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<h2> CHAPTER VIII </h2>
<h3> SHEPHERDS AND POACHING </h3>
<blockquote>
General remarks on poaching—Farmer, shepherd, and
dog—A sheep-dog that would not hunt—Taking a
partridge from a hawk—Old Gaarge and Young
Gaarge—Partridge-poaching—The shepherd robbed of
his rabbits—Wisdom of Shepherd
Gathergood—Hare-trapping on the down—Hare-taking
with a crook
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The shepherd indignantly asked who had said such a thing.</p>
<p>"Never mind about that," said the farmer. "Is it true?"</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>"May be so," said the farmer, unconvinced.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>It comes to this: the shepherd refuses to believe that by
taking a hare he is robbing any man of his property, and if
he is obliged to tell a lie to save himself from the
consequences he does not consider that it is a lie.</p>
<p>When he understood that I was on his side in this question,
he told me about a good sheep-dog he once possessed which he
had to get rid of because he would not take a hare!</p>
<p>A dog when broken is made to distinguish between the things
he must and must not do. He is "feelingly persuaded" by kind
words and caresses in one case and hard words and hard blows
in the other. He learns that if he hunts hares and rabbits it
will be very bad for him, and in due time, after some
suffering, he is able to overcome this strongest instinct of
a dog. He acquires an artificial conscience. Then, when his
education is finished, he must be made to understand that it
is not quite finished after all—that he must partially
unlearn one of the saddest of the lessons instilled in him.
He must hunt a hare or rabbit when told by his master to do
so. It is a compact between man and dog. Thus, they have got
a law which the dog has sworn to obey; but the man who made
it is above the law and can when he thinks proper command his
servant to break it. The dog, as a rule, takes it all in very
readily and often allows himself more liberty than his master
gives him; the most highly accomplished animal is one that,
like my shepherd's dog in the former instance, will not stir
till he is told. In the other case the poor brute could not
rise to the position; it was too complex for him, and when
ordered to catch a rabbit he could only put his tail between
his legs and look in a puzzled way at his master. "Why do you
tell me to do a thing for which I shall be thrashed?"</p>
<p>It was only after Caleb had known me some time, when we were
fast friends, that he talked with perfect freedom of these
things and told me of his own small, illicit takings without
excuse or explanation.</p>
<p>One day he saw a sparrowhawk dash down upon a running
partridge and struggle with it on the ground. It was in a
grass field, divided from the one he was walking in by a
large, unkept hedge without a gap in it to let him through.
Presently the hawk rose up with the partridge still violently
struggling in its talons, and flew over the hedge to Caleb's
side, but was no sooner over than it came down again and the
struggle went on once more on the ground. On Caleb running to
the spot the hawk flew off, leaving his prey behind. He had
grasped it in its sides, driving his sharp claws well in, and
the partridge, though unable to fly, was still alive. The
shepherd killed it and put it in his pocket, and enjoyed it
very much when he came to eat it.</p>
<p>From this case, a most innocent form of poaching, he went on
to relate how he had once been able to deprive a cunning
poacher and bad man, a human sparrowhawk, of his quarry.</p>
<p>There were two persons in the village, father and son, he
very heartily detested, known respectively as Old Gaarge and
Young Gaarge, inveterate poachers both. They were worse than
the real reprobate who haunted the public-house and did no
work and was not ashamed of his evil ways, for these two were
hypocrites and were outwardly sober, righteous men, who kept
themselves a little apart from their neighbours and were very
severe in their condemnation of other people's faults.</p>
<p>One Sunday morning Caleb was on his way to his ewes folded at
a distance from the village, walking by a hedgerow at the
foot of the down, when he heard a shot fired some way ahead,
and after a minute or two a second shot. This greatly excited
his curiosity and caused him to keep a sharp look-out in the
direction the sounds had come from, and by and by he caught
sight of a man walking towards him. It was Old Gaarge in his
long smock-frock, proceeding in a leisurely way towards the
village, but catching sight of the shepherd he turned aside
through a gap in the hedge and went off in another direction
to avoid meeting him. No doubt, thought Caleb, he has got his
gun in two pieces hidden under his smock. He went on until he
came to a small field of oats which had grown badly and had
only been half reaped, and here he discovered that Old Gaarge
had been lying in hiding to shoot at the partridges that came
to feed. He had been screened from the sight of the birds by
a couple of hurdles and some straw, and there were feathers
of the birds he had shot scattered about. He had finished his
Sunday morning's sport and was going back, a little too late
on this occasion as it turned out.</p>
<p>Caleb went on to his flock, but before getting to it his dog
discovered a dead partridge in the hedge; it had flown that
far and then dropped, and there was fresh blood on its
feathers. He put it in his pocket and carried it about most
of the day while with his sheep on the down. Late in the
afternoon he spied two magpies pecking at something out in
the middle of a field and went to see what they had found. It
was a second partridge which Old Gaarge had shot in the
morning and had lost, the bird having flown to some distance
before dropping. The magpies had probably found it already
dead, as it was cold; they had begun tearing the skin at the
neck and had opened it down to the breast-bone. Caleb took
this bird, too, and by and by, sitting down to examine it, he
thought he would try to mend the torn skin with the needle
and thread he always carried inside his cap. He succeeded in
stitching it neatly up, and putting back the feathers in
their place the rent was quite concealed. That evening he
took the two birds to a man in the village who made a
livelihood by collecting bones, rags, and things of that
kind; the man took the birds in his hand, held them up, felt
their weight, examined them carefully, and pronounced them to
be two good, fat birds, and agreed to pay two shillings for
them.</p>
<p>Such a man may be found in most villages; he calls himself a
"general dealer," and keeps a trap and pony—in some
cases he keeps the ale-house—and is a useful member of
the small, rural community—a sort of human
carrion-crow.</p>
<p>The two shillings were very welcome, but more than the money
was the pleasing thought that he had got the bird shot by the
hypocritical old poacher for his own profit. Caleb had good
cause to hate him. He, Caleb, was one of the shepherds who
had his master's permission to take rabbits on the land, and
having found his snares broken on many occasions he came to
the conclusion that they were visited in the night time by
some very cunning person who kept a watch on his movements.
One evening he set five snares in a turnip field and went
just before daylight next morning in a dense fog to visit
them. Every one was broken! He had just started on his way
back, feeling angry and much puzzled at such a thing, when
the fog all at once passed away and revealed the figures of
two men walking hurriedly off over the down. They were at a
considerable distance, but the light was now strong enough to
enable him to identify Old Gaarge and Young Gaarge. In a few
moments they vanished over the brow. Caleb was mad at being
deprived of his rabbits in this mean way, but pleased at the
same time in having discovered who the culprits were; but
what to do about it he did not know.</p>
<p>On the following day he was with his flock on the down and
found himself near another shepherd, also with his sheep, one
he knew very well, a quiet but knowing old man named Joseph
Gathergood. He was known to be a skilful rabbit-catcher, and
Caleb thought he would go over to him and tell him about how
he was being tricked by the two Gaarges and ask him what to
do in the matter.</p>
<p>The old man was very friendly and at once told him what to
do. "Don't you set no more snares by the hedges and in the
turmots," he said. "Set them out on the open down where no
one would go after rabbits and they'll not find the snares."
And this was how it had to be done. First he was to scrape
the ground with the heel of his boot until the fresh earth
could be seen through the broken turf; then he was to
sprinkle a little rabbit scent on the scraped spot, and plant
his snare. The scent and smell of the fresh earth combined
would draw the rabbits to the spot; they would go there to
scratch and would inevitably get caught if the snare was
properly placed.</p>
<p>Caleb tried this plan with one snare, and on the following
morning found that he had a rabbit. He set it again that
evening, then again, until he had caught five rabbits on five
consecutive nights, all with the same snare. That convinced
him that he had been taught a valuable lesson and that old
Gathergood was a very wise man about rabbits; and he was very
happy to think that he had got the better of his two sneaking
enemies.</p>
<p>But Shepherd Gathergood was just as wise about hares, and, as
in the other case, he took them out on the down in the most
open places. His success was due to his knowledge of the
hare's taste for blackthorn twigs. He would take a good,
strong blackthorn stem or shoot with twigs on it, and stick
it firmly down in the middle of a large grass field or on the
open down, and place the steel trap tied to the stick at a
distance of a foot or so from it, the trap concealed under
grass or moss and dead leaves. The smell of the blackthorn
would draw the hare to the spot, and he would move round and
round nibbling the twigs until caught.</p>
<p>Caleb never tried this plan, but was convinced that
Gathergood was right about it.</p>
<p>He told me of another shepherd who was clever at taking hares
in another way, and who was often chaffed by his
acquaintances on account of the extraordinary length of his
shepherd's crook. It was like a lance or pole, being twice
the usual length. But he had a use for it. This shepherd used
to make hares' forms on the downs in all suitable places,
forming them so cunningly that no one seeing them by chance
would have believed they were the work of human hands. The
hares certainly made use of them. When out with his flock he
would visit these forms, walking quietly past them at a
distance of twenty to thirty feet, his dog following at his
heels. On catching sight of a hare crouching in a form he
would drop a word, and the dog would instantly stand still
and remain fixed and motionless, while the shepherd went on
but in a circle so as gradually to approach the form.
Meanwhile the hare would keep his eyes fixed on the dog,
paying no attention to the man, until by and by the long
staff would be swung round and a blow descend on the poor,
silly head from the opposite side, and if the blow was not
powerful enough to stun or disable the hare, the dog would
have it before it got many yards from the cosy nest prepared
for its destruction.</p>
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