Volume Two—Chapter Six.
The Poacher at Home.
Coracle Dick lives all alone. If he have relatives they are not near, nor does any one in the neighbourhood know aught about them. Only some vague report of a father away off in the colonies, where he went against his will; while the mother—is believed dead.
Not less solitary is Coracle’s place of abode. Situated in a dingle with sides thickly wooded, it is not visible from anywhere. Nor is it near any regular road; only approachable by a path, which there ends; the dell itself being a cul-de-sac. Its open end is toward the river, running in at a point where the bank is precipitous, so hindering thoroughfare along the stream’s edge, unless when its waters are at their lowest.
Coracle’s house is but a hovel, no better than the cabin of a backwoods squatter. Timber structure, too, in part, with a filling up of rough mason work. Its half-dozen perches of garden ground, once reclaimed from the wood, have grown wild again, no spade having touched them for years. The present occupant of the tenement has no taste for gardening, nor agriculture of any kind; he is a poacher, pur sang—at least, so far as is known. And it seems to pay him better than would the cultivation of cabbages—with pheasants at nine shillings the brace, and salmon three shillings the pound. He has the river, if not the mere, for his net, and the land for his game; making as free with both as ever did Alan-a-dale.
But, whatever the price of fish and game, be it high or low, Coracle is never without good store of cash, spending it freely at the Welsh Harp, as elsewhere; at times so lavishly, that people of suspicious nature think it cannot all be the product of night netting and snaring. Some of it, say scandalous tongues, is derived from other industries, also practised by night, and less reputable than trespassing after game. But, as already said, these are only rumours, and confined to the few. Indeed, only a very few have intimate acquaintance with the man. He is of a reserved, taciturn habit, somewhat surly: not talkative even in his cups. And though ever ready to stand treat in the Harp tap-room he rarely practises hospitality in his own house; only now and then, when some acquaintance of like kidney and calling pays him a visit. Then the solitary domicile has its silence disturbed by the talk of men, thick as thieves—often speech which, if heard beyond its walls, ’twould not be well for its owner.
More than half time however, the poacher’s dwelling is deserted, and oftener at night than by day. Its door shut, and padlocked, tells when the tenant is abroad. Then only a rough lurcher dog—a dangerous animal, too—is guardian of the place. Not that there are any chattels to tempt the cupidity of the kleptomaniac. The most valuable moveable inside were not worth carrying away; and outside is but the coracle standing in a lean-to shed, propped up by its paddle. It is not always there, and, when absent, it may be concluded that its owner is on some expedition up, down, or across the river. Nor is the dog always at home; his absence proclaiming the poacher engaged in the terrestrial branch of his profession—running down hares or rabbits.
It is the night of the same day that has seen the remains of Mary Morgan consigned to their resting-place in the burying-ground of the Rugg’s Ferry chapel. A wild night it has turned out, dark and stormy. The autumnal equinox is on, and its gales have commenced stripping the trees of their foliage. Around the dwelling of Dick Dempsey the fallen leaves lie thick, covering the ground as with cloth of gold; at intervals torn to shreds, as the wind swirls them up and holds them suspended.