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 



