The Poacher.
And what sort of man is he against whom all this machinery of law and authority and brutality is directed? We refer to the poacher. There is probably no better-abused individual on earth; but abuse is not argument, and still less is it evidence. If the reader will turn to the report of the Select Committee of 1846, he will see that after carefully sifting the evidence the conclusions arrived at were: (1) That the poacher was generally far superior to the average agricultural labourer in intelligence and activity; (2) that the great majority of poachers would break no law other than the Game Laws; (3) that the poacher was not regarded as a criminal, either by himself or the people amongst whom he lived; and (4) that this opinion was shared even by the game-preserver, who not infrequently offered him employment as gamekeeper. The reader may not be aware that many poachers become keepers. The well-known writer, “Stonehenge,” remarks on this:
“Reformed poachers, if really reformed, make the best keepers, but it is only when worn out as poachers that they think of turning round and becoming keepers.”
It is worthy of remark that every writer on sport of any ability (as far as we are aware) feels himself constrained to say a good word of the poacher. We have just now at our elbow a well-known and standard work, entitled “The Moor and the Loch,” by John Colquhoun. Writing of poachers in bulk (so to speak) the author denounces them in unmeasured terms, but when he comes to speak of individual poachers whom he had known, his tone is altogether different. We quote from vol. ii., p. 146:
“When I first knew Gregor More, of Callander, his poaching days were over, for he had a mortal disease from having lain out in the fields one cold night. He still managed to saunter down the river and give those beautiful sweeps with his line and salmon fly which were the admiration of the whole clachan.… I looked at him with some curiosity; a nobler specimen of manhood I never beheld. Upwards of six feet high, of the finest herculean proportions, and straight as an arrow, he seemed equally formed for activity and strength. There was nothing mean or sneaking about his manner. His face was open and manly, and, despite the sad discipline to which he had exposed both mind and body, he had not effaced the natural and sure marks of force and truth from his countenance. Although wan and emaciated, there was a coolness, a will to dare in his eye, backed by his tremendous shoulders and still powerful frame, so that I could not look at him without thinking of the words, ‘Majestic though in ruins.’
“Very unlike Gregor More was ——. Strange to say, he had once been a placed minister of the Kirk (answering to a beneficed clergyman), and although he often returned late on the Saturday night, after being all the week poaching the deer, his sermons were both clever and popular. I met him once when traversing a wild range of hills, and was impressed both with his general information and the courtesy of his address.”