Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME [Illustration: THE KEEPER.] THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME SKETCHES OF NATURAL HISTORY AND RURAL LIFE When shaws beene sheene, and shradds full fayre, And leaves both large and longe, It is merrye walking in the fayre forrest, To hear the small birdes songe. _Ballad of Guy of Gisborne._ WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES WHYMPER London SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1880 [_All rights reserved._] PREFACE. Those who delight in roaming about amongst the fields and lanes, or have spent any time in a country house, can hardly have failed to notice the custodian of the woods and covers, or to observe that he is often something of a âcharacter.â The Gamekeeper forms, indeed, so prominent a figure in rural life as almost to demand some biographical record of his work and ways. From the man to the territories over which he bears sway--the meadows, woods, and streams--and to his subjects, their furred and feathered inhabitants, is a natural transition. The enemies against whom he wages incessant warfare--vermin, poachers, and trespassers--must, of course, be included in such a survey. Although, for ease and convenience of illustration, the character of a particular Keeper has been used as a nucleus about which to arrange materials that would otherwise have lacked a connecting link, the facts here collected are really entirely derived from original observation. R.J. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. THE MAN HIMSELF: HIS HOUSE, AND TOOLS 1 II. HIS FAMILY AND CASTE 22 III. IN THE FIELDS 47 IV. HIS DOMINIONS: THE WOODS, MEADOWS, AND WATER 71 V. SOME OF HIS SUBJECTS: DOGS, RABBITS, âMICE, AND SUCH SMALL DEERâ 92 VI. HIS ENEMIES: BIRDS AND BEASTS OF PREY--TRESPASSERS 118 VII. PROFESSIONAL POACHERS: THE ART OF WIRING GAME 144 VIII. THE FIELD DETECTIVE: FISH POACHING 169 IX. GUERILLA WARFARE; GUN ACCIDENTS; BLACK SHEEP 196 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE THE KEEPERâS COTTAGE 1 THE ROW OF KENNELS 3 THE KEEPERâS KITCHEN 6 THE KEEPER 11 A BROOD OF YOUNG PHEASANTS 20 THE OLD MOLE-CATCHER 27 ANTLERS ON THE STAIRCASE 29 SMALL BOYS AND GREAT HORSES 31 THE KEEPERâS SON SHOOTING LEFT-HANDED 34 OWLS IN EVERY BARN 37 THE SUPERANNUATED KEEPER 41 PHEASANTS 47 TENDING THE YOUNG BIRDS 52 CATTLE IN THE COPSE 55 DIAGRAM TO SHOW DAMAGE DONE BY IRON-WIRE FENCING 56 THE PARK 63 WOOD PIGEON 73 A BADGER AT HIS FRONT DOOR 79 WILD DUCK AND MOORHEN 90 DOG AT STREAM 95 POINTER AND FISH 99 TRAPS 110 SHOOTING WOOD-PIGEONS BY MOONLIGHT 115 A WEASEL HUNTING 121 A HAWK PURSUED BY FINCHES AND SWALLOWS 125 THE POACHER 133 AN ENGLISH PRAIRIE-FIRE 141 PARTRIDGES AT EVENING 148 RUBENSâ SPORTSMAN 150 SETTING A HARE SNARE 153 POACHING IN THE WINTER 159 PLOVERâS NEST 164 A RABBIT-HOLE NETTED 173 A WICKED LURCHER AND HIS MASTER 175 THE GENTLEMAN IN VELVETEEN 178 TICKLING TROUT 191 SETTING A NIGHT LINE 194 GOING FOR THE POACHERS 197 MAN-TRAP 200 A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING KEEPER 217 TAILPIECE 219 [Illustration: THE KEEPERâS COTTAGE.] CHAPTER I. The Man himself--his house, and Tools. The keeperâs cottage stands in a sheltered âcoombe,â or narrow hollow of the woodlands, overshadowed by a mighty Spanish chestnut, bare now of leaves, but in summer a noble tree. The ash wood covers the slope at the rear; on one side is a garden, and on the other a long strip of meadow with elms. In front, and somewhat lower, a streamlet winds, fringing the sward, and across it the fir plantations begin, their dark sombre foliage hanging over the water. A dead willow trunk thrown from bank to bank forms a rude bridge; the tree, not even squared, gives little surface for the foot, and in frosty weather a slip is easy. From this primitive contrivance a path, out of which others fork, leads into the intricacies of the covers, and from the garden a wicket-gate opens on the ash wood. The elms in the meadow are full of rooksâ nests, and in the spring the coombe will resound with their cawing; these black bandits, who do not touch it at other times, will then ravage the garden to feed their hungry young, despite ingenious scarecrows. A row of kennels, tenanted by a dozen dogs, extends behind the cottage: lean retrievers yet unbroken, yelping spaniels, pointers, and perhaps a few greyhounds or fancy breeds, if âyoung masterâ has a taste that way. Beside the kennels is a shed ornamented with rows upon rows of dead and dried vermin, furred and feathered, impaled for their misdeeds; and over the door a couple of horseshoes nailed for luck--a superstition yet lingering in the by-ways of the woods and hills. Within are the ferret hutches, warm and dry; for the ferret is a shivery creature, and likes nothing so well as to nozzle down in a coat-pocket with a little hay. Here are spades and bill-hooks, twine and rabbit nets, traps, and other odds and ends scattered about with the wires and poacherâs implements impounded from time to time. In a dark corner there lies a singular-looking piece of mechanism, a relic of the olden times, which, when dragged into the light, turns out to be a man-trap. These terrible engines have long since been disused--being illegal, like spring-guns--and the rust has gathered thickly on the metal. But, old though it be, it still acts perfectly, and can be âsetâ as well now as when in bygone days poachers and thieves used to prod the ground and the long grass, before they stepped among it, with a stick, for fear of mutilation. [Illustration: THE ROW OF KENNELS.] The trap is almost precisely similar to the common rat-trap or gin still employed to destroy vermin, but greatly exaggerated in size, so that if stood on end it reaches to the waist, or above. The jaws of this iron wolf are horrible to contemplate--rows of serrated projections, which fit into each other when closed, alternating with spikes a couple of inches long, like tusks. To set the trap you have to stand on the spring--the weight of a man is about sufficient to press it down; and, to avoid danger to the person preparing this little surprise, a band of iron can be pushed forward to hold the spring while the catch is put into position, and the machine itself is hidden among the bushes or covered with dead leaves. Now touch the pan with a stout walking-stick--the jaws cut it in two in the twinkling of an eye. They seem to snap together with a vicious energy, powerful enough to break the bone of the leg; and assuredly no man ever got free whose foot was once caught by these terrible teeth. The keeper will tell you that it used to be set up in the corner of the gardens and orchard belonging to the great house, and which, in the pre-policemen days, were almost nightly robbed. He thinks there were quite as many such traps set in the gardens just outside the towns as ever there were in the woods and preserves of the country proper. He recollects but one old man (a mole-catcher) who actually had experienced in his youth the sensation of being caught; he went lame on one foot, the sinews having been cut or divided. The trap could be chained to its place if desired; but, as a matter of fact, a chain was unnecessary, for no man could possibly drag this torturing clog along. Another outhouse attached to the cottage contains a copper for preparing the food for both quadrupeds and birds. Some poultry run about the mead, and perhaps with them are feeding the fancy foreign ducks which in summer swim in the lake before the hall. The cottage is thatched and oddly gabled--built before âimprovementsâ came into fashion--yet cosy; with walls three feet thick, which keep out the cold of winter and the heat of summer. This is not solid masonry; there are two shells, as it were, filled up between with rubble and mortar rammed down hard. Inside the door the floor of brick is a step below the level of the ground. Sometimes a peculiar but not altogether unpleasant odour fills the low-pitched sitting-room--it is emitted by the roots burning upon the fire, hissing as the sap exudes and boils in the fierce heat. When the annual fall of timber takes place the butts of the trees are often left in the earth, to be afterwards grubbed and split for firewood, which goes to the great house or is sold. There still remain the roots, which are cut into useful lengths and divided among the upper employÃ©s. From elm and oak and ash, and the crude turpentine of the fir, this aromatic odour, the scent of the earth in which they grew, is exhaled as they burn. [Illustration: THE KEEPERâS KITCHEN.] The ceiling is low and crossed by one huge square beam of oak, darkened by smoke and age. The keeperâs double-barrelled gun is suspended from this beam: there are several other guns in the house, but this, the favourite, alone hangs where it did before he had children--so strong is habit; the rest are yet more out of danger. It has been a noble weapon, though now showing signs of age--the interior of the breech worn larger than the rest of the barrel from constant use; so much so that, before it was converted to a breech-loader, the wad, when the ramrod pushed it down, would slip the last six inches, so loosely fitting as to barely answer its purpose of retaining the shot; so that when cleaned out, before the smoke fouled it again, he had to load with paper. This in a measure anticipated the âchoke-bore,â and his gun was always famous for its killing power. The varnish is worn from the stock by incessant friction against his coat, showing the real grain of the walnut-wood, and the trigger-guard with the polish of the sleeve shines like silver. It has been his companion for so many years that it is not strange he should feel an affection for it; no other ever fitted the shoulder so well, or came with such delicate precision to the âpresentâ position. So accustomed is he to its balance and âhangâ in the hand that he never thinks of aiming; he simply looks at the object, still or moving, throws the gun up from the hollow of his arm, and instantly pulls the trigger, staying not a second to glance along the barrel. It has become almost a portion of his body, answering like a limb to the volition of will without the intervention of reflection. The hammers are chased and elegantly shaped--perfectly matching: when once the screw came loose, and the jar of a shot jerked one off among the dead leaves apparently beyond hope of recovery, he never rested night or day till by continuous search and sifting the artistic piece of metal was found. Nothing destroys the symmetry of a gun so much as hammers which are not pairs; and well he knew that he should never get a smith to replace that delicate piece of workmanship, for this gun came originally from the hands of a famous maker, who got fifty, or perhaps even seventy guineas for it years ago. It did not shoot to please the purchaser--guns of the very best character sometimes take use to get into thorough order--and was thrown aside, and so the gun became the keeperâs. These fine old guns often have a romance clinging to them, and sometimes the history is a sad one. Upstairs he still keeps the old copper powder-flask curiously chased and engraved, yet strong enough to bear the weight of the bearer if by chance he sat down upon it while in his pocket, together with the shot-belt and punch for cutting out the wads from card-board or an old felt hat. These the modern system of loading at the breech has cast aside. Here, also, is the apparatus for filling empty cartridge-cases--a work which in the season occupies him many hours. Being an artist in his way, he takes a pride in the shine and polish of his masterâs guns, which are not always here, but come down at intervals to be cleaned and attended to. And woe be to the first kid gloves that touch them afterwards; for a gun, like a sardine, should be kept in fine oil, not thickly encrusting it, but, as it were, rubbed into and oozing from the pores of the metal and wood. Paraffin is an abomination in his eyes (for preserving from rust), and no modern patent oil, he thinks, can compare with a drop of gin for the locks--the spirit never congeals in cold weather, and the hammer comes up with a clear, sharp snick. He has two or three small screwdrivers and gunsmithâs implements to take the locks to pieces; for gentlemen are sometimes careless and throw their guns down on the wet grass, and if a single drop of water should by chance penetrate under the plate it will play mischief with the works if the first speck of rust be not forthwith removed. His dog-whistle hangs at his buttonhole. His pocket-knife is a basket of tools in itself, most probably a present from some youthful sportsman who was placed under his care to learn how to handle a gun. The corkscrew it contains has seen much service at luncheon-time, when under a sturdy oak, or in a sheltered nook of the lane, where the hawthorn hedge and the fern broke the force of the wind, a merry shooting-party sat down to a well-packed hamper and wanted some one to draw the corks. Not but what the back of the larger blade has not artistically tapped off the neck of many a bottle, hitting it gently upwards against the rim. Nor must his keys be forgotten. The paths through the preserves, where they debouch on a public lane or road, are closed with high-sparred wicket gates, well pitched to stand the weather, and carefully locked, and of course he has a key. His watch, made on purpose for those who walk by night, tells him the time in the densest darkness of the woods. On pressing a spring and holding it near the ear, it strikes the hour last passed, then the quarters which have since elapsed; so that even when he cannot see an inch before his face he knows the time within fifteen minutes at the outside, which is near enough for practical purposes. In personal appearance he would be a tall man were it not that he has contracted a slight stoop in the passage of the years, not from weakness or decay of nature, but because men who walk much lean forward somewhat, which has a tendency to round the shoulders. The weight of the gun, and often of a heavy game-bag dragging downwards, has increased this defect of his figure, and, as is usual after a certain age, even with those who lead a temperate life, he begins to show signs of corpulency. But these shortcomings only slightly detract from the manliness of his appearance, and in youth it is easy to see that he must have been an athlete. There is still plenty of power in the long sinewy arms, brown hands, and bull-neck, and intense vital energy in the bright blue eye. He is an ash-tree man, as a certain famous writer would say; hard, tough, unconquerable by wind or weather, fearless of his fellows, yielding but by slow and imperceptible degrees to the work of time. His neck has become the colour of mahogany; sun and tempest have left their indelible marks upon his face; and he speaks from the depths of his broad chest, as men do who talk much in the open air, shouting across the fields [Illustration: THE KEEPER.] and through the copses. There is a solidity in his very footstep, and he stands like an oak. He meets your eye full and unshirkingly, yet without insolence; not as the labourers do, who either stare with sullen ill-will or look on the earth. In brief, freedom and constant contact with nature have made him every inch a man; and here in this nineteenth century of civilised effeminacy may be seen some relic of what men were in the old feudal days when they dwelt practically in the woods. The shoulder of his coat is worn a little where the gun rubs, and so is his sleeve; otherwise he is fairly well dressed. Perfectly civil to every one, and with a willing manner towards his master and his masterâs guests, he has a wonderful knack of getting his own way. Whatever the great house may propose in the shooting line, the keeper is pretty certain to dispose of in the end as he pleases; for he has a voluble âsilverâ tongue, and is full of objections, reasons, excuses, suggestions, all delivered with a deprecatory air of superior knowledge which he hardly likes to intrude upon his betters, much as he would regret to see them go wrong. So he really takes the lead, and in nine cases in ten the result proves he is right, as minute local knowledge naturally must be when intelligently applied. Not only in such matters as the best course for the shooting-party to follow, or in advice bearing upon the preserves, but in concerns of a wider scope, his influence is felt. A keen, shrewd judge of horseflesh--(how is it that if a man understands one animal he seems to instinctively see through all?)--his master in a careless way often asks his opinion before concluding a bargain. Of course the question is not put direct, but âBy-the-bye, when the hounds were here you saw so-and-soâs mare; what do you think of her?â The keeper blurts out his answer, not always flattering or very delicately expressed; and his view is not forgotten. For when a trusted servant like this accompanies his master often in solitary rambles for hours together, dignity must unbend now and then, however great the social difference between them; and thus a man of strong individuality and a really valuable gift of observation insensibly guides his master. Passing across the turnips, the landlord, who perhaps never sees his farms save when thus crossing them with a gun, remarks that they look clean and free from weeds; whereupon the keeper, walking respectfully a little in the rear, replies that so-and-so, the tenant, is a capital farmer, a preserver of foxes and game, but has suffered from the floods--a reply that leads to inquiries, and perhaps a welcome reduction of rent. On the other hand, the ownerâs attention is thus often called to abuses. In this way an evilly-disposed keeper may, it is true, do great wrongs, having access to the owner and, in familiar phrase, âhis ear.â I am at present delineating the upright keeper, such as are in existence still, notwithstanding the abuse lavished upon them as a class--often, it is to be feared, too well deserved. It is not difficult to see how in this way a man whose position is lowly may in an indirect way exercise a powerful influence upon a large estate. He is very âgreatâ on dogs (and, indeed, on all other animals); his opinion is listened to and taken by everybody round about who has a dog, and sometimes he has three or four under treatment for divers ills. By this knowledge many âtipsâ are gained, and occasionally he makes a good thing by selling a pup at a high price. He may even be seen, with his velveteen jacket carefully brushed, his ground-ash stick under his arm, and hat in hand, treading daintily for fear of soiling the carpet with his shoes, in the ante-room, gravely prescribing for the ailing pug in which the ladies are interested. At the farmhouses he is invited to sit down and take a glass, being welcome for his gossip of the great house, and because, having in the course of years been thrown into the society of all classes, he has gradually acquired a certain tact and power of accommodating himself to his listener. For the keeper, when he fulfils his duty in a quiet way, as a man of experience does, is by no means an unpopular character. It is the too officious man who creates a feeling among the tenants against himself and the whole question of game. But the quiet experienced hand, with a shrewd knowledge of men as well as the technicalities of his profession, grows to be liked by the tenantry, and becomes a local authority on animal life. Proud, and not without reason, of his vigour and strength, he will tell you that though between fifty and sixty he can still step briskly through a heavy field-day, despite the weight of reserve ammunition he carries. He can keep on his feet without fatigue from morn till eve, and goes his rounds without abating one inch of the distance. In one thing alone he feels his years--_i.e._ in pace; and when âyoung master,â who is a disciple of the modern athletic school, comes out, it is about as much as ever he can do to keep up with him over the stubble. Never once for the last thirty years has he tossed on a bed of sickness; never once has he failed to rise from his slumber refreshed and ready for his labour. His secret is--but let him tell it in his own words: âItâs indoors, sir, as kills half the people; being indoors three parts of the day, and next to that taking too much drink and vittals. Eatingâs as bad as drinking; and there ainât nothing like fresh air and the smell of the woods. You should come out here in the spring, when the oak timber is throwed (because, you see, the sap be rising, and the bark strips then), and just sit down on a stick fresh peeled--I means a trunk, you know--and sniff up the scent of that there oak bark. It goes right down your throat, and preserves your lungs as the tan do leather. And Iâve heard say as folk who work in the tan-yards never have no illness. Thereâs always a smell from trees, dead or living--I could tell what wood a log was in the dark by my nose; and the air is better where the woods be. The ladies up in the great house sometimes goes out into the fir plantations--the turpentine scents strong, you see--and they say itâs good for the chest; but, bless you, you must live in it. People go abroad, Iâm told, to live in the pine forests to cure âem: I say these here oaks have got every bit as much good in that way. I never eat but two meals a day--breakfast and supper: what you would call dinner--and maybe in the middle of the day a hunch of dry bread and an apple. I take a deal for breakfast, and Iâm rather lear [hungry] at supper; but you may lay your oath thatâs why Iâm what I am in the way of health. People stuffs theirselves, and by consequence it breaks out, you see. Itâs the same with cattle; theyâre overfed, tied up in stalls and stuffed, and never no exercise, and mostly oily food too. It stands to reason they must get bad; and thatâs the real cause of these here rinderpests and pleuro-pneumonia and whatnots. At least thatâs my notion. Iâm in the woods all day, and never comes home till supper--âcept, of course, in breeding-time, to fetch the meal and stuff for the birds--so I gets the fresh air, you see; and the fresh air is the life, sir. Thereâs the smell of the earth, too--âspecially just as the plough turns it up--which is a fine thing; and the hedges and the grass are as sweet as sugar after a shower. Anything with a green leaf is the thing, depend upon it, if you want to live healthy. I never signed no pledge; and if a man asks me to take a glass of ale, I never says him no. But I ainât got no barrel at home; and all the time Iâve been in this here place Iâve never been to a public. Gentlemen give me tips--of course they does; and much obliged I be; but I takes it to my missus. Manyâs the time theyâve axed me to have a glass of champagne or brandy when weâve had lunch under the hedge; but I says no, and would like a glass of beer best, which I gets, of course. No; when I drinks, I drinks ale: but most in general I drinks no strong liquor. Great coat!--cold weather! I never put no great coat on this thirty year. These here woods be as good as a topcoat in cold weather. Come off the open field with the east wind cutting into you, and get inside they firs and youâll feel warm in a minute. If you goes into the ash wood you must go in farther, because the wind comes more between the poles.â Fresh air, exercise, frugal food and drink, the odour of the earth and the trees--these have given him, as he nears his sixtieth year, the strength and vitality of early manhood. He has his faults: notably, a hastiness of temper towards his undermen, and towards labourers and wood-cutters who transgress his rules. He is apt to use his ground-ash stick rather freely without thought of consequences, and has got into trouble more than once in that way. When he takes a dislike or suspicion of a man, nothing will remove it; he is stubbornly inimical and unforgiving, totally incapable of comprehending the idea of loving an enemy. He hates cordially in the true pagan fashion of old. He is full of prejudices, and has some ideas which almost amount to superstitions; and, though he fears nothing, has a vague feeling that sometimes there is âsummatâ inexplicable in the dark and desolate places. Such is this modern man of the woods. The impressions of youth are always strongest with us, and so it is that recollecting the scenes in which he passed his earlier days he looks with some contempt upon the style of agriculture followed in the locality; for he was born in the north, where the farms are sometimes of a great area, though perhaps not so rich in soil, and he cannot forgive the tenants here because they have not got herds of three or four hundred horned cattle. Before he settled down in the south he had many changes of situation, and was thus brought in contact with a wonderful number of gentlemen, titled or otherwise distinguished, whose peculiarities of speech or appearance he loves to dwell upon. If the valet sees the hero or the statesman too closely, so sometimes does the gamekeeper. A great man must have moments when it is a relief to fling off the constant posturing necessary before the world; and there is freshness in the gamekeeperâs unstudied conversation. The keeper thinks that nothing reveals a gentlemanâs character so much as his âtips.â âGentlemen is very curious in tips,â he says, âand there ainât nothing so difficult as to know whatâs coming. Most in general them as be the biggest guns, and what you would think would come out handsome, chucks you a crown and no more; and them as you knows ainât much go in the way of money slips a sovereign into your fist. Thereâs a deal in the way of giving it too, as perhaps you wouldnât think. Some gents does it as much as to say theyâre much obliged to you for kindly taking it. Some does it as if they were chucking a bone to a dog. One place where I was, the governor were the haughtiest man as ever you see. When the shooting was done--after a great party, you never knowed whether he were pleased or not--he never took no more notice of you than if you were a tree. But I found him out arter a time or two. You had to walk close behind him, as if you were a spaniel; and by-and-by he would slip his hand round behind his back--without a word, mind--and you had to take what was in it, and never touch your hat or so much as âThank you, sir.â It were always a five-pound note if the shooting had been good; but it never seemed to come so sweet as if heâd done it to your face.â The keeper gets a goodly number of tips in the course of the year, from visitors at the great house, from naturalists who come now and then, from the sportsmen, and regularly from the masters of three packs of hounds; not to mention odd moneys at intervals in various ways, as when he goes round to deliver presents of game to the chief tenants on the estate or to the ownerâs private friends. Gentlemen who take an interest in such things come out every spring to see the young broods of pheasants--which, indeed, are a pretty sight--and they always leave something [Illustration: A BROOD OF YOUNG PHEASANTS.] behind them. In the summer a few picnic parties come from the town or the country round about, having permission to enter the grounds. In the winter half a dozen young gentlemen have a turn at the ferreting; a great burrow is chosen, three or four ferrets put in at once without any nets, so that the rabbits may bolt freely, and then the shooting is like volleys of musketry fire. For sport like this the young gentlemen tip freely. After the rook-shooting party in the spring from the great house, with their rook-rifles and sometimes crossbows, have had the pick of the young birds, some few of the tenants are admitted to shoot the remainder--a task that spreads perhaps over two or even three days, and there is a good deal of liquor and silver going about. Then gentlemen come to fish in the mere, having got the necessary permission, and they want bait and some attention, which the keeperâs lad, being an adept himself, can render better than any one else; and so he too gets his share. Besides which, being swift of foot, and with a shrewd idea which way the fox will run when the hunt is up, he is to the fore when a lady or some timid gentleman wants a gate opened--a service not performed in vain. For breaking-in dogs also the keeper is often paid well; and, in short, he is one of those fortunate individuals whom all the world tips. CHAPTER II. His Family and Caste. The interior of the cottage is exquisitely clean; it has that bright pleasant appearance which is only possible when the housewife feels a pride in her duties, and goes about them with a cheerful heart. Not a speck of dust can be seen upon the furniture, amongst which is a large old-fashioned sofa: the window panes are clear and transparent--a certain sign of loving care expended on the place, as on the other hand dirty windows are an indication of neglect, so much so that the character of the cottager may almost be guessed from a glance at her glass. The keeperâs wife is a buxom vivacious dame, whose manners, from occasional contact with the upper ranks--the ladies from the great house sometimes look in for a few minutes to chat with so old a servant of the family--are above what are usually found in her station. She receives her callers--and they are many--with a quiet, respectful dignity: desirous of pleasing, yet quite at her ease. Across the back of the sofa there lies a rug of some beautiful fur which catches the eye, but which at first the visitor cannot identify. Its stripes are familiar, and not unlike the tigerâs, but the colour is not that of the forest tyrant. She explains that this rug comes within her special sphere. It is a carriage-rug of cat-skin; the skins carefully selected to match exactly, and cured and prepared in the same way as other more famous furs. They have only just been sewn together, and the rug is now spread on the sofa to dry. She has made rugs, she will tell you, entirely of black cat skins, and very handsome they looked; but not equal to this, which is wholly of the tabby. Certainly the gloss and stripe, the soft warmth and feel to the hand, seem to rival many foreign and costly importations. Besides carriage-rugs, the gamekeeperâs wife has made others for the feet--some many-coloured, like Josephâs coat. All the cats to which these skins belonged were shot or caught in the traps set for vermin by her husband and his assistants. The majority were wild--that is, had taken up their residence in the woods, reverting to their natural state, and causing great havoc among the game. Feasting like this and in the joys of freedom, many had grown to a truly enormous size, not in fat, as the domestic animal does, but in length of back and limb. These afforded the best skins; perhaps out of eight or nine killed but two would be available or worth preserving. This gives an idea of the extraordinary number of cats which stray abroad and get their living by poaching. They invariably gravitate towards the woods. The instance in point is taken from an outlying district far from a town, where the nuisance is comparatively small; but in the preserves say from ten to twenty miles round London the cats thus killed must be counted by thousands. Families change their homes, the cat is driven away by the new comer and takes to the field. In one little copse not more than two acres in extent, and about twelve miles from Hyde Park Corner, fifteen cats were shot in six weeks, and nearly all in one spot--their favourite haunt. When two or three wild or homeless animals take up their abode in a wood, they speedily attract half a dozen hitherto tame ones; and, if they were not destroyed, it would be impossible to keep either game or rabbits. She has her own receipts for preserving furs and feathers, and long practice has rendered her an adept. Here are squirrelsâ skins also prepared; some with the bushy tail attached, and some without. They vary in size and the colour of the tail, which is often nearly white, in others more deeply tinged with red. The fur is used to line cloaks, and the tail is sometimes placed in ladiesâ hats. Now and then she gets a badger-skin, which old country folk used to have made into waistcoats, said to form an efficacious protection for weak chests. She has made rugs of several sewn together, but not often. In the store-room upstairs there are a few splendid fox-skins, some with the tails tipped with white, others tipped with black. These are used for ladiesâ muffs, and look very handsome; the tail being occasionally curled round the muff. This sounds a delicate matter, and dangerously near the deadly sin of vulpecide. But it is not so. In these extensive woods, with their broad fringes of furze and heath, the foxes now and then become inconveniently numerous, and even cub-hunting will not kill them off sufficiently, especially if a great âheadâ of game is kept up, for it attracts every species of beast of prey. Besides the damage to game, the concentration of too many foxes in one district is opposed to the interest of the hunt--first, because the attendant destruction of neighbouring poultry causes an unpleasant feeling; next, because when the meet takes place the plethora of foxes spoils the sport. The day is wasted in âchoppingâ them at every corner; the pack breaks up into several sections, despite whip, horn, and voice; and a good run across country cannot be obtained. So that once now and then a judicious thinning-out is necessary; and this is how the skins come into the hands of the keeperâs wife. The heads go to ornament halls and staircases; so do the pads and occasionally the brush. The teeth make studs, set in gold; and no part of Reynard is thrown away, since the dogs eagerly snap up his body. Once or twice she has made a moleskin waistcoat for a gentleman. This is a very tedious operation. Each little skin has to be separately prepared, and when finished hardly covers two square inches of surface. Consequently it requires several scores of skins, and the work is a year or more about. There is then the sewing together, which is not to be accomplished without much patience and skill. The fur is beautifully soft and glossy, with more resemblance to velvet than is possessed by any other natural substance, and very warm. Mittens for the wrists are also made of it, and skull-caps. Moleskin waistcoats used to be thought a good deal of, but are now only met with occasionally as a curiosity. The old wooden mole-trap is now almost extinct, superseded by the modern iron one, which anybody can set up. The ancient contrivance, a cylinder of wood, could only be placed in position by a practised hand, and from his experience in this the mole-catcher--locally called âoont-catcherâ--used to be an important personage in his way. He is now fast becoming extinct also--that is, as a distinct handicraftsman spending his whole time in such trapping. He was not unfrequently a man who had once occupied a subordinate place under a keeper, and when grown too feeble for harder labour, supported himself in this manner: contracting with the farmers to clear their fields by the season. Neither stoatsâ nor weaselsâ skins are preserved, except now and then for stuffing to put under a glass case, though the stoat is closely allied to the genuine ermine. Polecats, [Illustration: THE OLD MOLE-CATCHER.] too, are sometimes saved for the same purpose; in many woods they seem now quite extinct. The otter skin is valuable, but does not often come under the care of the keeperâs wife. The keeper now and then shoots a grebe in the mere where the streamlet widens out into a small lake, which again is bordered by water-meadows. This bird is uncommon, but not altogether rare; sometimes two or three are killed in the year in this southern inland haunt. He also shoots her some jays, whose wings--as likewise the black-and-white magpie--are used for the same decorative purposes. Certain feathers from the jay are sought by the gentlemen who visit the great house, to make artificial flies for salmon-fishing. Of kingfishers she preserves a considerable number for ladiesâ hats, and some for glass cases. Once or twice she has been asked to prepare the woodpecker, whose plumage and harsh cry entitle him to the position of the parrot of our woods. Gentlemen interested in natural history often commission her husband to get them specimens of rare birds; and in the end he generally succeeds, though a long time may elapse before they cross his path. For them she has prepared some of the rare owls and hawks. She has a store of peacocksâ feathers--every now and then people, especially ladies, call at the cottage and purchase these things. Country housewives still use the hareâs âpadâ for several domestic purposes--was not the hareâs foot once kept in the printing-offices? The keeperâs wife has nothing to do with rabbits, but knows that their skins and fur are still bought in large quantities. She has heard that geese were once kept in large flocks almost entirely for their feathers, which were plucked twice a year, she thinks; but this is not practised now, at least not in the south. She has had snakesâ skins, or more properly sloughs, for the curious. It is very difficult to get one entire; they are fragile, and so twisted in the grass where the snake leaves them as to be [Illustration: ANTLERS ON THE STAIRCASE.] generally broken. Some country folk put them in their hats to cure headache, which is a very old superstition; but more in sport than earnest. There are no deer now in the park. There used to be a hundred years ago, and her husband has found several cast antlers in the wood. The best are up at the great house, but there is one on her staircase. Will I take a few chestnuts? It is winter--the proper time--and these are remarkably fine. No tree is apparently so capricious in its yield as the chestnut in English woods: the fruit of many is so small as to be worthless, or else it does not reach maturity. But these large ones are from a tree which bears a fine nut: her husband has them saved every year. Here also are half a dozen truffles if I will accept them: most that are found go up to the great house; but of late years they have not been sought for so carefully, because coming in quantities from abroad. These truffles are found, she believes, in the woods where the soil is chalky. She used to gather many native herbs; but tastes have changed, and new seasonings and sauces have come into fashion. Out of doors in his work the assistant upon whom the gamekeeper places his chief reliance is his own son--a lad hardly taller than the gun he carries, but much older than would be supposed at first sight. It is a curious physiological fact that although open-air life is so favourable to health, yet it has the apparent effect of stunting growth in early youth. Let two children be brought up together, one made to âroughâ it out of doors, and the other carefully tended and kept within; other things being equal, the boy of the drawing-room will be taller and to all appearance more developed than his companion. The labourersâ children, for instance, who play in the lonely country roads and fields all day, whose parents lock their cottage doors when leaving for work in the morning so that their offspring shall not gain entrance and get into mischief, are almost invariably short for their age. In their case something may be justly attributed to coarse and scanty food; but the children of [Illustration: SMALL BOYS AND GREAT HORSES.] working farmers exhibit the same peculiarity, and although their food is not luxurious in quality, it is certainly not stinted in quantity. Some of the ploughboys and cartersâ lads seem scarcely fit to be put in charge of the huge cart-horses who obey their shouted orders, their heads being but a little way above the shafts--mere infants to look at. Yet they are fourteen or fifteen years of age. With these, and with the sons of farmers who in like manner work in the field, the period of development comes later than with town-bred boys. After sixteen or eighteen, after years of hesitation as it were, they suddenly shoot up, and become great, hulking, broad fellows, possessed of immense strength. So the keeperâs boy is really much more a man than he appears, both in years and knowledge--meaning thereby that local intelligence, technical ability, and unwritten education which is the resultant of early practice and is quite distinct from book learning. From his father he has imbibed the spirit of the woods and all the minutiÃ¦ of his art. First he learned to shoot; his highest ambition being satisfied in the beginning when permitted to carry the double-barrel home across the meadow. Then he was allowed occasionally to fire off the charges left in after the dayâs work, before the gun was hung against the beam. Next, from behind the fallen trunk of an oak he took aim at a sitting rabbit which had raised himself on his hind-quarters to listen suspiciously--resting the heavy barrels on the tree, and made nervous by the whispered instructions from the keeper kneeling on the grass out of sight behind, âAim at his shoulder, lad, if he be sitting sidelong; if aâ be got his back to âee aim at his poll.â From this it was but a short step to be trusted with the single-barrel, and finally with the double; ultimately having one of his own and walking his own distinct rounds. He is now a keen shot, even better than his father; for it is often observed that at a certain age young beginners in most manual arts reach an excellence which in later years fails them. Perhaps the muscles are more elastic, and respond instantaneously to the eye. This mere boy at snap-shooting in the âroughâ will beat crack sportsmen hollow. At the trap with pigeons he would probably fail; but in a narrow lane where the rabbits, driven out by the ferrets, just pop across barely a yard of open ground, where even a good shot may miss repeatedly, he is âdeathâ itself to the âbunnies.â So, too, with a wood-hare--_i.e._ those hares that always lie in the woods as others do in the open fields and on the uplands. They are difficult to kill. They slip quietly out from the form in the rough grass under the ashstole, and all you have for guidance is the rustling and, perhaps, the tips of the ears, the body hidden by the tangled dead ferns and ârowettyâ stuff. When you try to aim, the barrel knocks against the ashpoles, which are inconveniently near together, or the branches get in the way, and the hare dodges round a tree, and your cartridge simply barks a bow and cuts a tall dead thistle in twain. But the keeperâs lad, who had waited for your fire, instantly follows, as it seems hardly lifting his gun to his shoulder, and the hare is stopped by the shot. Rabbit-shooting, also, in an ash wood like this is trying to the temper; they double and dodge, and if you wait, thinking that the brown rascals must presently cross the partially open space yonder, lo! just at the very edge up go their white tails and they dive into the bowels of [Illustration: THE KEEPERâS SON SHOOTING LEFT-HANDED.] the earth, having made for hidden burrows. There is, of course, after all, nothing but a knack in these things. Still it is something to have acquired the knack. The lad, if you ask him, will proudly show off several gun-tricks, as shooting left-handed, placing the butt at the left instead of the right shoulder and pulling the trigger with the left finger. He will knock over a running rabbit like this; and at short distances can shoot with tolerable certainty from under the arm without coming to the âpresent,â or even holding the gun out like a pistol with one hand. By slow degrees he has obtained an intimate acquaintance with every field on the place, and no little knowledge of natural history. He will decide at once, as if by a kind of instinct, where any particular bird or animal will be found at that hour. He is more bitter than his father against poachers, and would like to see harder measures dealt out to them; but his chief use is in watching or checking the assistants, who act as beaters, ferreters, or keep up the banks and fences about the preserves, etc. Without a doubt these men are very untrustworthy, and practise many tricks. For instance, when they are set to ferret a bank, what is to prevent them, if the coast is clear, from hiding half a dozen dead rabbits in a burrow? Digging has frequently to be resorted to, and thus they can easily cast earth over and conceal the entrance to a hole. Many a wounded hare and pheasant that falls into the hands of the beaters never makes its appearance at the table of the sportsman; and doubtless they help themselves to the game captured in many a poacherâs wire before giving notice of the discovery to the head man. Some of these assistants wear waistcoats of calfskin with the hair on it. The hair is outside, and the roan-and-white colour has a curious appearance: the material is said to be very warm and durable. Such waistcoats were common years ago; but of late the looms and spindles of the manufacturing districts have reduced the most outlying of the provinces to a nearly dead uniformity of shoddy. One pair of eyes cannot be everywhere at once; consequently the keeper, as his son grew up, found him a great help in this way: while he goes one road the lad goes the other, and the undermen never feel certain that some one is not about. Perhaps
{'title': 'The Gamekeeper at Home: Sketches of natural history and rural life (Illustrated)', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}