34 The Confessions of a Poacher. 



art of fowling. I remember the old man as he 

 lay on his heather bench when he made this 

 magnanimous offer. In appearance he was a 

 splendid type of a northern yeoman, his face 

 fringed with silvery hair, and cut in the finest 

 features. One eye was bright and clear even 

 at his great age, though the other was rheumy, 

 and almost blotted out. He rarely undressed 

 at nights, his outward garb seemed more 

 a production of nature than of art, and was 

 changed, when, like the outer cuticle of the 

 marsh vipers, it sloughed off. It was only in 

 winter that the old man lived his lonely life on 

 the mosses and marshes, for during the summer 

 he turned from fowler to fisher, or assisted in 

 the game preserves. The haunts and habits of 

 the marsh and shore birds he knew by heart, 

 and his great success in taking them lay in the 

 fact that he was a close and accurate observer. 

 He would watch the fowl, then set his nets and 

 noozes by the light of his acquired knowledge. 

 These things he had always known, but it was 

 in summer, when he was assisting at pheasant 

 rearing, that he got to know all about game 



