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 pa.s.sed 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 c.o.c.k 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 embarra.s.sing; 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 p.r.o.nunciation, 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 b.u.t.ty [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 n.o.body.
"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 gra.s.s, 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 pa.s.ses 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. .h.i.tting 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 trespa.s.s. 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. n.o.body 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 c.r.a.pe 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 pa.s.s nothing of that sort. So p.u.s.s.y 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 f.l.a.n.g.es projecting from the under surface, almost like stands. They are sometimes connected in such a way that the parallel f.l.a.n.g.es 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 pa.s.sed 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 c.o.c.kbirds 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 sh.e.l.l snails, of which quant.i.ties 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 quant.i.ties 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 gra.s.ses 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 gra.s.s. 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 quant.i.ties 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 quant.i.ties 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 pa.s.ses by and looks for quaking gra.s.s, 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 pa.s.ses on and gathers groundsel.
Then come the mushrooms: he knows the best places, and soon fills a basket full of "b.u.t.tons" 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 quant.i.ty 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 a.s.sisted, and by helping the animal to gain its legs earned a t.i.tle to the owner"s grat.i.tude.
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 pa.s.sing 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.