When Caleb was at length free from his father's tutelage, and as an under-shepherd practically independent, he did not follow Isaac's strict example with regard to wild animals, good for the pot, which came by chance in his way; he even allowed himself to go a little out of his way on occasion to get them.
We know that about this matter the law of the land does not square with the moral law as it is written in the heart of the peasant. A wounded partridge or other bird which he finds in his walks abroad or which comes by chance to him is his by a natural right, and he will take and eat or dispose of it without scruple. With rabbits he is very free—he doesn't wait to find a distressed one with a stoat on its track—stoats are not sufficiently abundant; and a hare, too, may be picked up at any moment; only in this case he must be very sure that no one is looking. Knowing the law, and being perhaps a respectable, religious person, he is anxious to abstain from all appearance of evil. This taking a hare or rabbit or wounded partridge is in his mind a very different thing from systematic poaching; but he is aware that to the classes above him it is not so—the law has made them one. It is a hard, arbitrary, unnatural law, made by and for them, his betters, and outwardly he must conform to it. Thus you will find the best of men among the shepherds and labourers freely helping themselves to any wild creature that falls in their way, yet sharing the game-preserver's hatred of the real poacher. The village poacher as a rule is an idle, dissolute fellow, and the sober, industrious, righteous shepherd or ploughman or carter does not like to be put on a level with such a person. But there is no escape from the hard and fast rule in such things, and however open and truthful he may be in everything else, in this one matter he is obliged to practise a certain amount of deception. Here is a case to serve as an illustration; I have only just heard it, after putting together the material I had collected for this chapter, in conversation with an old shepherd friend of mine.
He is a fine old man who has followed a flock these fifty years, and will, I have no doubt, carry his crook for yet another ten. Not only is he a "good shepherd," in the sense in which Caleb uses that phrase, with a more intimate knowledge of sheep and all the ailments they are subject to than I have found in any other, but he is also a truly religious man, one that "walks with God." He told me this story of a sheep-dog he owned when head-shepherd on a large farm on the Dorsetshire border with a master whose chief delight in life was in coursing hares. They abounded on his land, and he naturally wanted the men employed on the farm to regard them as sacred animals. One day he came out to the shepherd to complain that some one had seen his dog hunting a hare.
The shepherd indignantly asked who had said such a thing.
"Never mind about that," said the farmer. "Is it true?"
"It is a lie," said the shepherd. "My dog never hunts a hare or anything else. 'Tis my belief the one that said that has got a dog himself that hunts the hares and he wants to put the blame on some one else."
"May be so," said the farmer, unconvinced.
Just then a hare made its appearance, coming across the field directly towards them, and either because they never moved or it did not smell them it came on and on, stopping at intervals to sit for a minute or so on its haunches, then on again until it was within forty yards of where they were standing. The farmer watched it approach and at the same time kept an eye on the dog sitting at their feet and watching the hare too, very steadily. "Now, shepherd," said the farmer, "don't you say one word to the dog and I'll see for myself." Not a word did he say, and the hare came and sat for some seconds near them, then limped away out of sight, and the dog made not the slightest movement. "That's all right," said the farmer, well pleased. "I know now 'twas a lie I heard about your dog. I've seen for myself and I'll just keep a sharp eye on the man that told me."
My comment on this story was that the farmer had displayed an almost incredible ignorance of a sheepdog—and a shepherd. "How would it have been if you had said, 'Catch him, Bob,' or whatever his name was?" I asked.
He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and replied, "I do b'lieve he'd ha' got 'n, but he'd never move till I told 'n."