Scarcely a keeper can be found who has not got one or more tales to tell of encounters with poachers, sometimes of a desperate character. There is a general similarity in most of the accounts, which exhibit a mixture of ferocity and cowardice on the side of the intruders. The following case, which occurred some years since, brings these contradictory features into relief. The narrator was not the owner of the man-trap described previously.
There had been a great deal of poaching before the affray took place, and finally it grew to horse-stealing: one night two valuable horses were taken from the home park. This naturally roused the indignation of the owner of the estate, who resolved to put a stop to it. Orders were given that if shots were heard in the woods the news should be at once transmitted to headquarters, no matter at what hour of the night.
One brilliant moonlight night, frosty and clear, the gang came again. A messenger went to the house, and, as previously arranged, two separate parties set out to intercept the rascals. The head keeper had one detachment, whose object it was to secure the main outlet from the wood towards the adjacent town—to cut off retreat. The young squire had charge of the other, which, with the under keeper as guide, was to work its way through the wood and drive the gang into the ambuscade. In the last party were six men and a mastiff dog; four of the men had guns, the gentleman only a stout cudgel.
They came upon the gang—or rather a part of it, for the poachers were somewhat scattered—in a “drive” which ran between tall firs, and was deep in shadow. With a shout the four or five men in the “drive,” or green lane, slipped back behind the trees, and two fired, killing the mastiff, dog on the spot and “stinging” one man in the legs. Quick as they were, the under keeper, to use his own words, “got a squint of one fellow as I knowed; and I lets drive both barrels in among the firs. But, bless you! it were all over in such a minute that I can’t hardly tell ’ee how it were. Our squire ran straight at ’em; but our men hung back, though they had their guns and he had nothing but a stick. I just seen him, as the smoke rose, hitting at a fellow; and then, before I could step, I hears a crack, and the squire he was down on the sward. One of them beggars had come up behind, and swung his gun round, and fetched him a purler on the back of his head. I picked him up, but he was as good as dead, to look at;” and in the confusion the poachers escaped. They had probably been put up to the ambuscade by one of the underlings, as they did not pass that way, but seemed to separate and get off by various paths. The “young squire” had to be carried home, and was ill for months, but ultimately recovered.
Not one of the gang was ever captured, notwithstanding that a member of it was recognised. Next day an examination of the spot resulted in the discovery of a trail of blood upon the grass and dead leaves, which proved that one of them had been wounded at the first discharge. It was traced for a short distance and then lost. Not till the excitement had subsided did the under keeper find that he had been hit; one pellet had scored his cheek under the eye, and left a groove still visible.
Some time afterwards a gun was picked up in the ferns, all rusty from exposure, which had doubtless been dropped in the flight. The barrel was very short—not more than eighteen inches in length—having been filed off for convenience of taking to pieces, so as to be carried in a pocket made on purpose in the lining of the coat. Now, with a barrel so short as that, sport, in the proper sense of the term, would be impossible; the shot would scatter so quickly after leaving the muzzle that the sportsman would never be able to approach near enough. The use of this gun was clearly to shoot pheasants at roost.
The particular keeper in whose shed the man-trap still lies among the lumber thinks that the class of poachers who come in gangs are as desperate now as ever, and as ready with their weapons. Breech-loading guns have rendered such affrays extremely dangerous on account of the rapidity of fire. Increased severity of punishment may deter a man from entering a wood; but once he is there and compromised, the dread of a heavy sentence is likely to make him fight savagely.
The keeper himself is not altogether averse to a little fisticuffing, in a straightforward kind of way, putting powder and shot on one side. He rather relishes what he calls “leathering” a poacher with a good tough ground-ash stick. He gets the opportunity now and then, coming unexpectedly on a couple of fellows rabbiting in a ditch, and he recounts the “leathering” he has frequently administered with great gusto. He will even honestly admit that on one occasion—just one, not more—he got himself most thoroughly thrashed by a pair of hulking fellows.
“Some keepers,” he says, “are always summoning people, but it don’t do no good. What’s the use of summoning a chap for sneaking about with a cur dog and a wire in his pocket? His mates in the village clubs together and pays his fine, and he laughs at you. Why, down in the town there them mechanic chaps have got a regular society to pay these here fines for trespass, and the bench they claps it on strong on purpose. But it ain’t no good; they forks out the tin, and then goes and haves a spree at a public. Besides which, if I can help it I don’t much care to send a man to gaol—this, of course, is between you and me—unless he uses his gun. If he uses his gun there ain’t nothing too bad for him. But these here prisons—every man as ever I knowed go to gaol always went twice, and kept on going. There ain’t nothing in the world like a good ground-ash stick. When you gives a chap a sound dressing with that there article, he never shows his face in your wood no more. There’s fields about here where them mechanics goes as regular as Saturday comes to try their dogs, as they calls it—and a precious lot of dogs they keeps among ’em. But they never does it on this estate: they knows my habits, you see. There’s less summonses goes up from this property than any other for miles, and it’s all owing to this here stick. A bit of ash is the best physic for poaching as I knows on.”
I suspect that he is a little mistaken in his belief that it is the dread of his personal prowess which keeps trespassers away—it is rather due to his known vigilance and watchfulness. His rather hasty notions of taking the law into his own hands are hardly in accord with the spirit of the times; but some allowance must be made for the circumstances of his life, and it is my object to picture the man as he is.