WHEN I WAS YOUNG 17 



hounds, " which had got away from them " in 

 pursuit of a hare, Sharp, with an innocent smile, at 

 once denied any knowledge of the missing animals, 

 and even rated the men, whom he knew to be well- 

 known poachers, for allowing their dogs to stray on 

 to the squire's land. 



Speaking of hare poaching, the neatest trick I 

 ever saw was the method employed by men accom- 

 panied by trained lurchers in the Eastern counties. 

 One day, cycHng near Wangford, in Suffolk, I passed 

 two men on an ordinary butcher's cart. There was 

 nothing externally to show that they were not 

 butchers going their round with the usual well- 

 cart and advertising signs. We passed one another 

 at cross roads at the corner of a stubble field, when 

 something went wrong with my machine, and I 

 dismounted to adjust it. Through the quickset 

 hedge I noticed that the butchers had also halted, 

 and their movements being suspicious, I crawled 

 into the ditch and watched them unobserved. 



The cart was stopped within twenty yards of a 

 large field gate, and one of the men was standing 

 up in the cart carefully surveying the landscape 

 with a pair of field-glasses. Being satisfied with 

 the outlook, he then descended to the road, and 

 with a key opened the well of the cart, from which 

 two clean-looking lurchers at once leapt to the 

 ground. The poacher, for such he was, then 

 advanced to the gate with the two dogs, leaving 

 the second man standing in the cart surveying the 

 field, where he had doubtless observed a hare in its 

 " form." 



Number one then placed one dog close to the gate, 

 which was slightly opened to give easy egress on the 



