Part 7 (2/2)
Sometimes a gang of men, discovering that there is a quant.i.ty of fish thereabouts, will force down a hatch which at once shuts off or greatly diminishes the volume of water flowing down the brook, and then rapidly construct a dam across the current below it with the mud of the sh.o.r.e.
Above this dam they thrash the water with poles and drive all the fish towards it, and then make a second dam above the first so as to enclose them in a short s.p.a.ce. In the making of these dams speed is an object, or the water will acc.u.mulate and flow over the hatch; so hurdles are used, as they afford a support to the mud hastily thrown up. Then with buckets, bowls, and ”scoops,” they bale out the water between the two dams, and quickly reduce their prey to wriggling helplessness. In this way whole baskets full of fish have been taken, together with eels; and nothing so enclosed can escape.
The mere or lake by the wood is protected by sharp stakes set at the bottom, which would tear poachers' nets; and the keeper does not think any attempt to sweep it has been made of late years, it is too well watched. But he believes that night lines are frequently laid: a footpath runs along one sh.o.r.e for some distance, and gives easy access, and such lines may be overlooked. He is certain that eels are taken in that way despite his vigilance.
Trespa.s.sing for crayfish, too, causes much annoyance. I have known men to get bodily up to the waist into the great ponds, a few of which yet remain, after carp. These fish have a curious habit of huddling up in hollows under the banks; and those who know where these hollows and holes are situate can take them by hand if they can come suddenly upon them. It is said that now and then fish are raked out of the ponds with a common rake (such as is used in haymaking) when, lying on the mud in winter.
CHAPTER NINE.
GUERILLA WARFARE--GUN ACCIDENTS--BLACK SHEEP.
Scarcely a keeper can be found who has not got one or more tales to tell of encounters with poachers, sometimes of a desperate character. There is a general similarity in most of the accounts, which exhibit a mixture of ferocity and cowardice on the side of the intruders. The following case, which occurred some years since, brings these contradictory features into relief. The narrator was not the owner of the man-trap described previously.
There had been a great deal of poaching before the affray took place, and finally it grew to horse-stealing: one night two valuable horses were taken from the home park. This naturally roused the indignation of the owner of the estate, who resolved to put a stop to it. Orders were given that if shots were heard in the woods the news should be at once transmitted to headquarters, no matter at what hour of the night.
One brilliant moonlight night, frosty and clear, the gang came again. A messenger went to the house, and, as previously arranged, two separate parties set out to intercept the rascals. The head keeper had one detachment, whose object it was to secure the main outlet from the wood towards the adjacent town--to cut off retreat. The young squire had charge of the other, which, with the under keeper as guide, was to work its way through the wood and drive the gang into the ambuscade. In the last party were six men and a mastiff dog; four of the men had guns, the gentleman only a stout cudgel.
They came upon the gang--or rather a part of it, for the poachers were somewhat scattered--in a ”drive” which ran between tall firs, and was deep in shadow. With a shout the four or five men in the ”drive,” or green lane, slipped back behind the trees, and two fired, killing the mastiff, dog on the spot and ”stinging” one man in the legs. Quick as they were, the under keeper, to use his own words, ”got a squint of one fellow as I knowed; and I lets drive both barrels in among the firs.
But, bless you! it were all over in such a minute that I can't hardly tell 'ee how it were. Our squire ran straight at 'em; but our men hung back, though they had their guns and he had nothing but a stick. I just seen him, as the smoke rose, hitting at a fellow; and then, before I could step, I hears a crack, and the squire he was down on the sward.
One of them beggars had come up behind, and swung his gun round, and fetched him a purler on the back of his head. I picked him up, but he was as good as dead, to look at;” and in the confusion the poachers escaped. They had probably been put up to the ambuscade by one of the underlings, as they did not pa.s.s that way, but seemed to separate and get off by various paths. The ”young squire” had to be carried home, and was ill for months, but ultimately recovered.
Not one of the gang was ever captured, notwithstanding that a member of it was recognised. Next day an examination of the spot resulted in the discovery of a trail of blood upon the gra.s.s and dead leaves, which proved that one of them had been wounded at the first discharge. It was traced for a short distance and then lost. Not till the excitement had subsided did the under keeper find that he had been hit; one pellet had scored his cheek under the eye, and left a groove still visible.
Some time afterwards a gun was picked up in the ferns, all rusty from exposure, which had doubtless been dropped in the flight. The barrel was very short--not more than eighteen inches in length--having been filed off for convenience of taking to pieces, so as to be carried in a pocket made on purpose in the lining of the coat. Now, with a barrel so short as that, sport, in the proper sense of the term, would be impossible; the shot would scatter so quickly after leaving the muzzle that the sportsman would never be able to approach near enough. The use of this gun was clearly to shoot pheasants at roost.
The particular keeper in whose shed the man-trap still lies among the lumber thinks that the cla.s.s of poachers who come in gangs are as desperate now as ever, and as ready with their weapons. Breech-loading guns have rendered such affrays extremely dangerous on account of the rapidity of fire. Increased severity of punishment may deter a man from entering a wood; but once he is there and compromised, the dread of a heavy sentence is likely to make him fight savagely.
The keeper himself is not altogether averse to a little fisticuffing, in a straightforward kind of way, putting powder and shot on one side. He rather relishes what he calls ”leathering” a poacher with a good tough ground-ash stick. He gets the opportunity now and then, coming unexpectedly on a couple of fellows rabbiting in a ditch, and he recounts the ”leathering” he has frequently administered with great gusto. He will even honestly admit that on one occasion--just one, not more--he got himself most thoroughly thrashed by a pair of hulking fellows.
”Some keepers,” he says, ”are always summoning people, but it don't do no good. What's the use of summoning a chap for sneaking about with a cur dog and a wire in his pocket? His mates in the village clubs together and pays his fine, and he laughs at you. Why, down in the town there them mechanic chaps have got a regular society to pay these here fines for trespa.s.s, and the bench they claps it on strong on purpose.
But it ain't no good; they forks out the tin, and then goes and haves a spree at a public. Besides which, if I can help it I don't much care to send a man to gaol--this, of course, is between you and me--unless he uses his gun. If he uses his gun there ain't nothing too bad for him.
But these here prisons--every man as ever I knowed go to gaol always went twice, and kept on going. There ain't nothing in the world like a good ground-ash stick. When you gives a chap a sound dressing with that there article, he never shows his face in your wood no more. There's fields about here where them mechanics goes as regular as Sat.u.r.day comes to try their dogs, as they calls it--and a precious lot of dogs they keeps among 'em. But they never does it on this estate: they knows my habits, you see. There's less summonses goes up from this property than any other for miles, and it's all owing to this here stick. A bit of ash is the best physic for poaching as I knows on.”
I suspect that he is a little mistaken in his belief that it is the dread of his personal prowess which keeps trespa.s.sers away--it is rather due to his known vigilance and watchfulness. His rather hasty notions of taking the law into his own hands are hardly in accord with the spirit of the times; but some allowance must be made for the circ.u.mstances of his life, and it is my object to picture the man as he is.
There are other dangers from guns beside these. A brown gaiter indistinctly seen moving some distance off in the tall dry gra.s.s or fern--the wearer hidden by the bushes--has not unfrequently been mistaken for game in the haste and excitement of shooting, and received a salute of leaden hail. This is a danger to which sportsman and keeper are both liable, especially when large parties are engaged in rapid firing; sometimes a particular corner gets very ”hot,” being enfiladed for the moment by several guns. Yet, when the great number of men who shoot is considered, the percentage of serious accidents is small indeed; more fatal accidents probably happen through unskilled persons thoughtlessly playing with guns supposed not to be loaded, or pointing them in joke, than ever occur in the field. The ease with which the breechloader can be unloaded or reloaded again prevents most persons from carrying it indoors charged; and this in itself is a gain on the side of safety, for perhaps half the fatal accidents take place within doors.
In farmsteads where the owner had the right of shooting the muzzle-loader was--and still is, when not converted--kept loaded on the rack. The starlings, perhaps, are making havoc of the thatch, tearing out straw by straw, and working the holes in which they form their nests right through, till in the upper story daylight is visible. When the whistling and calling of the birds tell him they are busy above, the owner slips quickly out with his gun, and brings down three or four at once as they perch in a row on the roof-tree. Or a labourer leaves a message that there is a hare up in the meadow or some wild ducks have settled in the brook. But men who have a gun always in their hands rarely meet with a mishap. The starlings, by-the-by, soon learn the trick, and are cunning enough to notice which door their enemy generally comes out at, where he can get the best shot; and the moment the handle of that particular door is turned, off they go.
The village blacksmith will tell you of more than one narrow escape he has had with guns, and especially muzzle-loaders, brought to him to repair. Perhaps a charge could not be ignited through the foulness of the nipple, and the breech had to be unscrewed in the vice; now and then the breech-piece was so tightly jammed that it could not be turned.
Once, being positively a.s.sured that there was nothing but some dirt in the barrel and no powder, he was induced to place it in the forge fire; when--bang! a charge of shot smashed the window, and the burning coals flew about in a fiery shower. In one instance a blacksmith essayed to clear out a barrel which had become choked with a long iron rod made red-hot: the explosion which followed drove the rod through his hand and into the wooden wall of the shed. Smiths seem to have a particular fondness for meddling with guns, and generally have one stowed away somewhere.
It was not wonderful that accidents happened with the muzzle-loaders, considering the manner in which they were handled by ignorant persons.
The keeper declares that many of the cottagers, who have an old single-barrel, ostensibly to frighten the birds from their gardens, do not think it properly loaded until the ramrod jumps out of the barrel.
They ram the charge, and especially the powder, with such force that the rebound sends the rod right out, and he has seen those who were not cottagers follow the same practice. A close-fitting wad, too tight for the barrel, will sometimes cause the rod to spring high above the muzzle: as it is pushed quickly down it compresses the air in the tube, which expands with a sharp report and drives the rod out.
Loading with paper, again, has often resulted in mischief: sometimes a smouldering fragment remains in the barrel after the discharge, and on pouring in powder from the flask it catches and runs like a train up to the flask, which may burst in the hand. For this reason to this day some of the old farmers, clinging to ancient custom, always load with a clay tobacco pipe-bowl, snapped off from the stem for the purpose. It is supposed to hold just the proper charge, and as it is detached from the horn or flask there is no danger of fire being communicated to the magazine; so that an explosion, if it happened, would do no serious injury, being confined to the loose powder of the charge itself. Paper used as wads will sometimes continue burning for a short time after being blown out of the gun, and may set fire to straw, or even dry gra.s.s.
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