The Poacher. 545 



charges than poaching could be laid to his charge. But although 

 he had been imprisoned three or four times for snaring, he had 

 always as yet been lucky enough to escape being taken in any night 

 affray 3 and this was the more singular, for he was always at the 

 head of his gang and in the thickest of the fray in the night 

 encounters which were then so frequently taking place between the 

 gamekeepers and poachers. He was a noted fighter, and the 

 champion of our county. Scarcely a village feast or country fair 

 for miles around us but this Bill Hammerton was engaged in a 

 pugilistic contest, and I never heard that he was beaten. He was 

 a true type of the ruffianly Englishman, combining the strength of 

 an ox with the pluck of a bulldog 3 and one could not help thinking, 

 as one looked at his ugly but resolute and determined features, 

 what a soldier that man would have made if he had been properly 

 trained. 



Now, the head keeper, Johnson, who was himself as brave as a 

 iion, would have given any money to capture Hammerton in a 

 night row, for a price was set upon his head, and if he was only 

 taken the gang would, in all probability be broken up. But he had 

 never yet been lucky enough. 



The others of the gang were common farm-labourers, who could 

 not withstand the fascinations of this desperate trade -, and, say 

 what we will, there must be some fascination in poaching more 

 than in any other crime, for I have known men follow it who, 

 barring the excitement, had no other earthly inducement. For 

 instance, we had once a helper in our stables, who lodged and slept 

 in the house. Now, this man had as good a place as a servant 

 could wish, and wanted nothing. But he was a confirmed poacher, 

 and used to steal out at night and join the village gang whenever 

 an onslaught was meditated on one of the best preserves. We 

 never suspected him, for he was always at his work in the 

 morning. But one morning he was missing altogether. There 

 had been a desperate battle in a wood not two miles from us, and I 

 recollect well that I sat on our garden -wall and counted nearly one 

 hundred shots fired about eleven o'clock, before the keepers came 



