POACHERS AND POACHING. 



CHAPTER I. 



POACHERS AND POACHING. 1. 



THE poacher is a product of sleepy village life, 

 and usually " mouches " on the outskirts of 

 country towns. His cottage is roughly adorned 

 in fur and feather, and abuts on the fields. 

 There is a fitness in this, and an appropriate- 

 ness in the two gaunt lurchers stretched before 

 the door. These turn day into night on the 

 sunny roadside in summer, and before the cottage 

 fire in winter. Like the poacher, they are 

 active and silent when the village community is 

 asleep. 



Our Bohemian has poached time out of mind. 

 His family have been poachers for generations. 

 The county justices, the magistrates' clerk, the 



B 



