To finish this chapter, I will tell you a story which you are never to put into practice. Some long time ago I found myself far from home in a country village, and having nothing to do, I went for a walk, and soon came upon a brother professional rat-catcher; and thinking I might learn a wrinkle from him that would come in useful, I joined him and carefully watched him and his dogs. I saw at once that three of the latter were very good and up to their work; but there was a fourth, a nondescript sort of beast with a long tail, that appeared quite useless; and I observed with amusement that directly the man put a ferret into a hole, the dog tucked its tail tight between its legs and went and stood well out in the field. I asked the man why he kept such a useless beast, and with a chuckle he answered, "Well, mate, I'll own up he ain't much to boast on for rat-killing, nor yet for looks, but he has his use like some other of we h-ugly ones. You see, sir, I've got one or two ferrets as won't come out of a 'ole, but stand a peeping at the h-entrance and waste a lot of time. Then that 'ere dawg comes in useful. I catches him, lifts him up, and sticks his bushy tail down to the ferret, who catches tight hold, and I draws it out. Nothing ain't made for nothing, and I expect that dawg was made for drawing ferrets." The man may have been right, but I was quite sure the unfortunate dog did not take an active pleasure in his vocation.
There, young gentlemen, if you have well digested that chapter and forgotten the story at the end, you can put up your books and form up for your usual walk to the second milestone and back again; but before leaving, let me point out to you, Croker, minor, that if that caricature I have observed you drawing behind your book is meant for me, it is, like most things you do, incorrect; my nose is not so long, and I part my hair on the left side, not the right.
[CHAPTER VII.]
Rat-catching and rabbit-catching are two distinct professions, but the greater part of the stock-in-trade that serves for one will answer for the other, and it is as well for the professional to be master of what I think I may call both branches of his business. A rat-catcher who did nothing but kill rats and refused a day's work with the rabbits would be like a medical man who would cut off limbs but would not give a pill, or a captain of a sailing-vessel who would not go to sea in a steamer; besides in these days it is the fashion to jumble up half a dozen businesses under one head and name. Just look at what the engineer does. Why, he is nowhere if he is not (besides being ready, as the engineer of the old school, to make railways, etc.) a chemist, an electrician, a diplomat, a lawyer, a financier and a contractor, and even sometimes an honest man. If you are not in the fashion you are left behind as an old fogey, and so in this chapter we will discuss the art of rabbit-catching; and I trust all schoolmasters will furnish you, their students, with the opportunity of putting in practice in the field what you learn from this book at your desks.
Well, now for the requirements. We have got the dogs, we have got the ferrets, spade, bag, etc.; but for rabbiting we must have a much more costly stock-in-trade if we are to do a big business. We shall require an ordinary gardener's spade for digging in soft sandy ground, where the rabbit burrows sometimes go in for yards, and as much as ten feet deep down; also another spade, longer in the blade than our ratting one, the sides more turned in, and with a handle ten feet long, with a steel hook at the end instead of a spike. With this spade we can sink down many feet after the hole is too deep for the ordinary spade, and the turned in sides will hold the soft earth and allow you to bring it to the surface. If you dig down on the top of a rabbit—as you will do when you know your work—the hook at the end will enable you to draw first it and then the ferret up by the string. We must have a piece of strong light supple cord, marked by a piece of red cloth drawn through the strands at every yard, so that one can tell exactly how far in the ferret is; and it is as well to have a second shorter cord for work in stiff heavy ground, where the holes are never deep. Next, we must have two or three dozen purse-nets, which are circular, about two feet in diameter, with a string rove round the outside mesh fastened to a peg. These are for covering over bolt holes to bag a rabbit when driven out by the ferrets. The nets should be made of the very best string, so as to be as light and fine as possible. The mesh should be just large enough to allow a rabbit's head to pass through.
Like the postscript to a lady's letter, the chief item I have saved till the last, and I fear it will be some time before the ordinary rabbit-catcher will be able to afford it. I refer to long nets, which are used for running round or across a piece of covert to catch the rabbits as they are bustled about by the dogs. A rabbit-catcher in full swing should have from eight hundred to a thousand yards of this, for with a good long net he will often kill as many rabbits in a few hours as he could do with the ferrets in a week.
I myself keep no special dog for rabbit-catching, chiefly because I have a neighbour who will always let me have a cunning old lurcher that he keeps, which is as good as gold, and as clever as a lawyer, and desperately fond of a day with me and my dogs.
I have three male ferrets, real monsters, strong enough to trot down a burrow and drag five or six yards of line after them with ease.
Having described all the tools, etc., necessary for work, I will now jot down, as an exercise for you students, a nice easy day's rabbiting that actually took place a few weeks ago—a sort of day that quite a young beginner might work with success. There had been a sharp rime frost in the night, which still hung about in shady spots at eight o'clock in the morning, as Jack and I marched off with my dogs and ferrets, accompanied by old Fly, the lurcher. By nine a.m. we began working field hedge-rows and banks, where rabbits were pretty plentiful and had been established for years in every description of burrow. There had been a lot of partridge and other shooting going on over this farm for the last month, and most of the rabbits had got a dislike to sitting out in the open, and were under ground, so we began at the burrows at once, the dogs driving every rabbit that was sitting out in the hedge back to their burrows as we walked along. We began work in a stiff clay bank far too hard for the rabbits to make deep holes in, and here we got on fast. I took the ditch side—in fact, I took the ditch itself—with a big ferret with a short line on, and I ran it into each hole I came to. Jack on the other side looked out for the bolt holes, and always laid down a little to one side, as much as possible out of sight, but with a hand just on the bank over the hole ready to catch a bolting rabbit. Fly and the other dogs took charge of the other holes, and all kept as quiet as possible. In went the ferret, slowly dragging the line after him till I count two yards gone by the red marks on the line; then there is a halt for half a minute, then a loud rumbling and the line is pulled fast through my fingers. Jack moves quickly, and the next instant a rabbit is thrown a little way out into the field with its neck broken. Jack says, "Ferret out," then picks it up, draws the line through the hole, passes the ferret over to me, and we go on to the next, having filled up the entrance of the hole we have just worked. Hole after hole was ferreted much in the same way. Sometimes Jack bagged the bolting rabbit, sometimes the dogs, and now and then one bolted and got into the hedge before it could be caught and went back, but it was little use, for the dogs with Fly at their head were soon after it, and in a few minutes Fly was sure to have it, and would retrieve it back to Jack.