142 The Confessions of a ^Poacher. 



owing to the fact that I was chary as to those 

 I took into confidence, and knew that above 

 all things keeping my own council was the 

 best wisdom. Another moucher I knew, 

 but with whom I would have nothing to 

 do, was an instance of one who told poaching 

 secrets to village gossips. The " Mole " spent 

 most of his time in the county gaol, and just 

 lately he completed his sixty-fifth incarceration 

 only a few of which were for offences out- 

 side the game laws. Well, there came a time 

 when all the keepers round the country side 

 had their revenge on me, and they made the 

 most of it. I and my companion were fairly 

 caught by being driven into an ambuscade by 

 a combination of keepers. Exultant in my cap- 

 ture, the keepers from almost every estate in 

 the neighbourhood flocked to witness my con- 

 viction. Some of them who had at times only 

 seen a vanishing form in the darkness, now 

 attended to see the man, as they put it. As I 

 had always been followed at nights by an old 

 black bitch, she, too, was produced in court, 

 and proved an object of much curiosity. Well, 



