Chapter Seven.
Professional Poachers.—The Art of Wiring Game.
There are three kinds of poachers, the local men, the raiders coming in gangs from a distance, and the “mouchers”—fellows who do not make precisely a profession of it, but who occasionally loiter along the roads and hedges picking up whatever they can lay hands on. Philologists may trace a resemblance between the present provincial word “mouching” and Shakespeare’s “mitcher,” who ate blackberries. Of the three probably the largest amount of business is done by the local men, on the principle that the sitting gamester sweeps the board. They therefore deserve first consideration.
It is a popular belief that the village poacher is an idle, hang-dog ne’er-do-well, with a spice of sneaking romance in his disposition—the Bohemian of the hamlet, whose grain of genius has sprouted under difficulties, and produced weeds instead of wheat. This is a complete fallacy, in our day at least. Poaching; is no longer an amusement, a thing to be indulged in because
It’s my delight of a shiny night
In the season of the year;
but a hard, prosaic business, a matter of pounds, shillings, pence, requiring a long-headed, shrewd fellow, with a power of silence, capable of a delicacy of touch which almost raises poaching into a fine art. The real man is often a sober and to all appearance industrious individual, working steadily during the day at some handicraft in the village, as blacksmithing, hedge-carpentering—i.e. making posts and rails, etc—cobbling, tinkering, or perhaps in the mill; a somewhat reserved, solitary workman of superior intelligence and frequently advanced views as to the “rights of labour.” He has no appetite for thrilling adventure; his idea is simply money, and he looks upon his night-work precisely as he does upon his day-labour.
His great object is to avoid suspicion, knowing that success will be proportionate to his skill in cloaking his operations; for in a small community, when a man is “suspect,” it is comparatively easy to watch him, and a poacher knows that if he is watched he must sooner or later be caught. Secrecy is not so very difficult; for it is only with certain classes that he need practise concealment: his own class will hold their peace. If a man is seen at his work in the day, if he is moderate in his public-house attendance, shows himself at church, and makes friends with the resident policeman (not as a confederate, but to know his beat and movements), he may go on for years without detection.
Perhaps the most promising position for a man who makes a science of it is a village at the edge of a range of downs, generally fringed with large woods on the lower slopes. He has then ground to work alternately, according to the character of the weather and the changes of the moon. If the weather be wet, windy, or dark from the absence of the moon, then the wide open hills are safe; while, on the other hand, the woods are practically inaccessible, for a man must have the eyes of a cat to see to do his work in the impenetrable blackness of the plantations. So that upon a bright night the judicious poacher prefers the woods, because he can see his way, and avoids the hills, because, having no fences to speak of, a watcher may detect him a mile off.
Meadows with double mounds and thick hedges may be worked almost at any time, as one side of the hedge is sure to cast a shadow, and instant cover is afforded by the bushes and ditches. Such meadows are the happy hunting-grounds of the poacher for that reason, especially if not far distant from woods, and consequently overrun with rabbits. For, since the price of rabbits has risen so high, they are very profitable as game, considering that a dozen or two may be captured without noise and without having to traverse much space—perhaps in a single hedge.