Studies in the Art of Rat-catching Part 3

I trust that, in the five chapters I have written, I have said enough to give some of my scholars a slight taste and liking for the profession I am advocating, and in some small degree have weaned their young affections from such pernicious pastimes as studying cla.s.sical authors, doing sums, and cutting their names on their desks. If I have not done this I have written to little purpose, and I fear the next chapter will damp off a few who have only followed me and my dogs on fine days in pleasant paths; but I may as well tell you at once that life is no more all beer and skittles in rat-catching than it is in such minor professions as the Army, the Church, the Bar, school-keeping, etc.; and just to see if you are "real grit," boys, I will show you another picture.

Jack, get the ferrets while I let the dogs out. We _must_ go and see if we can find a few rats, for it is a week since the ferrets had flesh, and we shall have them getting ill; and, Jack, bring four in the little bag, and put that inside your game-bag, for it looks like rain, and I don't like to see them half-drowned. Yes, it does look like rain, though as yet it is only a dull, misty, chilly day in mid-November down here in the country, but in London it is a thick black fog, and all work is being done by gaslight. It is bad and depressing here, but ever so much worse there; so cheer up, dogs, and step out, Jack. We will go down by the beck and home by the clay-pits, for I know of no other place near where we are so likely to find a few rats, and I don't want to make a long day of it.

Go over the bridge, Jack. You take that side with Chance and a young one, and I will do this side with the other dogs. Hie in, dogs! Search him out, lads! And on we go, but in two miles we only kill a water-hen that Pepper catches as it rises out of some sedges, and which goes into my bag to replenish the ferrets' larder. The mist hangs low, the bushes are wet, the ground soft, and there is a dreary sigh in the wind. The cattle are eating fast, as they always do before rain; and the sheep, startled by the sight of the dogs, caper and jump as they gallop all down the meadow; and again their playfulness warns me of a wet tramp home. Some young colts stand at the door of an open shed, dull and depressed looking, and the horses ploughing on the sides of the hill send up a thick steam. No birds twitter or sing, no insects hum, distant sounds are m.u.f.fled and indistinct. The teams in the waggons on the road hard by creep along and take little notice beyond a toss of the head at the carter's whip as he walks beside them with a heavy step cracking it.

The only brisk thing to be seen is the doctor's gig as it whisks past.

"Hie up, dogs! shake yourselves and don't go to sleep! Come over, Jack; I have had enough of this brook; and if we don't find at the clay-pits, home we go." And we trudge off to some ponds half a mile further away.

They are well-known to both men and dogs, and the latter bolt on ahead and arrive first; and when we come up we find them all cl.u.s.tered round a hole in a high bank 'midst thick dripping bushes. In goes a ferret, but not in the way I like to see. There is no hurry, no ecstatic wriggle of the tail as it slowly draws itself into the hole. Then all stand round expecting to see a rat take a header into the pond; but no, five minutes pa.s.s, and Pepper begins to move, and is told to "stand." Ten minutes pa.s.s, and Jack gets restless. Fifteen minutes, and I begin to s.h.i.+ft my feet, which are planted deep in sticky mud by the side of the pond, and just then the first drops of rain appear. Ah, there is the ferret! Jump up and get it, Jack. But before he can do so, it has drawn itself into the hole backwards, which means that it has killed a rat inside and that it only came out to tell us so, and that it was going back to have a good long sound sleep curled up by the rat's warm body. There is nothing for it but to dig it out; and oh, what a dig, all among roots and thorns on the sloping sides of the pond, in thick sticky clay, with the rain coming down in a steady pour! Jack hunches his back and leans against a tree, Pepper and Wasp wander away down a ditch and scratch for an hour at a drain that has a rabbit in it, and the old dogs sit and watch me and drip and s.h.i.+ver. I dig here, I dig there; I slip and fall on the bank; the water mixed with yellow clay runs up my arm from the spade, and yet that beastly ferret sleeps peacefully in its warm bed. I lose the hole, come down on roots as thick as my leg and stones that strike fire as the spade strikes them; and so two hours of discomfort to all drift by, and I am just feeling about for the last time with the spike end of the spade, when I again hit off the hole and, opening it out, come upon a nice warm rat's nest made of leaves, with the ferret curled up snugly with a dead rat.

"Home, dogs, home! Cheer up, Jack! Cold are you, and wet? Well, never mind; only two miles, and we will walk fast. Pepper, Pepper, Wasp, Wasp, where on earth have you got to? Ah, there you are, and a nice mess you have made of yourselves trying to scratch out a hole five hundred yards long. Come along all!" And off we tramp, Jack and I in the middle of the road, splish splash at every step, the water squirting high up our gaitered legs, and the dogs, with drooping tails, dripping coats and woe-begone looks, coming along behind us in Indian file close under the shelter, such as it is, of the hedge.

We pa.s.s the postman, who only nods, and meet a flock of sheep all draggled and dirty. An empty cart with a sack over the seat stands at the pot-house, and pigs wander listlessly about the yard with their backs arched up. Under the waggon-shed some c.o.c.ks and hens stand each on one leg, with their tails drooping, apparently too disgusted to prune their feathers and fly up to roost in the rafters. The smoke beats down from the chimneys and gets lost in the wind and rain which buffets and pelts at our back. Cold spots begin to be felt at the bend of our arms and knees; then a s.h.i.+ver runs down the back, which developes into a trickle of water that at last gets into our boots and goes squish, squish, at every step, and at last oozes over the tops; and our teeth chatter with cold, for now here and there among the rain-drops appear a few flakes of snow, which rest on the mud of the road for a second, and then melting, add to the deep slush that trickles down the hill by our side. At every open shed the dogs shelter a minute, shake themselves like dripping mops, and with arched backs stand on three legs and s.h.i.+ver; but we whistle them on and at last reach home. After throwing a good bundle of dry straw on the kennel benches and feeding dogs and ferrets, Jack and I get under shelter and soon find ourselves in dry clothes before a good fire, feeling a little swollen and stiff about our faces and hands, and much inclined for forty winks.

The wind howls in the chimney, lashes the bare branches of the trees, rattles the window frames, and appears angry that it cannot get at us, and the rain drives in fitful gusts against the windows, and hisses in the big wood fire on the hearth; and as I sit in my snug arm-chair, I dimly feel that the external storm adds greatly to the internal comfort, and then I fancy I nod off to sleep, for I think no more till supper is announced, and hunger and my wife stir me up to consciousness again.

Having finished a good supper and got my pipe drawing beautifully, I remember one or two things that I think the student should be told. The first is, never put a line on a ferret when _ratting_. It hampers a ferret in a narrow, twisting, turning rat's hole, and cutting into the soft earth at the turns soon brings the ferret to a dead stop. Then rats' holes are chiefly in hedge-banks, which are full of roots, and the line is pretty sure to get twisted round some of these, and then it will be a long dig to free it. Remember, too, a ferret has to go down the hole and face a beast nearly as big as itself, with teeth like lancets and with courage to use them, and so should be as free as possible; and lining a ferret is about equal to setting a student with the gloves on to fight against another without them. Then some way back I mentioned ferrets' bells. They are little hollow bra.s.s b.a.l.l.s with an iron shot in them that make a pretty tinkling sound, and are supposed to be tied round the ferret's neck. In my opinion, if you put a bell on it, you may as well put the ferret in the bag and keep it there. The theory about bells is, that a ferret running down a hole jingling its bell will fill a rat with fear and make it bolt, but this is all nonsense; rats are not so easily frightened. Again, it is said that if a ferret comes out of a hole in a thick hedge unseen, the bell will let you know where it is; but I must say I never lost a ferret in a hedge or felt the want of a belled one. I consider a bell a useless dead weight on a ferret, and the cord that goes round its neck to fasten it is apt to get hitched on to a root and hold the ferret a prisoner. A bell is only good for a sharp shopman to sell to a flat.

I need hardly say, never muzzle a ferret when rat-catching. It would be brutal not to let the ferret have the use of its teeth to protect itself with. Muzzling ferrets appertains solely to rabbiting, but it is useful to know how to do it. Take a piece of twine a foot long, double it, and tie a loop at the double. Tie the string round the ferret's neck, with the loop on the top; bring the two ends down under the chin and tie them together there; pa.s.s them over the nose and tie them there, shutting the mouth tight; pa.s.s _one_ string along the nose, between the eyes, through the loop on the top of the neck, and bending it back, tie it to the other loose string from the knot on the top of the nose. Cut the ends off, and, provided you have not made a lot of "granny" knots, your muzzle will keep on all day. There are other ways of doing the trick, such as pa.s.sing the string behind the ferret's dogteeth, bring it under the jaw, then over the nose, on the top of the neck; tie it there and again under the neck. I hate this plan, and have seen a ferret's mouth badly cut by the string. I have heard of another plan which is too brutal to mention. Cut the muzzle off directly you have done with it, for I don't suppose a ferret likes having its mouth tied up any more than you or I should.

Never wantonly hurt any animal, especially those that work for you and suffer in your service. Just think of the amount of pluck a ferret shows each time you put it into a rat's hole. Fancy yourself in its place, going down a lot of dark crooked pa.s.sages that you don't know, only just wide enough to allow you to pa.s.s, and have to face a beast somewhat like yourself and as big, that you know will attack you. Why, if ferrets got V.C.'s, they would, on high days and holidays when they wished to display them all, have to employ a string of sandwich-men walking behind them with the boards covered with V.C. Three or four times in my life I have had ferrets die of the wounds they have received from rats. I have had them in hospital for weeks, and I have had them blinded. Speaking of blind ferrets, I am not much of an oculist, but I don't believe a ferret can see in the dark. I never could find any difference between the way my blind ferret worked in a hole and that of one with good eyes; in fact, my blind ferret was as good a little beast as ever killed a rat, and she did kill many a score after she lost both eyes. I believe a ferret when in a hole uses a sense we don't possess--I mean the sense of touch with the long nose whiskers.

Some years ago the _Field_ opened its pages to a long discussion on the subject of ferrets sucking the blood of their victims after they have killed them. Writers pretending to know all about it said they did do so. These men are to be pitied, not laughed at, for you see in the days of their youth "Rat-catching for the Use of Schools" was not written, and therefore they had not learnt better. A ferret no more sucks the blood of the things it kills than a dog does. If you doubt this, give a fresh-killed rat to a ferret, let it fasten on it, and then peep at the corners of its mouth, and you will find an opening there into the mouth, out of which blood would flow if the ferret had it in its mouth; and look down its throat, you will not find blood in it, nor will there be blood on the portion of the rat that has been held in its mouth. No, people are misled by a ferret sending its teeth deep home in the flesh and making a sucking sound as it with difficulty breathes through its nose and the corners of its mouth. If you watch a ferret after it has killed a rat, it will, as soon as it is sure the rat is dead, begin chewing at the skin of the head or throat till it has made an entrance, and will then eat the flesh.

To finish this chapter, I will tell you a story which you are never to put into practice. Some long time ago I found myself far from home in a country village, and having nothing to do, I went for a walk, and soon came upon a brother professional rat-catcher; and thinking I might learn a wrinkle from him that would come in useful, I joined him and carefully watched him and his dogs. I saw at once that three of the latter were very good and up to their work; but there was a fourth, a nondescript sort of beast with a long tail, that appeared quite useless; and I observed with amus.e.m.e.nt that directly the man put a ferret into a hole, the dog tucked its tail tight between its legs and went and stood well out in the field. I asked the man why he kept such a useless beast, and with a chuckle he answered, "Well, mate, I'll own up he ain't much to boast on for rat-killing, nor yet for looks, but he has his use like some other of we h-ugly ones. You see, sir, I've got one or two ferrets as won't come out of a 'ole, but stand a peeping at the h-entrance and waste a lot of time. Then that 'ere dawg comes in useful. I catches him, lifts him up, and sticks his bushy tail down to the ferret, who catches tight hold, and I draws it out. Nothing ain't made for nothing, and I expect that dawg was made for drawing ferrets." The man may have been right, but I was quite sure the unfortunate dog did not take an active pleasure in his vocation.

There, young gentlemen, if you have well digested that chapter and forgotten the story at the end, you can put up your books and form up for your usual walk to the second milestone and back again; but before leaving, let me point out to you, Croker, minor, that if that caricature I have observed you drawing behind your book is meant for _me_, it is, like most things you do, incorrect; my nose is not so long, and I part my hair on the left side, not the right.

CHAPTER VII.

Rat-catching and rabbit-catching are two distinct professions, but the greater part of the stock-in-trade that serves for one will answer for the other, and it is as well for the professional to be master of what I think I may call both branches of his business. A rat-catcher who did nothing but kill rats and refused a day's work with the rabbits would be like a medical man who would cut off limbs but would not give a pill, or a captain of a sailing-vessel who would not go to sea in a steamer; besides in these days it is the fas.h.i.+on to jumble up half a dozen businesses under one head and name. Just look at what the engineer does.

Why, he is nowhere if he is not (besides being ready, as the engineer of the old school, to make railways, etc.) a chemist, an electrician, a diplomat, a lawyer, a financier and a contractor, and even sometimes an honest man. If you are not in the fas.h.i.+on you are left behind as an old fogey, and so in this chapter we will discuss the art of rabbit-catching; and I trust all schoolmasters will furnish you, their students, with the opportunity of putting in practice in the field what you learn from this book at your desks.

Well, now for the requirements. We have got the dogs, we have got the ferrets, spade, bag, etc.; but for rabbiting we must have a much more costly stock-in-trade if we are to do a big business. We shall require an ordinary gardener's spade for digging in soft sandy ground, where the rabbit burrows sometimes go in for yards, and as much as ten feet deep down; also another spade, longer in the blade than our ratting one, the sides more turned in, and with a handle ten feet long, with a steel hook at the end instead of a spike. With this spade we can sink down many feet after the hole is too deep for the ordinary spade, and the turned in sides will hold the soft earth and allow you to bring it to the surface. If you dig down on the top of a rabbit--as you will do when you know your work--the hook at the end will enable you to draw first it and then the ferret up by the string. We must have a piece of strong light supple cord, marked by a piece of red cloth drawn through the strands at every yard, so that one can tell exactly how far in the ferret is; and it is as well to have a second shorter cord for work in stiff heavy ground, where the holes are never deep. Next, we must have two or three dozen purse-nets, which are circular, about two feet in diameter, with a string rove round the outside mesh fastened to a peg. These are for covering over bolt holes to bag a rabbit when driven out by the ferrets.

The nets should be made of the very best string, so as to be as light and fine as possible. The mesh should be just large enough to allow a rabbit's head to pa.s.s through.

Like the postscript to a lady's letter, the chief item I have saved till the last, and I fear it will be some time before the ordinary rabbit-catcher will be able to afford it. I refer to long nets, which are used for running round or across a piece of covert to catch the rabbits as they are bustled about by the dogs. A rabbit-catcher in full swing should have from eight hundred to a thousand yards of this, for with a good long net he will often kill as many rabbits in a few hours as he could do with the ferrets in a week.

I myself keep no special dog for rabbit-catching, chiefly because I have a neighbour who will always let me have a cunning old lurcher that he keeps, which is as good as gold, and as clever as a lawyer, and desperately fond of a day with me and my dogs.

I have three male ferrets, real monsters, strong enough to trot down a burrow and drag five or six yards of line after them with ease.

Having described all the tools, etc., necessary for work, I will now jot down, as an exercise for you students, a nice easy day's rabbiting that actually took place a few weeks ago--a sort of day that quite a young beginner might work with success. There had been a sharp rime frost in the night, which still hung about in shady spots at eight o'clock in the morning, as Jack and I marched off with my dogs and ferrets, accompanied by old Fly, the lurcher. By nine a.m. we began working field hedge-rows and banks, where rabbits were pretty plentiful and had been established for years in every description of burrow. There had been a lot of partridge and other shooting going on over this farm for the last month, and most of the rabbits had got a dislike to sitting out in the open, and were under ground, so we began at the burrows at once, the dogs driving every rabbit that was sitting out in the hedge back to their burrows as we walked along. We began work in a stiff clay bank far too hard for the rabbits to make deep holes in, and here we got on fast. I took the ditch side--in fact, I took the ditch itself--with a big ferret with a short line on, and I ran it into each hole I came to. Jack on the other side looked out for the bolt holes, and always laid down a little to one side, as much as possible out of sight, but with a hand just on the bank over the hole ready to catch a bolting rabbit. Fly and the other dogs took charge of the other holes, and all kept as quiet as possible. In went the ferret, slowly dragging the line after him till I count two yards gone by the red marks on the line; then there is a halt for half a minute, then a loud rumbling and the line is pulled fast through my fingers. Jack moves quickly, and the next instant a rabbit is thrown a little way out into the field with its neck broken. Jack says, "Ferret out," then picks it up, draws the line through the hole, pa.s.ses the ferret over to me, and we go on to the next, having filled up the entrance of the hole we have just worked. Hole after hole was ferreted much in the same way. Sometimes Jack bagged the bolting rabbit, sometimes the dogs, and now and then one bolted and got into the hedge before it could be caught and went back, but it was little use, for the dogs with Fly at their head were soon after it, and in a few minutes Fly was sure to have it, and would retrieve it back to Jack.

As we worked round a big field, we got into softer ground, a red sand and soil mixed; and here the holes were much deeper and often ran through the bank and out for yards under ground into the next field.

Here Jack and I changed places, Jack doing the ferreting, and I going to his side with the garden spade. One, two, three, four, five yards the ferret went and stopped, and all was quiet. I listen, but not a sound.

Jack pulls gently on the line and finds it tight, and for a minute we wait, hoping a rabbit may bolt from the hole the ferret went in at. But no such luck. I take the small ratting-spade, and with the spike end feel into the ground at the foot of the bank, and at once come upon the hole; this I open out and clear of earth, and Jack, who has crept through the hedge, kneels down and finds the line pa.s.sing this hole in the direction of the field and going downwards. At that moment there is a sound like very distant thunder, and the line is pulled quickly four yards further into the hole, and the marks show six yards are in. I go about this distance out into the field, lie down and place my ear close to the ground. I s.h.i.+ft about in all directions listening intently, and at last hear a faint thudding sound. I s.h.i.+ft again a few inches in this direction, and lose it; in that, and recover it; again a few inches, and the sound is directly under my head, but pretty deep down. I take the big spade and open out a hole a yard square, and dig down as far as I can reach. I get into the hole and sink deeper. I have to enlarge it a foot all round to get room, and then I dig down again till only my head appears above ground when I stand up. Then I take the long spade, and with that sink two more feet, and plump I come on the top of the hole, and the ferret shoves a sand-covered head up and looks at me. I reverse the long spade and catch the line with the hook and pull the ferret up, and then calling Jack, I send him head first into the well-like pit, holding on to one of his feet myself as I lie flat on the ground to allow him to go deep enough. In a minute a dead rabbit is taken out and two live ones, whose necks Jack breaks as he hangs suspended, and then I pull him up with his plunder, and he rights himself on the surface, very red in the face, very sandy, spluttering and rubbing his eyes. Then the ferret is swung down again by the line, it goes a little way into the hole and returns, and so we know we have made a clean sweep. The big hole is filled up and stamped down, and after filling a pipe and resting a few minutes, on we go with our work.

On the high sandy part of the field we have several deep digs like the above, with varying success, and we rejoice when we reach the last side of the field and get into clay again, where holes are short and most of the rabbits bolt at once. During all the day we only stopped once for half-an-hour to get a snack of bread and cheese, and by the time the c.o.c.k partridges began to call their families together for roost, and the teams in the next field to knock off ploughing, we are all, man, boy, dogs and ferrets, fairly tired, and are glad to tumble seventeen couple of rabbits into the keeper's cart that has been sent out for them, and trudge off home ourselves.

Now for another day's sport that was quite different. No dogs with us, only a bag of ready-muzzled ferrets, a bundle of purse nets and a spade.

Success will depend on perfect quiet, and even the patter of the dogs'

feet would spoil our sport, so they are at home for once, and Jack and I are alone. It is one of those soft mild dull days that now and then appear in mid-winter, a sort of day to gladden the heart of foxhunters and doctors, and to make wiseacres shake their heads and say "most unseasonable." It is a good day for Jack and me, and we feel confident as we steal into a plantation of tall spruce firs, placed so thick on the ground that beneath them is perpetual twilight, and not a blade of gra.s.s or bramble to hide the thick carpet of needle points. Softly we creep forward to a lot of burrows we know of in the corner of the wood, and then I go forward alone and spread a net loosely over every hole, firmly pegging it down by the cord. This done I stand quietly down-wind of the holes, and Jack comes and slips the six ferrets all into different holes, and then crouches down on his knees. All is quiet; only the whisperings of the tree-tops, the occasional chirp of a bird, or the rustle of a mouse in the dead leaves. Five minutes pa.s.s, and then out dashes a rabbit into a net, which draws up round it. Jack moves forward on tip-toe, kills the rabbit and takes it out of the net, and covers the hole again. While he is doing this, three more rabbits have bolted and got netted, one has escaped, and a ferret has come out. The captured ones are killed, the ferret sent into another hole, and for an hour this work goes on, and during all the time neither of us have spoken, for we know there is nothing that scares wild animals more than the human voice, unless it is the jingle of metals, such as a bunch of keys rattling. They dread the human voice because they have had too much experience of it, and the rattle of metal because they have not had experience enough of it, for it is a sound they have never heard, and nothing like, in the quiet woods and fields. On the other hand, animals pay but little attention to a whistle, for in one shape or another they are constantly hearing it from their feathered companions.

But to go back to our netting. An hour over, we pick up the ferrets as they come out and bag them, and then I go off to some fresh holes and spread the nets again, and we repeat the same performance; and during the day we kill, without any digging or hard work, about twenty-two couple of rabbits. In the above account I have written of a day's sport that took place in a fir plantation in a little village in Norfolk, where it would have been madness to work the ferrets without muzzling them, for they would have been sure to kill some rabbits in the holes and then have laid up; but I should mention that I have killed many rabbits in the same way on the Cotswold Hills in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, and I was much astonished when I first got there to find men who thoroughly understood their business working their ferrets under nets without muzzling them. I adopted the plan myself, and have rarely had a ferret kill a rabbit underground. For some reason that I could never find out, a Cotswold rabbit will always bolt from a hole with a ferret in if it can. It is well known in Norfolk that if a rabbit is run into a hole by dogs, you may ferret it if you like, but it will never bolt, and it must be dug out. But in Gloucesters.h.i.+re I have seen the same rabbit bolt out of a hole, get shot at, be run by dogs, go to ground, and again bolt at once from a ferret. Few professionals ever use a line on a ferret on the Cotswold, one reason being that the burrows are nearly all in rocky ground, and there would be danger of the line being caught in the numerous cracks; besides it is not required, for a rabbit there is sure to bolt, and for this reason it is twice as easy to kill rabbits in Gloucesters.h.i.+re as it is in Norfolk, especially in the sandy or soft soil of the latter county.

Let me here beg of all my readers, especially students, never to keep a poor rabbit alive in their hands a second. I don't suppose any who read this book could be so unsportsmanlike and brutal as to keep a rabbit alive to course and torture over again with dogs, or for the fun of shooting at the poor little beast. Such ruffians should never be allowed a day's sport on a _gentleman's_ property. They are only fit to go out mole-catching. No, directly you have a live rabbit in your hand, take it by its hind legs with your right hand, and the head with your left, with two fingers under its face; with these fingers turn the head back, and give the rabbit a smart quick stretch, and in an instant all its sufferings are over. Never hit it with your hand or a stick behind the ears: first, because you are not quite sure to kill it with the first blow; and secondly, if you do, half the blood in the rabbit will settle in a great bruise at the spot where it was struck, and make that portion unfit for table.

That is sufficient for this morning, and you may now turn to a little lighter work with some algebra.

CHAPTER VIII.

Fortunately I don't live by the sea. I say fortunately, because I look upon the sea as a swindler, for it robs one of just half one's little world and upsets all calculations by forcing one to live in a mean semicircle. I actually know a rat-catcher who is stupid enough to live in a village on the east coast, and half his time he and his dogs are at home in idleness and are half starved, because the ever-restless tiresome sea rolls about and disports itself over all that is east of the village, so the poor man can only go rat-catching in one direction.

Now and then I go to the sea-side, but when I go there it is on business--not in my Sunday clothes and with a "tripper's" return ticket, but with my dogs, ferrets, nets (the long ones) and the boy Jack; he and I dressed in our well-worn corduroys, gaiters, and navvy boots; and instead of choosing a town to visit with Marine Parade, Esplanades, Lodgings to let, Bra.s.s Bands, n.i.g.g.e.r Minstrels and spouting M.P.'s, we go to a little village unknown to "trippers," and put up at a small inn for a week or ten days. We sleep in a room not unlike a hay-loft, and take our meals and rest in the common kitchen, with its rattling latticed windows and sanded floor.

We go there twice each winter to kill rabbits on what are called the "Denes," which are great, wide, down-like lands on the top of the steep earth cliff, partially covered with the ever-flowering gorse, a cover dear to rabbits and all sorts of game. We reach the inn in time for an early dinner; and after we have housed the ferrets in a big tub and the dogs in a warm dry shed with heaps of straw to sleep on, Jack and I despatch our food and then start off to inspect the field of our future operations. We have not far to go. First down the street, past two or three dozen flint-pebble cottages; past the church, with its square tower so high that it makes the really big church look small in proportion; past the rectory; past the schools, where some forty or fifty future fishermen and sailors have just finished their tasks for the day and come rolling out, dressed all alike in dark, sea-stained, canvas trousers and thick sailor jerseys; past the low one-storied cottage where the old retired naval captain has lived for many years, and then up a sandy lane between high crumbling banks and out on to the open Denes. We take a path that runs close along on the top of the cliff, mounting a steep hill as we go till we reach a spot half a mile further on, where the sea cliff is four hundred feet high and nearly perpendicular; and here among the ruins of an old church, part of which has fallen with the slipping cliff into the sea many years ago, Jack and I halt and take a look round. We are on the highest spot within miles, and spread out in front of us, as we face inland, are, first, the down-like hills, dotted over with patches of gorse and with turf between as fine and soft as a Persian carpet; then cultivated fields intersected by thick hedges; and in the distance we could distinguish a cl.u.s.tering village here, a homestead there, an old manor-house in its well-kept garden and park-like grounds, and in all directions the square, solid, picturesque towers of village churches peeping from among the trees, that became thicker and thicker the further the eye travelled from the sea. Close to our left, just under the shoulder of a hill which protects it from the keen east wind off the sea, is a tiny village of some ten cottages, all different, all neat and snug-looking, each in its own garden. There is a stand of bee-hives in one, a honeysuckle-covered porch to another, and, though it is mid-winter, there is a warm home-like look about all. Then there is the one farm-house, well kept and well cared for, but old and belonging to other days, as its gables and low windows denote; and from our high hill we look over the house into a garden and orchard beyond, both enclosed by grey lichen-covered walls. On either side in front of the house are the farm buildings, all, from the big barn to the row of pigsties, thatched with long reeds, which give the whole a pleasant English home appearance.

There are big yards filled with red and white cattle up to their middle in straw, others full of horses or young calves; c.o.c.ks and hens are everywhere, ducks and geese swim in the big pond by the side of the road, and turkeys, so big and plump they make one long for Christmas, mob together in the yard, and the turkey-c.o.c.ks "gobble-gobble" at a boy who is infuriating them by whistling. A man crosses the yard with two pails on a yoke, evidently going a-milking; and another pa.s.ses with a perfect hay-stack on his back, and a dozen great heavy horses come out of the stable in Indian file and stump off to the pond to drink. Beyond the farmstead, in a field on the right of the road, is a double row of heaped up mangels and swedes; and a little further on are a number of stacks, so neatly built and thatched that it seems quite a pity they should soon be pulled down and thrashed, but all showing signs of prosperity and plenty.

Beyond this stands a tiny church, with reed-thatch roof. It is all, church and tower, built of round flint stones as big as oranges, cleverly split in two and the flat side facing outwards; and from the dog-tooth Saxon arch over the door one knows it has seen many generations pa.s.s away and find rest from the buffets and storms of the world in the peaceful, carefully-tended "G.o.d's acre" that surrounds it.

If one pa.s.sed down the red gravel churchyard path, and on in front of the south door to the far corner, under the big cedar, a small door would be found, which would lead through a well-kept, old-fas.h.i.+oned garden to the Rectory: a good old Elizabethan house, covered with thick creepers up to the very eaves, the model of one of England's snug homes--homes that have turned out the very best men the dear old land has produced, to fight, struggle, conquer or die in all professions, in all parts of the world; men who in such shelters learned to be honest and true, brave and persevering, lions in courage, women in gentleness; who could face hards.h.i.+ps and poverty without a moan, and prosperity and riches without swagger; and through all the difficulties of life thought of the old home, and when success arrived, be they ever so far away, packed up and came back to finish their days in just such another home and such surroundings.

Turn round now, Jack; turn round and take a look at the restless sea rolling its big waters on the smooth strip of sand there below _on this side_; and on the other, Jack, far, far away over there in the south, on the other side of the world, laving the roots of the palm and the mangrove, beneath the burning rays of tropical suns; and away round here, Jack, far in the north, das.h.i.+ng its storm-driven waves against the face of frost-bound rocks and treacherous icebergs. There on the dancing waters, with all sails set, chasing the lights and shadows as they flit before it, sails a boat bound south to sunny climes. There on the horizon, against wind and wave, steams a collier, taking fuel to lands where the snow lies deep on the ground for four months in the year; and right and left, outward bound or coming home, are various white sails dotting the waters. But, Jack, how about supper? I ordered eggs and bacon for supper, and those chimney corners at the inn looked as if they might be snug and warm to smoke a pipe in afterwards before turning in.

Step on, Jack, and have supper ready in half an hour, while I go round by the Rectory and see if the two young gentlemen are at home. They are the right sort, and as keen as Pepper after the rabbits, and they always have half a dozen good terriers as fond of the sport as they are.

At the Rectory I received a kindly welcome from Miss Madge Ashfield, the rector's only daughter and the sister of the two lads I came to enquire for; and I was told that they were not yet back from school, but were expected in three days, and that only that morning a letter came from them asking when I was likely to come and work the Denes. I comforted Miss Madge, who at first feared the pick of the sport might be over before her brothers arrived, by telling her that for the next four days Jack and I should be busy "doctoring" holes, and that during that time we could not "away with" boys or dogs, as both were too noisy for the work.

Miss Madge took me round to the kennels to see some rough wire-haired terriers, old friends; also three new ones, all supposed to be wonders; and she told me she would arrange for her brothers to bring one day five small beagles belonging to a friend.

Jack and I did our duty by the ham and eggs that night at the inn, and the pipe in the old-fas.h.i.+oned chimney corner was very sweet; and if the beds were a bit hard and knubbly, we did not keep awake to think of them, for we had both been up since day-break. By eight o'clock the next morning we had finished breakfast, given the dogs a few minutes' run to stretch their legs, fed the ferrets that were not wanted, and were on our way to the Denes, each with two strong male ferrets, a spade, and game-bag with cold meat and bread in it. We were on our way to "doctor"

the burrows, and this is done by running a muzzled ferret that has first been smeared with a little spirits of tar down every hole, with a line on it. It is necessary to keep very quiet, so as to get the rabbits to bolt. We don't want to kill a single rabbit, but only to disturb hole after hole, bolt what rabbits we can, and leave a nice sweet smell of tarred ferret behind us. No time is lost. Jack goes one way and I another, and every hole is visited till evening shades stop us; then back home to supper and bed, and at it again in the morning; but on the second day we begin by visiting each hole we ferreted the day before, stopping them tight down with sods, and sticking a piece of white paper on the top of such stopped holes. No fear of shutting in a rabbit, as the smell of the tarred ferret will keep them out for days; and no fear of their opening the stopping, as the paper will drive them away. For four days this work goes on, and we are ready to wager there is not a hole in the cliffs or Denes that is not doctored, and not a rabbit that is not above ground.

It was Wednesday night when we had finished, and that evening the two boys from the Rectory came down to the inn to see us and get instructions for the morrow; but I was glad they did not stay long, for we wanted to go to bed early, so as to get a good night and yet be up betimes. By eight o'clock next morning, Jack and I were already back from the Denes, after having run out one thousand yards of long nets.

The nets are in lengths of about one hundred yards, and two feet six inches high, made of fine string, and each of the top and bottom meshes knotted on to a cord that runs the entire length. To set these nets, they are threaded on to a smooth stick, four feet long, and the stick with the nets on is thrown over a man's shoulder. The man walks off with the nets along the border of the piece of ground to be enclosed, while another, after fixing the end of the first net fast to a starting stick, follows behind. As the man with the net proceeds, he lets the net slip slowly off the stick on his shoulder, piece by piece; and, as it comes down, the man behind picks up the top line, gives the net a shake, and twists the line round the top of stakes previously placed in the ground about fifty yards apart, taking care as he goes that the bottom of the net lies for a few inches on the ground. In this way squares of gorse of about two hundred yards can be entirely enclosed, and every rabbit inside them surrounded like sheep inside a fold.

Our breakfast over, we were soon out again with all our dogs (except old Chance, who had been left at home on account of her age, and also on account of her trick of always liking to go up to the carrier's each night to sleep), and we had also two real good lurchers. At the foot of the Denes we met the boys from the Rectory, with a friend about their own age, and the curate of the next parish with a business-like ash stick under his arm; and among them they had mustered a pack of ten terriers, some of which wanted to begin work by a fight with my dogs; but it takes two to make a quarrel, and my dogs knew better than to waste their strength in fighting when there was a day's work in front of them.

In a few minutes we were at the first piece of netted gorse--a real tearer, close, compact and a ma.s.s of thorns; but what dogs or boys care for gorse thorns when rabbits are on foot? So it is, "Over you go, boys!" "Hie in, dogs! Roust them out there!" and the old dogs spring the nets and are at work in a minute, while the young ones blunder and struggle in the nets, and have to be lifted over. The curate, Jack and I, and the man who drove the cart with the nets, and who will carry off the dead rabbits, stand at the nets and take out and kill the rabbits that get caught; and for the first hour we have as much as we can do, and work our hardest. Many rabbits do get through the nets, and others go back, and these latter it is difficult to get into the nets a second time, and they are killed by the dogs in the thick gorse. Yap! yap! yap!

"Hie in, good dogs! hie in, young ones! Ah! back there! back! no going over the nets! Would you? Look here! hie there! in you go!" Yap! yap!

yap! all scurry, rush and bustle; and the Rectory boys and their friend are all over the square at once, and in ten minutes so tingle from innumerable p.r.i.c.ks from the gorse that they are benumbed and feel them no more. "Go, Fly, go!" and a big hare dashes out, with Fly after it, and both jump the net and make for another clump of gorse; but Fly has never been beaten since she was a puppy, and soon returns with the hare in her mouth. "Hie in, dogs! hie in!" There are more yet, and we are bound to make a clean sweep; and so the work goes on.

First one patch, and then another, till lunch-time, which said lunch, according to a long-standing custom, comes up in a cart from the Rectory; but after s.n.a.t.c.hing a hurried bit, the man and I have to bustle away to s.h.i.+ft the nets, a work that keeps us hard at it for an hour and more; but long before we have done, the boys, parson and dogs are at it again in one of the first patches we have surrounded, and it is night and the moon is up before we have finished and picked up the nets. We find on counting the bag that we have two hundred and seventy rabbits, and feel content with our day's work. On Friday and Sat.u.r.day the same work, and when we turned homewards on this last night, it was as much as man, boys or dogs could do to drag themselves along; but we had killed six hundred and fifty rabbits in the three days and were well content.