44 KEMINISCENCES OF A SPORTSMAI^. 



Under these circumstances, I am decidedly of opinion 

 that the gamekeepers should have their guns and side- 

 arms at night, in order to be able to effectually defend 

 themselves in case they should be first fired at, and 

 that the men who accompany them should have a 

 cutlass and a brace of pistols. Night marauders, on 

 perceiving that the keepers and their men were armed, 

 would, there can be little doubt, at least hesitate before 

 they fired, and perhaps some of them would surrender 

 without making much resistance. ^Mien I was a game 

 preserver in Cambridgeshire, I always permitted my 

 gamekeeper and the men who went with him on moon- 

 light nights to protect the pheasants, to be armed ; and 

 it had this good result, that the poachers, knowing this, 

 rarely molested my woods and plantations. But in this 

 county there are no manufacturing towns, which is a 

 great advantage in the preservation of game ; for it is 

 from these places and the collieries that large gangs of 

 poachers issue forth, and set at defiance the keepers and 

 their assistants. In the winter of 1857 there was a 

 gang of poachers, computed at about forty men, who 

 came chiefly, from the collieries in Cheshire, some armed 

 with guns, the others with pikes and large bludgeons ; 

 the keepers and their assistants were about fifteen in 

 number. The former challenged the latter to come out 

 and fight in the open field. Notwithstanding the great 

 odds against the keepers and their men, they gallantly 

 accepted the challenge, and a severe conflict took place, 

 in which both parties received some serious wounds, 

 and one of the keepers was mortally wounded from a 

 gun-shot. A powerful mastiff dog, belonging to the 

 head gamekeeper, seized one of the poachers, who was 

 made prisoner, but the dog was subsequently shot. If 



