"Try an article on the country at this season of the year."
"Good. I can't hold the damned pen. You sit down, I'll dictate: In this refulgent season, when the barred clouds bloom the soft dying day, it is pleasant to wander by the purple hedgerows where the stars of the (What damned flower is it that twinkles now? What do you say? Ragged Robin? Not poetic enough. Clematis? That'll do. Damn it, ride on!)—the stars of the clematis modestly twinkle, and the trailing—(What the h—— is it that trails? Honeysuckle? Good. Weigh in!)—trailing honeysuckle flings down that rich scent that falls like sweet music on the nerves.'"
And so on. He managed in this way to turn out the regulation column of flummery, but I knew it could not last. And now he had come to be a sot and an outcast. Worse has befallen him. He screwed up his nerve to write an article in the old style, and I helped him by acting as amanuensis. He violently attacked an editor who had persistently befriended him; then he wrote a London Letter for that editor's paper; then he sent the violent attack away in the envelope intended for the letter. There was a terrible quarrel.
So far did the Gentleman, the Doctor, and Dicky come down. I may say that Dicky, the companion of statesmen, the pride of his university, died of cold and hunger in a cellar in the Borough. Oh, young man, boast not of thy strength!
POACHERS AND NIGHTBIRDS.
The Chequers stands in a very nasty place, yet we are within easy distance of a park which swarms with game. This game is preserved for the amusement of a royal duke, who is kind enough to draw about twelve thousand a year from the admiring taxpayer. He has not rendered any very brilliant service to his adopted country, unless we reckon his nearly causing the loss of the battle of Alma as a national benefit. He wept piteously during the battle of Inkerman when the Guards got into a warm corner, but, although he is pleasingly merciful towards Russians, he is most courageous in his assaults on pheasants and rabbits, and the country provides him with the finest sporting ground in England. I should not like to say how many men make money by poaching in the park, but we have a regular school of them at The Chequers, and they seem to pick up a fair amount of drink money. The temptation is great. Every one of these poaching fellows has the hunter's instinct strongly developed, and neither fines nor gaol can frighten them. The keepers catch one after another, but the work goes on all the same. You cannot stop men from poaching, and there is an end of the matter. You may shout yourself hoarse in trying to bring a greyhound to heel after he sights a hare; but the dog cannot obey you, for he is an automaton. The human predatory animal has his share of reason, but he also is automatic to some degree, and he will hunt in spite of all perils and all punishments when he sights his prey. One comic old rascal whom I know well has been caught thirty times and imprisoned eight times. While he is in gaol he always occupies himself in composing songs in praise of poaching, and on the evening of his release he is invariably called on to furnish the company in the tap-room with his new composition. He cannot read or write, but he learns his songs by heart, and I have taken down a large number of them from his own lips. The things are much like Jemmy Catnach's stuff, so far as rhyme and rhythm are concerned, but they are interesting on account of the sly exultation that runs through them.
In one poem the lawless bard gives an account of a day's life in gaol, and his coarse phrases make you almost feel the cold and hunger. Here are some scraps from this descriptive work:—
"Till seven we walk around the yard,
There is a man all to you guard.
If you put your hand out so,
Untoe the guv'nor you must go;
Eight o'clock is our breakfast hour,
Those wittles they do soon devour;
Oh! dear me, how they eat and stuff,
Lave off with less than half enough.
Nine o'clock you mount the mill,
That you mayn't cramp from settin' still.
If that be ever so against your will,
You must mount on the traädin' mill.
There is a turnkey that you'll find
He is a raskill most unkind.
To rob poor prisoners he is that man,
To chaäte poor prisoners where he can.
At eleven o'clock we march upstairs
To hear the parson read the prayers.
Then we are locked into a pen—
It's almost like a lion's den.
There's iron bars big round as your thigh,
To make you of a prison shy.
At twelve o'clock the turnkey come;
The locks and bolts sound like a drum.
If you be ever so full of game,
The traädin' mill it will you tame.
At one you mount the mill again,
That is labour all in vain
If that be ever so wrong or right,
You must traäde till six at night.
Thursdays we have a jubal fraä
Wi' bread and cheese for all the day.
I'll tell you raälly, without consate,
For a hungry pig 'tis a charmin' bait.
At six you're locked into your cell,
There until the mornin' dwell;
There's a bed o' straw all to lay on,
There's Hobson's choice, there's that or none."