he is popular, and every one asks him to drink: besides which, a tip for a race now and then makes this world wear a smiling aspect to him.

Dickon's 'unconscious education'—absorbed rather than learnt in boyhood—had not been acquired under conditions likely to lead him to admire scenery. But, rough as he was, he was a good-natured fellow, and it was through him that I became acquainted with a very beautiful place.

The footpath to The Park went for about half a mile under the shadow of elm trees, and in spring time there was a continual noise of young rooks in the nests above. Occasionally dead twigs, either dislodged from the nests or broken off by the motions of the old birds, came rustling down. One or two nests that had been blown out strewed the sward with half a bushel of dead sticks. After the rookery the path passed a lonely dairy, where the polished brazen vessels in the skilling glittered like gold in the sunshine. Farther on came wide open meadows with numerous oak-trees scattered in the midst—the outposts of the great wood at hand. The elms were flourishing and vigorous; but these detached oaks were decaying, and some dead, their hoar antiquity contrasting with the green grass and flowers of the mead.

The mansion was hidden by elm and chestnut, pines and sombre cedars. From the edge of the lawn the steep slope of the Down rose, planted with all manner of shrubs, the walks through which were inches deep in dead leaves, needles, and fir-cones. Long neglect had permitted these to accumulate, and the yew hedges had almost grown together and covered the walk they bordered.

The woods and preserves extended along the Downs, between the hills and the meadows beneath. There was one path through these woods that led into a narrow steep-sided coombe, one side of which was planted with firs. On the other was a little grass, but so thin as scarcely to cover the chalk. This side jutted out from the general line of the hills, and formed a bold bluff, whose white precipitous cliff was a landmark for many miles. In climbing the coombe, it was sometimes necessary to grasp the bunches of grass; for it would have been impossible to recover from a slip till, bruised and shaken, you rolled to the bottom, and perhaps into the little streamlet flowing through the hollow.

The summit was of small extent, but the view beautiful. A low fence of withy had long since decayed, nothing but a few rotten stakes remaining at the very verge of the precipice. Steep as it was, there were some ledges that the rabbits frequented, making their homes in mid-air. Further along, the slope, a little less perpendicular, was covered with nut-tree bushes, where you could scramble down by holding to the boughs. There was a tradition of a fox-hunter, in the excitement of the chase, forcing his horse to descend through these bushes and actually reaching the level meadows below in safety.

Impossible as it seemed, yet when the hounds were in full cry beneath it was easy to understand that in the eagerness of the moment a horseman at the top might feel tempted to join the stirring scene at any risk: for the fox frequently ran just below, making along the line of coverts; and from that narrow perch on the cliff the whole field came into sight at once. There was Reynard slipping ahead, and two or more fields behind the foremost of the pack, while the rest, rushing after, made the hills resound with their chiding. The leaders taking the hedges, the main squadron splashing through a marshy place, the outsiders straining to come up, and the last man behind, who rode harder than any—all could be seen at the same time.

It was a lovely spot, too, for dreaming on a summer's day, reclining on the turf, with the harebells swinging in the faint breeze. The extreme solitude was its charm: no lanes or tracks other than those purely pastoral came near. There were woods on either hand; in the fir plantations the jays chattered unceasingly. The broad landscape stretched out to the illimitable distance, till the power of the eye failed and could trace it no farther. But if the gaze was lifted it looked into blue space—the azure heaven not only overhead, but, as it seemed, all around.

Dickon was always to and fro the mansion here, and took me with him. His object was ostensibly business: now it was a horse to buy, now a fat bullock or sheep; now it was an acre or two of wood that was to be cut. The people of the mansion were so much from home that their existence was almost forgotten, and they were spoken of vaguely as 'on the Continent.' There was, in fact, a lack of ready-money, perhaps from the accumulation of settlements, that reduced the nominal income of the head to a tithe of what it should have been.

Yet they were too proud to have in the modern builder, the modern upholsterer, and, most dreadful of all, the modern 'gardener,' to put in French sashes, gilding and mirrors, and to root up the fine old yew hedges and level the grand old trees. Such is the usual preparation before an advertisement appears that a mansion of 'historic association,' and 'replete with every modern convenience,' is to let, with some thousand of acres of shooting, &c.

They still kept up an establishment of servants—after a fashion—who did much as they pleased. Dickon was a great favourite. As for myself, a mere dreamy lad, I could go into the woods and wander as I liked, which was sufficient. But I recollect the immense kitchen very well, and the polished relics of the ancient turnspit machinery. There was a door from it opening on a square stone-flagged court with a vertical sun-dial on the wall; and beyond that ranges of disused coach-houses—all cloudy, as it were, with cobwebs hanging on old-fashioned post-chaises. Dickon was in love with one of the maids, a remarkably handsome girl.

She showed me the famous mantelpiece, a vast carved work, under which you could stand upright. The legend was that once a year on a certain night a sable horse and cloaked horseman rode across that great apartment, flames snorting from the horse's nostrils, and into the fireplace, disappearing with a clap of thunder. She brought me, too, an owl from the coach-houses, holding the bird by the legs firmly, her hand defended by her apron from the claws.

The butler was a little merry fellow, extremely fond of a gun, and expert in using it. He seemed to have nothing to do but tell tales and sing, except at the rare intervals when some of the family returned unexpectedly. The keeper was always up there in the kitchen; he was as pleasant and jovial as a man could well be, though full of oaths on occasion. He was a man of one tale—of a somewhat enigmatical character. He would ask a stranger if they had ever heard of such-and-such a village where water set fire to a barn, ducks were drowned, and pigs cut their own throats, all in a single day.

It seemed that some lime had been stored in the barn, when the brook rose and flooded the place; this slaked the lime and fired the straw, and so the barn. Something of the same kind happens occasionally on the river barges. The ducks were in a coop fastened down, so that they could not swim on the surface of the flood, which passed over and drowned them. The pigs were floated out of the sty, and in swimming their sharp-edged hoofs struck their fat jowls just behind the ear at every stroke till they cut into the artery, and so bled to death. Where he got this history from I do not know.

One bright October morning (towards the end of the month) Dickon drove me over to the old place with his fast trotter—our double-barrels hidden under some sacks in the trap. The keeper was already waiting in the kitchen, sipping a glass of hot purl; the butler was filling every pocket with cartridges. After some comparison of their betting-books, for Dickon, on account of his acquaintance with the training establishments, was up to most moves, we started. The keeper had to send a certain number of pheasants and other game to the absent family and their friends every now and then, and this duty was his pretext. There was plenty of shooting to be got elsewhere, but the spice of naughtiness about this was alluring. To reach that part of the wood where it was proposed to shoot the shortest way led across some arable fields.

Fieldfares and redwings rose out of the hedges and flew away in their peculiarly scattered manner—their flocks, though proceeding in the same direction, seeming all loose and disordered. Where the ploughs had been at work already the deep furrows were full of elm leaves, wafted as they fell from the trees in such quantities as to make the groove left by the share level with the ridges. A flock of lapwings were on the clods in an adjacent field, near enough to be seen, but far beyond gunshot. There might perhaps have been fifty birds, all facing one way and all perfectly motionless. They were, in fact, watching us intently, although not apparently looking towards us: they act so much in concert as to seem drilled. So soon as the possibility of danger had gone by each would begin to feed, moving ahead.

The path then passed through the little meadows that joined the wood: and the sunlight glistened on the dew, or rather on the hoar frost that had melted and clung in heavy drops to the grass. Here one flashed emerald; there ruby; another a pure brilliance like a diamond. Under foot by the stiles the fallen acorns crunched as they split into halves beneath the sudden pressure.

The leaves still left on the sycamores were marked with large black spots: the horse-chestnuts were quite bare; and already the tips of the branches carried the varnish-coloured sheaths of the buds that were to appear the following spring. These stuck to the finger if touched, as if they really had been varnished. Through the long months of winter they would remain, till under April showers and sunshine the sheath fell back and the green leaflets pushed up, the two forming together a rude cross for a short time.

The day was perfectly still, and the colours of the leaves still left glowed in the sunbeams. Beneath, the dank bronzed fern that must soon shrivel was wet, and hung with spiders' webs that like a slender netting upheld the dew. The keeper swore a good deal about a certain gentleman farmer whose lands adjoined the estate, but who held under a different proprietor. Between these two there was a constant bickering—the tenant angry about the damage done to his crops by the hares and rabbits, and the keeper bitterly resenting the tenant's watch on his movements, and warnings to his employer that all was not quite as it should be.

The tenant had the right to shoot, and he was always about in the turnips—a terrible thorn in the side of Dickon's friend. The tenant roundly declared the keeper a rascal, and told his master so in written communications. The keeper declared the tenant set gins by the wood, in which the pheasants stepped and had their legs smashed. Then the tenant charged the keeper with trespassing; the other retorted that he decoyed the pheasants by leaving peas till they dropped out of the pods. In short, their hatred was always showing itself in some act of guerrilla warfare. As we approached the part of the woods fixed on, two of the keeper's assistants, carrying thick sticks, stepped from behind a hedge, and reported that they had kept a good watch, and the old fox (the tenant) had not been seen that morning. So these fellows went round to beat, and the guns were got ready.

Sometimes you could hear the pheasants running before they reached the low-cropped hawthorn hedge at the side of the plantation; sometimes they came so quietly as to appear suddenly out from the ditch, having crept through. Others came with a tremendous rush through the painted leaves, rising just before the hedge; and now and then one flew screaming high over the tops of the firs and ash-poles, his glossy neck glowing in the sunlight and his long tail floating behind. These last pleased me most, for when the shot struck the great bird going at that rate even death could not at once arrest his progress. The impetus carried him yards, gradually slanting downwards till he rolled in the green rush bunches.

Then a hare slipped out and ran the gauntlet, and filled the hollow with his cries when the shot broke his hindquarters, till the dog had him. Jays came in couples, and green woodpeckers singly: the magpies cunningly flew aside instead of straight ahead; they never could do anything straightforward. A stoat peeped out, but went back directly when a rabbit whose retreat had been cut off bolted over his most insidious enemy. Every now and then Dickon's shot when he fired high cut the twigs out of the ash by me. Then came the distant noise of the beaters' sticks, and the pheasants, at last thoroughly disturbed, flew out in twos and threes at a time. Now the firing grew fierce, and the roll of the volleys ceaseless. It was impossible to jam the cartridges fast enough in the breech.

A subtle flavour of sulphur filled the mouth, and the lips became dry. Sunshine and gleaming leaves and sky and grass seemed to all disappear in the fever of the moment. The gun burned the hands, all blackened by the powder; the metal got hotter and hotter; the sward was poached and trampled and dotted with cases; shot hissed through the air and pattered in showers on the opposite plantation; the eyes, bleared and bloodshot with the smoke, could scarce see to point the tube. Pheasants fell, and no one heeded; pheasants escaped, and none noticed it; pheasants were but just winged and ran wounded into the distant hedges; pheasants were blown out of all living shape and could hardly be gathered up. Not a word spoken: a breathless haste to load and blaze; a storm of shot and smoke and slaughter.



CHAPTER VII



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.



CHAPTER VIII



CHURCHYARD PHEASANTS: BEFORE THE BENCH

The tower of the church at Essant Hill was so low that it scarcely seemed to rise above the maples in the hedges. It could not be seen until the last stile in the footpath across the meadows was passed. Church and tower then came into view together on the opposite side of a large open field. A few aged hawthorn trees dotted the sward, and beyond the church the outskirts of a wood were visible, but no dwellings could be seen. Upon a second and more careful glance, however, the chimney of a cottage appeared above a hedge, so covered with ivy as hardly to be separated from the green of the boughs.

There were houses of course somewhere in Essant, but they were so scattered that a stranger might doubt the existence of the village. A few farmsteads long distances apart, and some cottages standing in green lanes and at the corners of the fields, were nearly all; there was nothing resembling a 'street'—not so much as a row. The church was in effect the village, and the church was simply the mausoleum of the Dessant family, the owners of the place. Essant Hill as a name had been rather a problem to the archaeologists, there being no hill: the ground was quite level. The explanation at last admitted was that Essant Hill was a corruption of D'Essantville.

It seemed probable that the population had greatly diminished; because, although the church was of great antiquity, there was space still for interments in the yard. A yew tree of immense size stood in one corner, and was by tradition associated with the fortunes of the family. Though the old trunk was much decayed, yet there were still green and flourishing shoots; so that the superstitious elders said the luck of the house was returning.

Within, the walls of the church were covered with marble slabs, and the space was reduced by the tombs of the Dessants, one with a recumbent figure; there were two brasses level with the pavement, and in the chancel hung the faded hatchments of the dead. For the pedigree went back to the Battle of Hastings, and there was scarce room for more heraldry. From week's end to week's end the silent nave and aisles remained empty; the chirp of the sparrows was the only sound to be heard there. There being no house attached to the living, the holder could not reside; so the old church slumbered in the midst of the meadows, the hedges, and woods, day after day, year after year.

You could sit on the low churchyard wall in early summer under the shade of the elms in the hedge, whose bushes and briars came right over, and listen to the whistling of the blackbirds or the varied note of the thrush; you might see the whitethroat rise and sing just over the hedge, or look upwards and watch the swallows and swifts wheeling, wheeling, wheeling in the sky. No one would pass to disturb your meditations, whether simply dreaming of nothing in the genial summer warmth, or thinking over the course of history since the prows of the Norman ships grounded on the beach. If we suppose the time, instead of June, to be August or September, there would not even be the singing of the birds. But as you sat on the wall, by-and-by the pheasants, tame as chickens, would come up the hedge and over into the churchyard.

Leaving the church to stroll by the footpath across the meadow towards the wood, at the first gateway half-a-dozen more pheasants scatter aside, just far enough to let you pass. In the short dusty lane more pheasants; and again at the edge of the cornfield. None of these show any signs of alarm, and only move just far enough to avoid being trodden on. Approaching the wood there are yet more pheasants, especially near the fir plantations that come up to the keeper's cottage and form one side of the enclosure of his garden. The pheasants come up to the door to pick up what they can—not long since they were fed there—and then wander away between the slender fir trunks, and beyond them out into the fields.

The path leads presently into a beautiful park, the only defect of which is that it is without undulation. It is quite level; but still the clumps of noble timber are pleasant to gaze upon. In one spot there still stands the grey wall and buttress of some ancient building, doubtless the relic of an ecclesiastical foundation. The present mansion is not far distant; it is of large size, but lacks elegance. Inside, nothing that modern skill can supply to render a residence comfortable, convenient, and (as art is understood in furniture) artistic has been neglected.

Behind the fir plantations there is an extensive range of stabling, recently erected, with all the latest improvements. A telegraph wire connects the house with the stable, so that carriage or horse may be instantly summoned. Another wire has been carried to the nearest junction with the general telegraphic system; so that the resident in this retired spot may communicate his wishes without a moment's delay to any part of the world.

In the gardens and pleasure-grounds near the house all manner of ornamental shrubs are planted. There are conservatories, vineries, pineries; all the refinements of horticulture. The pheasants stray about the gravel walks and across the close-mown lawn where no daisy dares to lift its head. Yet, with all this precision of luxury, one thing is lacking—the one thing, the keystone of English country life—i.e. a master whose heart is in the land.

The estate is in process of 'nursing' for a minor. The revenues had become practically sequestrated to a considerable extent in consequence of careless living when the minor nominally succeeded. It happened that the steward appointed was not only a lawyer of keen intelligence, but a conscientious man. He did his duty thoroughly. Every penny was got out of the estate that could be got, and every penny was saved.

First, the rents were raised to the modern standard, many of them not having been increased for years. Then the tenants were in effect ordered to farm to the highest pitch, and to improve the soil itself by liberal investment. Buildings, drains, and so forth were provided for them; they only had to pay a small percentage upon the money expended in construction. In this there was nothing that could be complained of; but the hard, mechanical, unbending spirit in which it was done—the absence of all kind of sympathy—caused a certain amount of discontent. The steward next proceeded to turn the mansion, the park, home farm, and preserves into revenue.

Everything was prepared to attract the wealthy man who wanted the temporary use of a good country house, first-class shooting and hunting. He succeeded in doing what few gentlemen have accomplished: he made the pheasants pay. One reason, of course, was that gentlemen have expenses outside and beyond breeding and keeping: the shooting party itself is expensive; whereas here the shooting party paid hard cash for their amusement. The steward had no knowledge of pheasants; but he had a wide experience of one side of human nature, and he understood accounts.

The keepers were checked by figures at every turn, finding it impossible to elude the businesslike arrangements that were made. In revenue the result was highly successful. The mansion with the first-class shooting, hunting, and lovely woodlands—every modern convenience and comfort in the midst of the most rural scenery—let at a high price to good tenants. There was an income from what had previously been profitless. Under this shrewd management the estate was fast recovering.

At the same time the whole parish groaned in spirit. The farmers grumbled at the moral pressure which forced them to progress in spite of themselves. They grumbled at the strange people who took up their residence in their midst and suddenly claimed all the loyalty which was the due of the old family. These people hunted over their fields, jumped over the hedges, glanced at them superciliously, and seemed astonished if every hat was not raised when they came in sight. The farmers felt that they were regarded as ignorant barbarians, and resented the town-bred insolence of people who aped the country gentleman.

They grumbled about the over-preservation of game, and they grumbled about the rabbits. The hunt had its grumble too because some of the finest coverts were closed to the hounds, and because they wanted to know what became of the foxes that formerly lived in those coverts. Here was a beautiful place—a place that one might dream life away in—filled with all manner of discontent.

Everything was done with the best intention. But the keystone was wanting—the landlord, the master, who had grown up in the traditions of the spot, and between whom and the people there would have been, even despite of grievances, a certain amount of sympathy. So true is it that in England, under the existing system of land tenure, an estate cannot be worked like the machinery of a factory.

At first, when the pheasant-preserving began to reach such a height, there was a great deal of poaching by the resident labourers. The temptation was thrust so closely before their faces they could not resist it. When pheasants came wandering into the cottage gardens, and could even be enticed into the sheds and so secured by simply shutting the door, men who would not have gone out of their way to poach were led to commit themselves.

There followed a succession of prosecutions and fines, till the place began to get a reputation for that sort of thing. It was at last intimated to the steward by certain gentlemen that this course of prosecution was extremely injudicious. For it is a fact—a fact carefully ignored sometimes—that resident gentlemen object to prosecutions, and, so far from being anxious to fine or imprison poachers, would very much rather not. The steward took the hint, and instead increased his watchers. But by this time the novelty of pheasants roaming about like fowls had begun to wear off, and their services were hardly needed. Men went by pheasants with as much indifference as they would pass a tame duck by the roadside.

Such poachers as visited the woods came from a distance. Two determined raids were carried out by strangers, who escaped. Every now and then wires were found that had been abandoned, but the poaching ceased to be more than is usual on most properties. So far as the inhabitants of the parish were concerned it almost ceased altogether; but every now and then the strollers, gipsies, and similar characters carried off a pheasant or a hare, or half a dozen rabbits. These offenders when detected were usually charged before the Bench at a market town not many miles distant. Let us follow one there.

The little town of L——, which has not even a branch railway, mainly consists of a long street. In one part this street widens out, so that the houses are some forty yards or more apart, and it then again contracts. This irregularly shaped opening is the market-place, and here in the centre stands a rude-looking building. It is supported upon thick short pillars, and was perhaps preceded by a wooden structure. Under these pillars there is usually a shabby chaise or two run in for cover, and the spot is the general rendezvous of all the dogs in the town.

This morning there are a few loafers hanging round the place; and the tame town pigeons have fluttered down, and walk with nodding heads almost up to them. These pigeons always come to the edge of a group of people, mindful of the stray grain and peas that fall from the hands of farmers and dealers examining samples on market days. Presently, two constables come across carrying a heavy, clumsy box between them. They unlock a door, and take the box upstairs into the hall over the pillars. After them saunters a seedy man, evidently a clerk, with a rusty black bag; and after him again—for the magistrates' Clerk's clerk must have his clerk—a boy with some leather-bound books.

Some of the loafers touch their hats as a gentleman—a magistrate—rides up the street. But although the church clock is striking the hour fixed for the sessions to begin he does not come over to the hall upon dismounting in the inn-yard, but quietly strolls away to transact some business with the wine-merchant or the saddler. There really is not the least hurry. The Clerk stands in the inn porch calmly enjoying the September sunshine, and chatting with the landlord. Two or three more magistrates drive up; presently the chairman strolls over on foot from his house, which is almost in the town, to the inn, and joins in the pleasant gossip going on there, of course in a private apartment.

Up in the justice-room the seedy Clerk's clerk is leaning out of the window and conversing with a man below who has come along with a barrow-load of vegetables from his allotment. Some boys are spinning tops under the pillars. On the stone steps that lead up to the hall a young mother sits nursing her infant; she is waiting to 'swear' the child. In the room itself several gipsy-looking men and women lounge in a corner. At one end is a broad table and some comfortable chairs behind it. In front of each chair, on the table, two sheets of clean foolscap have been placed on a sheet of blotting-paper. These and a variety of printed forms were taken from the clumsy box that is now open.

At last there is a slight stir as a group is seen to emerge from the inn, and the magistrates take their seats. An elderly man who sits by the chair cocks his felt hat on the back of his head: the clerical magistrate very tenderly places his beaver in safety on the broad mantelpiece, that no irreverent sleeve may ruffle its gloss: several others who rarely do more than nod assent range themselves on the flanks; one younger man who looks as if he understood horses pulls out his toothpick. The chairman, stout and gouty, seizes a quill and sternly looks over the list of cases.

Half a dozen summonses for non-payment of rates come first; then a dispute between a farmer and his man. After this the young mother 'swears' her child; and, indeed, there is some very hard swearing here on both sides. A wrangle between two women—neighbours—who accuse each other of assault, and scream and chatter their loudest, comes next. Before they decide it, the Bench retire, and are absent a long time.

By degrees a buzz arises, till the justice-room is as noisy as a market. Suddenly the door of the private room opens, and the Clerk comes out; instantly the buzz subsides, and in the silence those who are nearest catch something about the odds and the St. Leger, and an anything but magisterial roar of laughter. The chairman appears, rigidly compressing his features, and begins to deliver his sentence before he can sit down, but the solemn effect is much marred by the passing of a steam ploughing engine. The audience, too, tend away towards the windows to see whose engine it is.

'Silence!' cries the Clerk, who has himself been looking out of window; the shuffling of feet ceases, and it is found that after this long consultation the Bench have dismissed both charges. The next case on the list is poaching; and at the call of his name one of the gipsy-looking men advances, and is ordered to stand before that part of the table which by consent represents the bar.

'Oby Bottleton,' says the Clerk, half reading, half extemporizing, and shuffling his papers to conceal certain slips of technicality; 'you are charged with trespassing in pursuit of game at Essant Hill—that you did use a wire on the estate—on land in the occupation of Johnson.'—'It's a lie!' cries a good-looking, dark-complexioned woman, who has come up behind the defendant (the whilome navvy), and carries a child so wrapped in a shawl as to be invisible. 'Silence! or you'll have to go outside the court. Mr. Dalton Dessant will leave the Bench during the hearing of this case.' Mr. Dalton Dessant, one of the silent magistrates already alluded to, bows to the chairman, and wriggles his chair back about two feet from the table. There he gazes at the ceiling. He is one of the trustees of the Essant Hill property; and the Bench are very careful to consult public opinion in L—— borough.

The first witness is an assistant keeper: the head keeper stands behind him—a fine man, still upright and hearty-looking, but evidently at the beginning of the vale of years; he holds his hat in his hand; the sunlight falls through the casement on his worn velveteen jacket. The assistant, with the aid of a few questions from the Clerk, gives his evidence very clear and fairly. 'I saw the defendant's van go down the lane,' he says:

'It bean't my van,' interrupts the defendant; 'it's my brother's.'

'You'll have an opportunity of speaking presently,' says the Clerk. 'Go on' (to the witness).

'After the van went down the lane, it stopped by the highway-road, and the horse was taken out. The women left the van with baskets, and went towards the village.'

'Yes, yes; come to the point. Did you hide yourself by order of the head keeper?'

'I did—in the nutwood hedge by Three Corner Piece; after a bit I saw the defendant.'

'Had you any reason for watching there?'

'There was a wire and a rabbit in it.'

'Well, what happened?'

'I waited a long time, and presently the defendant got over the gate. He was very particular not to step on the soft mud by the gate—he kind of leaped over it, not to leave the mark of his boots. He had a lurcher with him, and I was afraid the dog would scent me in the hedge.'

'You rascal!' (from the defendant's wife).

'But he didn't, and, after looking carefully round, the defendant picked up the rabbit, and put it and the wire in his pocket.'

'What did you do then?'

'I got out of the hedge and came towards him. Directly he saw me he ran across the field; I whistled as loud as I could, and he' (jerking a thumb back towards the head keeper) 'came out of the firs into the lane and stopped him. We found the wire and the rabbit in his pocket, and two more wires. I produce the wires.'

This was the sum of the evidence; the head keeper simply confirmed the latter part of it. Oby replied that it was all false from beginning to end. He had not got corduroy trousers on that day, as stated. He was not there at all: he was in the village, and he could call witnesses to prove it. The Clerk reminded the audience that there was such a thing as imprisonment for perjury.

Then the defendant turned savagely on the first witness, and admitted the truth of his statement by asking what he said when collared in the lane. 'You said you had had a good lot lately, and didn't care if you was nailed this time.'

'Oh, what awful lies!' cried the wife. 'It's a wonder you don't fall dead!'

'You were not there,' the Clerk remarked quietly. 'Now, Oby, what is your defence? Have you got any witnesses?'

'No; I ain't got no witnesses. All as I did, I know I walked up the hedge to look for mushrooms. I saw one of them things'—meaning the wires on the table—'and I just stooped down to see what it was, 'cos I didn't know. I never seed one afore; and I was just going to pick it up and look at it' (the magistrates glance at each other, and cannot suppress a smile at this profound innocence), 'when this fellow jumped out and frightened me. I never seed no rabbit.'

'Why, you put the rabbit in your pocket,' interrupts the first witness.

'Never mind,' said the Clerk to the witness; 'let him go on.'

'That's all as I got to say,' continues the defendant. 'I never seed no such things afore; and if he hadn't come I should have put it down again.'

'But you were trespassing,' said the Clerk.

'I didn't know it. There wasn't no notice-board.'

'Now, Oby,' cried the head keeper, 'you know you've been along that lane this ten years.'

'That will do' (from the chairman); 'is there any more evidence?'

As none was forthcoming, the Bench turned a little aside and spoke in low tones. The defendant's wife immediately set up a sobbing, varied occasionally by a shriek; the infant woke up and cried, and two or three women of the same party behind began to talk in excited tones about 'Shame.' The sentence was 2l. and costs—an announcement that caused a perfect storm of howling and crying.

The defendant put his hands in his pockets with the complacent expression of a martyr. 'I must go to gaol a' spose; none of ourn ever went thur afore: a' spose I must go.' 'Come,' said the Clerk, 'why, you or your brother bought a piece of land and a cottage not long ago,'—then to the Bench, 'They're not real gipsies: he is a grandson of old Bottleton who had the tollgate; you recollect, Sir.'

But the defendant declares he has no money; his friends shake their heads gloomily; and amid the shrieking of his wife and the crying of the child he is removed in the custody of two constables, to be presently conveyed to gaol. With ferocious glances at the Bench, as if they would like to tear the chairman's eyes out, the women leave the court.

'Next case,' calls the Clerk. The court sits about two hours longer, having taken some five hours to get through six cases. Just as the chairman rises the poacher's wife returns to the table, without her child, angrily pulls out a dirty canvas bag, and throws down three or four sovereigns before the seedy Clerk's clerk. The canvas bag is evidently half-full of money—the gleam of silver and gold is visible within it. The Bench stay to note this proceeding with an amused expression on their features. The woman looks at them as bold as brass, and stalks off with her man.

Half an hour afterwards, two of the magistrates riding away from the town pass a small tavern on the outskirts. A travelling van is outside, and from the chimney on its roof thin smoke arises. There is a little group at the doorway, and among them stands the late prisoner. Oby holds a foaming tankard in one hand, and touches his battered hat, as the magistrates go by, with a gesture of sly humility.



CHAPTER IX



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.