The Amateur Poacher

by Richard Jefferies

This incident explained why the ferret seemed so loth to go back into the hole. He had crept out some few moments behind the rabbit and in his aimless uncertain manner was trying to follow the scent along the bank. He did not like being compelled to give up this scent and to search again for another. “Us must be main careful how us fixes our nets, you,” said Little John, going as far as he could in reproof of my negligence.

The noise of the gun, the barking, and talking was of course heard by the rabbits still in the bury, and as if to show that Little John was right, for a while they ceased to bolt. Standing behind the bushes—against which I now placed the gun to be nearer at hand—I watched the nets till my eye was caught by the motions of the ferret-bag. It lay on the grass and had hitherto been inert. But now the bag reared itself up, and then rolled over, to again rise and again tumble. The ferrets left in it in reserve were eager to get out—sharp set on account of a scanty breakfast—and their motions caused the bag to roll along a short distance.

I could see Orion on the other side of the mound tolerably well because he was standing up and the leaves had fallen from the upper part of the bushes. Little John was crouched in the ditch: the dead grasses, “gicks,” withered vines of bryony, the thistles, and dark shrivelled fern concealed him.

There was a round black sloe on the blackthorn beside me, the beautiful gloss, or bloom, on it made it look like a tiny plum. It tasted not only sour, but seemed to positively fill the mouth with a rough acid. Overhead light grey clouds, closely packed but not rainy, drifted very slowly before a N.E. upper current. Occasionally a brief puff of wind came through the bushes rustling the dead leaves that still remained on the oaks.

Despite the cold, something of Little John’s intense concentration communicated itself to us: we waited and watched with eager patience. After a while he got out of the ditch where he had been listening with his ear close against the bank, and asked me to pass him the ferret-bag. He took out another ferret and lined it—that is, attached one end of a long string to its neck, and then sent it in.

He watched which way the ferret turned, and then again placed his head upon the hard clay to listen. Orion had to come and hold the line, while he went two or three yards farther down, got into the ditch and once more listened carefully. “He be about the middle of the mound you,” he said to me; “he be between you and I. Lor! look out.”

There was a low rumbling sound—I expected to see a rabbit bolt into one of my nets, I heard Little John moving some leaves, and then he shouted, “Give I a net, you—quick. Lor! here be another hole: he’s coming!” I looked over the mound and saw Little John, his teeth set and staring at a hole which had no net, his great hands open ready to pounce instantly like some wild animal on its prey. In an instant the rabbit bolted—he clutched it and clasped it tight to his chest. There was a moment of struggling, the next the rabbit was held up for a moment and then cast across his knee.

It was always a sight to see Little John’s keen delight in “wristing” their necks. He affected utter unconsciousness of what he was doing, looked you in the face, and spoke about some indifferent subject. But all the while he was feeling the rabbit’s muscles stretch before the terrible grasp of his hands, and an expression of complacent satisfaction flitted over his features as the neck gave with a sudden looseness, and in a moment what had been a living straining creature became limp.

The ferret came out after the rabbit; he immediately caught it and thrust it into his pocket. There were still two ferrets in—one that was suspected to be gorging on a rabbit in a cul de sac, and the other lined, and which had gone to join that sanguinary feast. The use of the line was to trace where the loose ferret lay. “Chuck I the show’l, measter,” said Little John.

I gave the “navigator” tool a heave over the hedge; it fell and stuck upright in the sward. Orion handed it to him. He first filled up the hole from which a rabbit had just bolted with a couple of “spits,” i.e. spadefuls, and then began to dig on the top of the mound.