Volume I Part 20 (2/2)
A boy was despatched to summon the neighbouring farmers. In a very short s.p.a.ce of time about fifty were on the spot, armed with guns of every conceivable make and age. Stealthily creeping up the hill, we were sent in different directions, so as to surround the sheep-walk where she lay.
In half an hour's time a gradually lessening circle was formed, all proceeding as silently as possible, and taking advantage of every tuft of fern or stunted thorn, so as to get as near as possible before arousing the sleeping dog.
There was a distance of about eighty yards between each man, when the brute rose up, and stretched herself, showing her white and glistening fangs.
Uttering a low growl as she became aware of her position, she set off in a long swinging gallop towards the heather. Just in that direction there appeared to be a man missing from the cordon, and a wide gap was left through which it seemed probable she would escape, and a storm of shouts arose. Just, however, as escape seemed certain, a sheet of flame poured out from behind a clump of thorn bushes and fern, and a loud report went reverberating over the glens. The dog's neck turned red, and she rolled over and over, uttering yelp after yelp in her agony.
There was a miscellaneous charge from all sides. Crash came the b.u.t.t-end of the gun which had shot her on her body, with such force that the stock was splintered. Bang! bang! everybody tried to get a hit at her, even after she was dead.
When life was quite extinct we all gathered together, and a whoop of triumph awoke the echoes, startling the lapwings on the moorland.
As we marched down to the village we fired a volley in token of our success, and cheer after cheer told of the gladness with which it was welcomed by the villagers. The man who fired the lucky shot was carried through the streets of the village on the shoulders of two stout quarrymen, and the whole population gave themselves a holiday and made merry. A large subscription was started, and contributed to handsomely, in order to pay for the hounds and other expenses.
Upon examination the b.i.t.c.h was found to be branded on the left side with the letter ”P;” so if any of my readers have lost such a dog, they will know what has become of it.
I do not suppose that a more exciting chase was ever witnessed since the old wolf-hunting days.
It may seem strange to many, as it did to me, that foxhounds should chase one of their own breed, but the fact remains that they did so.
ON SOME ODD WAYS OF FIs.h.i.+NG
BY THE AUTHOR OF ”MOUNTAIN, MEADOW, AND MERE”
The maxim that one half the world does not know how the other half lives may, with slight variation, be applied to the world of sportsmen.
The ”sportsman” is not of any particular cla.s.s. The highest in the land and the lowest may rub against each other in the broad field of sport.
This is peculiarly true as regards the gentle art. Wandering by the side of an unpreserved stream you may see my lord casting a fly over this shallow; and, twenty yards further down, Tinker Ben seated by the side of a chub hole watching his float circling round in the eddy, and as the n.o.ble pa.s.ses the boor an honest angler's greeting may be interchanged, and a light for the latter's pipe asked for and given. It may be taken as a general rule that between anglers who pursue their sport by fair means there is a levelling freemasonry of the craft which is as pleasant as it is right.
Between the fair fisherman and the poacher, there is, however, a broad line of demarcation--a line which bars the interchange of even the commonest civilities on the mutual ground of pursuing the same object.
The fair fisherman hates the man who captures the finny tribe by unfair or illegal means as strongly as a foxhunter hates a foxkiller, or a strict sabbatarian hates a sinner who enjoys a Sunday afternoon's walk and the glimpses of nature it may afford him. There is also a line drawn between the man who fishes for amus.e.m.e.nt alone and he who fishes for profit. The division in the latter instance may not be so broad as it is in the former, but, nevertheless, it is wide enough to distinctly separate the two cla.s.ses. Now I think the fair and amateur angler is in a great many instances unaware of the s.h.i.+fts and dodges adopted by the poacher and the pothunter to fill their pockets, and of the consequent hindrance to his own sport. Therefore by way of warning, of information, and possible amus.e.m.e.nt, I have noted down a few of the more singular instances which have come under my own observation.
Let anyone take a boat and row down the sluggish Yare from the dirty old city of Norwich as the shades of evening are darkening the river, and he will see several uncouth, rough-looking boats being slowly impelled down stream by rougher looking men. He will notice that they have short, stout rods and poles in the boats, and if he watches them, he will presently see them take up their stations by the margin.
Driving poles in the mud at the stems and sterns of their boats, the men make them fast; and, taking their seats, proceed to ”bob” for eels.
A quant.i.ty of earthworms are strung on worsted, and, after being weighted, are suspended by a stout line from a short thick rod. The solitary fisherman holds one of these rods in each hand on each side of the boat, just feeling the bottom with the bait, and now and then pulling it up and shaking the eels, whose teeth get entangled in the worsted, into the boat. There he sits silent and uncommunicative, the greater part of the night and in all weathers, for the sake, perhaps, of, on the average, a s.h.i.+lling's worth of eels each night. Altogether his berth must be a lonely one. His companions take their positions too far off to hold conversation with him, and the splash of a water-rat or the flaps of the canvas of a belated wherry and the cheery good-night of its steersman are the only sounds to beguile the tedium of his midnight watching.
Another mode of capturing eels is by ”eel picking” in the lower waters of the Yare near Cantley. The man, armed with his eel spear, takes his stand in the bows of his craft, and, stealing along by the edge of the reeds, plunges his spear at random in the mud. He uses his spear also as the means of propelling his tiny boat. I have seen four or five boats following each other along the side of the river in a queer-looking procession.
Those centres of interest to the angler--the Norfolk broads--are, alas!
the strongholds of poaching. Norfolk anglers plead their great expanse of water as an excuse for ”liggering” or trimmering to an enormous extent. Taking Norfolk anglers as a cla.s.s, if they _can_ ”ligger” they will. The amount of destruction is something wonderful. The only time I ever yielded to the temptation of going with a friend ”liggering,” I am thankful to say, we caught nothing, and I am not in a hurry to repeat the experiment. Yarrell gives an account of four days' sport (?) at Heigham Sounds and Horsea, where in 1834, in the month of _March_, his informants caught in that s.p.a.ce of time 256 pike weighing altogether 1135 lbs. What wonder that it is now difficult to get really good sport at these places with rod and line!
My favourite fish, the tench, has a bad habit of basking on the surface of some of these broads on hot summer's days in weedy bays, where he deems himself perfectly secure. But the amphibious Broadsman paddles quietly up to him, and actually scoops him out with his hand. You may touch his body with your hand and he shall not move, but if you touch his tail he darts away.
I have seen a somewhat similar thing in shallow pools in Shrops.h.i.+re.
When the big carp come to the side to sp.a.w.n, their bodies are half out of the water, and they may be approached and shovelled out with a spade. In the reeds adjoining a carp pool I once found a murderous instrument which was used by a gang of sawyers at work in the adjacent wood, for destroying the basking carp. It consisted of a large flat piece of wood, in which were set long nails like the teeth of a garden rake. This was attached to a long pole, and woe betide the unfortunate carp on whose back it descended.
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