348 The Poacher. 



about thirty-five men. These seemed long odds, but still they were 

 in favour of the keepers, for " thrice is he armed that hath his 

 quarrel just." Besides, as Johnson once observed to me, " Bless 

 you ! when you come really to tackle a poacher, he's very little 

 good. He's never got anything in him but gin and tobacco. They 

 don't, perhaps, get a good meal of meat once in a week;" which I 

 dare say was about true. 



By ten the poachers had mustered in the gravel-pit by the side of 

 a lane, close to the forest where the netting was to commence. The 

 keepers, who were not up to the trick of their dividing, went down 

 to one of the home-preserves, nearly a mile from the gravel-pit, where 

 they fancied the general attack would be made. But they went to the 

 wrong spot, for they waited on this post nearly half-an-hour with- 

 out hearing a sound, and they almost began to think that the 

 poachers had given up the thought of coming that night, when 

 a double shot was fired in the wood closest to our village, more than a 

 mile from where they were watching. This shot was fired about 

 half-past ten, and I was standing in the stable-yard talking with 

 Jem. We both heard it, and he observed, " That's only a plant to 

 draw the keepers down j it's not that wood they mean to work to- 

 night." In a little time after we counted five more shots, and then 

 all was still. I may add, that it was just the very night of all others 

 that our poachers loved. I never could fancy that the man who 

 wrote the old popular poaching song of " My delight on a shiny 

 night at a season of the year," knew much about real poaching, as 

 our chaps never went out at the full moon for any great attack. A 

 dark, gusty, blowing night, with the moon certainly not older than 

 twelve days, was the night they generally chose j or a moon three- 

 quarters old, if the night was all right, was nearly as good, only it 

 always rose so late. On this night there would probably have been 

 rather too much moon if the sky had been clear, but heavy clouds 

 drifted across the stormy sky, and the wind was blowing fresh from 

 the south-west. The consequence was, that the reports of the guns 

 were carried plain enough down to our village, which lay to leeward 



