1 1 8 7 he Amateur Poacher 



gent as bought him have it warm : we harried his 

 pheasants and killed the most of 'em. 



* After that I came home, and took to it regular. 

 It ain't no use unless you do it regular. If a man 

 goes out into the fields now and then chance-like he 

 don't get much, and is most sure to be caught — very 

 likely in the place of somebody else the keepers were 

 waiting for and as didn't come. I goes to work every 

 day the same as the rest, only I always take piece-work, 

 which I can come to when I fancy, and stay as late 

 in the evening as suits me with a good excuse. As I 

 knows navigating, I do a main bit of draining and 

 water-furrowing, and I gets good wages all the year 

 round, and never wants for a job. You see, I knows 

 more than the fellows as have never been at nothing 

 but plough. 



' The reason I gets on so well poaching is because 

 I'm always at work out in the fields, except when I 

 goes with the van. I watches everything as goes on, 

 and marks the hare's tracks and the rabbit buries, and 

 the double mounds and little copses as the pheasants 

 wanders off to in the autumn. I keeps a 'nation good 

 look-out after the keeper and his men, and sees their 

 dodges — which way they walks, and how they comes 

 back sudden and unexpected on purpose. There's 

 mostly one about with his eyes on me — when they 



