Cunning Cock Pheasants
No bird is more artful than an old cock pheasant, or better able to take care of himself. At this season a solitary cock may be observed night after night roosting in some isolated tree, out in the wind-swept fields, and far from the sheltered coverts. Yet you may hunt this bird all day, high and low, in vain. When, on the way home, you pass his dark form on a lonely perch, you feel he deserves to rest in peace. Sometimes the old cock is over-cunning, or too confident in the safety of his retreat. He may allow one to approach within a few feet, although he certainly heard footsteps in time to make his escape. A certain keeper can tell many tales of the inglorious ends of his cunning cock pheasants, but most of these episodes are better forgotten.
A Dish of Greens
Winter flocks of pigeons are here to-day and gone to-morrow, travelling far in search of food. If they find little or no beech-mast or acorns, they are forced early in winter to a diet of salad. It must be a relief to the wandering hosts when they come to a place where acorns are in plenty. In hard winters, turnips supply a great part of wood-pigeons' food; and it used to be held that from this food their flesh acquired too pronounced a flavour, so that nice judges, who at other times thought them a delicate dish, would reject them. One old-time sportsman held that the green leaves of turnips gave a peculiar and very palatable flavour to the flesh of larks and partridges. In this connection we always think of the story told by Gilbert White of a neighbour who shot a ring-dove as it was returning from feed and going to roost. "When his wife had picked and drawn it, she found its craw stuffed with the most nice and tender tops of turnips. These she washed and boiled, and so sat down to a choice and delicate plate of greens, culled and provided in this extraordinary manner."
Christmas Shoots
Shooting parties in the week following Christmas have a festive air. As at the hall, so in the keeper's cottage, the air is charged with the Christmas spirit. Ten o'clock on any morning soon after Christmas Day may find the keeper entertaining a crowd of beaters at the expense of his own private cellar, and the good things from the cellar are served hot and spiced. In hats and caps are seasonable tokens—sprigs of mistletoe and holly. The keeper himself does not wear button-holes, but should his children make a garland of holly for the collar of his old retriever, he will leave it for the brambles to pull away. The guns turn up late—they have been dancing through the night; when all are met, in the brief greetings, in the distribution of cartridge-bags, and in the inquiries about weather and the possible bag, there is a note of unusual cheeriness.
Woodcock Talk
At a Boxing Day shooting-lunch the talk among the guns was upon the ways and wiles of woodcock. One spoke of his long bill, with its sensitive nerves, which tell the bird what he has found when the bill forages among the dead leaves; speculating as to whether he lived by his powers of suction only. Another wondered if the eating qualities of woodcock legs were really improved by pulling out the sinews. The question arose: Is the man who shoots a woodcock entitled to its pen-feathers, or is the man who first finds and secures those delicate trophies best entitled to stick them in the band of his hat? Woodcock provoked many controversies. Is there any secret in the proper roasting of them? Would the law absolve a man who shot his fellow when shooting 'cock?—and would the fact that he shot his bird as well as his man make any difference? How many people could swear to have seen the mother woodcock carrying her young; and exactly how does she carry them? How many of the home-bred birds leave us in autumn? What proportion of woodcock comes in from abroad, and what is the difference between the foreigners and the genuine Britishers? In answer to the last question, a suggestion was made that the foreign birds were large and light in colour, but the British birds small and dark. Around this point arose a discussion, and the keeper was called in to give his opinion. "It ain't nothin' at all to do with Englishmen and foreigners," he said. "It be whether they be cocks or hens, and 'tis the large light uns that be the hens."
Spare the Hens
Most gamekeepers hold the killing of a hen pheasant after Christmas to be a moral crime. And perhaps most genuine sportsmen feel a twinge of the conscience when they pull a trigger at a hen in New Year days—irrespective of the host's permission. Of course, when the orders are to spare hens, the man who kills or even tries to kill one does something that the keeper will not forget—he loses caste for ever in the keeper's eyes; whereas the man who is not greedy to take advantage of an impromptu permission to shoot hens ensures for himself a niche in the keeper's good graces.
It is true, there are hens and hens. Only a churlish keeper would not admire the man who stops one of those skyscraping hens, of the sort bagged by ordinary gunners about once in a lifetime. But the order, "Shoot hens if they are real tall ones," alarms a keeper—unless he has full confidence in the guns of a party. When the word has been given, it is wonderful how many hens are "real tall ones." There are excuses which must be accepted: for in certain conditions of light, when the golden moment for pressing the trigger is within grasp, it is almost impossible to distinguish hens from cocks—length of tail is then the most reliable evidence.
We remember a knowing old keeper who laid a plot to ensure at least a merry start to a Christmas shoot, when "Cocks only" was the order of the day. This worthy, when catching up birds for his pens, had gathered together some twenty superfluous cocks. These, a dishevelled and more or less tailless crew, he carried just before starting-time to a dell thick with spruce, chosen doubtless for decency's sake: and on a plausible pretext lined out his guns between the dell and a wood. But he forgot there was no natural inducement to the birds to fly in the face of evident danger—and all the birds broke away out of gunshot, and so suddenly as to make their recent history all too evident.
A Free-and-Easy
Boxing Day, in many parts, remains a regulation fixture for rabbit-shooting by tenants, local tradesmen, keepers, and their friends. Nobody could possibly appreciate the exciting nature of these shoots unless present in person. It is safer to be present only in spirit. Otherwise, shot-proof cover becomes the most desirable thing in the world: and it often seems a wonder how more than one man can survive the day to count the bag. Talking to a tenant-farmer on such an occasion, we noticed that his hands were covered with warts, and suggested remedies. "They b'aint woorts, bless ye—they be only shots," came a proud answer—the honourable wounds of many rabbit-shooting campaigns.
At another tenant-and-tradesman shoot we found the guns unduly plentiful—there were twenty to begin with, and the party grew as the day wore on. But all of a sudden there was a magic disappearance of a large proportion of sportsmen, corresponding with the appearance of an important-looking individual, who calmly went to the man next to us, and relieved him of his piece and cartridges, which he began to use in a liberal fashion. Gradually, the original gunners reappeared—mostly from fir-trees. And it transpired that they were gunners without licences—who had taken courage when they saw the local officer of the law stretching a point himself. One, bolder than the others, made an appeal to the law for a ruling on the licensing question—and was informed that notice must be given of the imminent use of the gun, in order that the law's representative might have time to look the other way.
A Keeper's Ghost-Story
The gamekeeper, perhaps, believes less in ghosts than other countrymen. He is not afraid to keep vigil in the loneliest wood, though well known to be haunted by a headless spectre. He carries a gun and his dog is at heel, so it may be that the ghosts are afraid of the keeper. We know a house where great alarm was caused by the ghostly ringing of bells. Watches were set, and one watcher after another made report of a flitting figure, clad in white, that roamed the corridors. At last the keeper was called in to deal with the ghost. He took up his watch, his trusty gun, loaded with buckshot, in his hand. "There I bid," he relates, "till jest on twelve o'clock—when all of a sudden the old baize door at the end of the stone passage opens, of its own accord like, and in slips the ghost. I ups wi' m' gun, and I sez, 'Be you the ghost?' sez I. 'And if ye moves,' sez I, 'I shoots.' Three times I speaks, gruffer and gruffer each time. And then I makes a rush for the ghost—wot turns out arter all to be Mary the 'ouse-maid." "What did you do with Mary?" we asked the story-teller. "Lor' love ye, I took and married 'er out o' the way."
This same keeper let us into the secret of his shattered faith in ghosts. As a young man he and a fellow under-keeper had been told off to watch the carriage-drive for night poachers. In a jocular moment the head-keeper warned them not to be afraid if they should see the estate ghost—the headless body of an old coachman driving a pair of galloping horses harnessed to a hearse. Naturally, the two young keepers, as the night wore on, fell to talking about the headless apparition. Presently, sure enough, hoofs were heard, and a hearse came lumbering down the drive. The watchers crouched low in the heap of dead bracken in which they were hidden. Asked, an hour later, if they had seen the poachers, "No," they said bravely; "we only saw the old fellow without a head, driving his hearse." "Well," said the head-keeper, chuckling, "if you'd looked inside his hearse you would have found it full of corpses—rabbits' corpses! Me and Bill, we ketched the ghost, whiles he was drinking your 'ealth."
Old Friends in Velveteen
Many gamekeepers we have known. Looking back down the years we can summon to view a serried regiment of the servants of sport; large men and small, rough and gentle, brown-clad men, some in velveteen, others in rough tweed, most of them in stout leggings, all with the keen eyes of watchmen, bronzed by the sun, beaten by the weather; good men and true, every man of them. The best of them are strong, upright, fearless, full of confidence; men who neither beg favours nor grant them; set their own standards; keep their own counsels; take no false oaths, whatever the provocation of the poacher; who, in preserving game, have no enmity against other living creatures; who are all-round sportsmen and lovers of fair play. At the end of the long line, farthest from view yet most distinct, stands an old man with silver hair, with light blue eyes, and a face kindly, yet sharp as a hawk's, the keeper who was first to show us how to hold a gun.
Many fine stories this old man would tell, leaning over a gate, gun in hand, of Master this and Master that, uncles and such-like, even then old men to a boy's eyes, yet still called, by the older keeper, by their familiar names. "I mind the time," he would begin, his eyes twinkling: and then he would ramble off into the history of some wild affray with gipsies or with poachers, enough to make a boy's hair stand on end.
One time that often came to his mind was when Master Charles plagued the life out of him to be taken, at night, through a bedroom window, by way of a ladder, on a hunt for poachers; and how at last he yielded to entreaty, though it was as much as his place was worth if Master Charles's guardian got wind of the affair. So he chose a bright moon-lit night, when he was tolerably certain that no poachers would venture forth; whistled beneath Master Charles's window, upraised a ladder, and got the young gentleman safely to ground, in nothing more than nightshirt, greatcoat, and bedroom slippers. Off they went together, and it was the keeper's heart that beat fastest. Arrived in the Long Walk, what should they see but two poachers with bows and arrows, shooting the pheasants in their sleep. The keeper's first idea was to send the young master back to bed; but he was not to be denied this grand adventure: and with a yell and a bound he was among the poachers before the keeper could say Jack Robinson. It was a desperate affair, not only for the poachers, but more particularly for the gamekeeper; but he still lives to tell the tale, with ever more wonderful variations.
The Converted Shepherd
A favourite story of another old friend tells how he found the cure for a notorious poacher. It was in the days before the Ground Game Act, and a farmer had complained, as well he might, of rabbits that had cleared every blade of a field of oats, and were beginning to attack some wheat in the next field. The keeper set many traps and wires. His cottage was a long way from the wheat-field: but the cottage of the poacher, a shepherd, was near at hand. Knowing that the shepherd would in any case keep an eye on the captured rabbits, the keeper went to him, and frankly invited him to remove all those caught overnight, and keep them safe until he should come himself in the morning. The keeper, of course, could tell where a rabbit had been caught; and no doubt the shepherd knew this, for he delivered up each night's catch to a rabbit. And he confessed, at the end of a week's campaign, that the confidence placed in him so unexpectedly had broken his heart of its love of poaching for ever.
A Final Story
All keepers are shamed when sportsmen go home from their preserves with empty bags. To have in a party a shooter "who never shot noth'n' all day long" reacts on the keeper's fame. We noticed that a crafty keeper friend would always scheme to place an old colonel well forward of the line of guns; and as the colonel was never seen to add to the bag, we asked for an explanation. "Well, ye see, it be like this 'ere," came the answer. "I knows as 'e can't shoot, and 'e knows it; but I knows and 'e knows that if 'e be put forward 'e be likely to get a shot at a rabbit what's stopped to think. And 'e knows that I knows that 'e will pay somethink 'andsome when 'e can go 'ome an' tell 'is missus as 'ow 'e ain't bin an' disgraced 'isself agin. So I puts 'im forward; and every time 'e shoots a rabbit what's stopped to think, it reminds 'e of I."
Careful Wives
With many gamekeepers we have known many gamekeepers' wives. Strong-minded, capable women as they are, most keepers are wise enough to regard them as Ministers of Finance, religiously handing over all their gain in coins. A shilling a week, perhaps, is handed back again by way of pocket-money, besides an allowance of 'baccy, out of housekeeping funds. We have known more than one keeper who never would have had a shilling had it not been for his wife; and we have known more than one keeper's wife who would never fail to keep her hand on every shilling that her good-man brought home.
"What Her was Like"
One old friend, old Henry, made up his mind to revolt against his wife's cupidity. Coming home one winter night after a shoot, at which he had been so lucky as to pocket a couple of pounds, the temptation to conceal them from his good dame was irresistible. He buried the coins beside an old ash-stump in one of his woods—well beyond scenting distance from his cottage. He knew from many a past experience that if he left a farthing in his pockets overnight it would be gone before morning. That night no sleep came to him. His conscience was troubled. He turned and tossed; as his good-wife put it, "He carried on like, so as he couldn't sleep hisself, nor wouldn't let I." At last the good woman, who had drawn his pockets in vain, put a straight question: "'Enry," said she, "what be up with 'ee?" Then 'Enry confessed: he told how he had buried two pounds beside the ash-stump. And then the two of them rose, in the middle of that winter night, and walked out into the wood until they stumbled on the ash-stump, and they dug until they found the money. As poor Henry used to say, in days when no good-wife remained to take his gains, "That'll tell ye a little what her was like."