CAPTURE OF poachers' GUNS. 183 



are not the shoes T tracked in the ride when Coles was 

 shot." " Xo," replied the man ; " I had on my others," 

 It had come to my ears that a person, driving the 

 double trade of a tinker and publichouse keeper at 

 Carleton, was implicated, and I had searched his 

 house ; there were pheasants' feathers in the loft, but 

 nothing else that I could discover : the man himself, 

 they said, was away on business. On the afternoon 

 on which the death of Coles was reported to me I 

 thought I would search that house ao;ain : when I 

 rode up to the door it was nearly dark. On opening 

 the door signs of a general " flit" were evident. Cup- 

 boards were open and empty, things were packed, 

 and no one to be seen. On proceeding into a low 

 back kitchen, there sat four men, none of whom in 

 that dim light I recognised. They had been drinking 

 and smoking. The instant I entered one of them 

 rose and left the house, and his person, as he walked 

 out, was familiar to me ; having peered under the 

 slouched hats and into the faces of the other three, 

 • — they were strangers, and anything but of prepos- 

 sessing appearance, — I asked them what they were 

 doing there ? They replied, " Keeping possession 

 for the landlord." "What!" I said, "is he off?" 

 " Gone," they replied, " on business." There were 

 several things packed for removal in that apartment, 

 when, to my great delight, I saw in the chimney 

 corner two diminutive sinole-barrel o;uns, of the 

 use of which I had long been aware. They were 

 made up by the landlord and tinker for night shoot- 

 ing in the Harrold Woods, so small that, in a wind 

 and in the midst of tlie roar of the woods in a 

 rough night, their report could not be heard at a 

 lumdred yards' distance, and, when on such nights 



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