86 The Amateur Poacher. 



It was not more than forty yards from the barn to 

 the wood : there was no mound or hedge, but a narrow, 

 deep, and dry watercourse, a surface drain, ran across. 

 Stooping a little and taking off my hat, I walked in 

 this, so that the wheat each side rose above me and 

 gave a perfect shelter. This precaution was necessary, 

 because on the right there rose a steep Down, from 

 whose summit the level wheat-fields could be easily 

 surveyed. So near was it that I could distinguish the 

 tracks of the hares worn in the short grass. But if 

 you take off your hat no one can distinguish you in a 

 wheat-field, more particularly if your hair is light : 

 nor even in a hedge. 



Where the drain or furrow entered the wood was 

 a wire-netting firmly fixed, and over it tall pitched 

 palings, sharp at the top. The wood was enclosed 

 with a thick hawthorn hedge that looked impassable ; 

 but the keeper's footsteps, treading down the hedge- 

 parsley and brushing aside the 'gicks/ guided me 

 behind a bush where was a very convenient gap. 

 These signs and the smooth-worn bark of an ash 

 against which it was needful to push proved that this 

 quiet path was used somewhat frequently. 



Inside the wood the grass and the bluebell leaves 

 the bloom past and ripening to seed so hung over 

 the trail that it was difficult to follow. It wound 



