The Moucher's Excuse
While the gamekeeper is seldom at fault in the matter of a ready excuse, he meets many people who are his superior in carrying ever-ready lies on their lips. From poachers and mouchers, as the haunters of hedge-sides are called, he might learn the lesson that no excuse is better than a fine excuse that is shallow. One Sunday morning a keeper, dressed in his go-to-meeting clothes—a useful disguise—came sauntering silently down a road bounded by unkempt hawthorn hedges. His trained ear caught the sound of a dog careering past him on the field-side of the road: then he saw the dog's master, who, on seeing him, set up a sudden and energetic whistling. Of this the dog took no notice; with his nose well down, he rushed on to a rabbit-burrow and began digging furiously. "These hedges are full of rats," remarked the dog's master. "My dog killed five just now." Asked what had happened to their bodies, Mr. Moucher replied calmly, "He swallowed 'em whole." On the keeper suggesting that there was not much chance of finding a rat in the rabbit's burrow, the moucher agreed, called off his dog, and went his way. In the hedges there was no sign of a rat, but a few rabbits managed to eke out an existence, though heavily persecuted by gentlemen of the road.
