354 The Poacher. 



and was endeavouring by all the mute eloquence he possessed, Ify 

 licking his hands and face, pulling at his coat, to wake up his dead 

 master but in vain. The poor fellow was buried in our church- 

 yard, and of all the mourners that followed him to the grave, not 

 one deplored his loss more deeply than that ragged little half-starved 

 cur. The keeper fell over the dead body, and for some time lay 

 side by side with the corpse. He was already faint with pain and 

 loss of blood j and when his hand came in contact with that cold 

 face, and dabbled in the pool of blood which surrounded the dead 

 poacher, it was more than he could stand he fainted away. The 

 night breeze swept in hollow gusts through the dead trees, and the 

 dismal hoot of the owl echoed mournfully through the forest 

 glade $ but the two sleepers heard nothing, and it was not till day- 

 light glimmered in the east that the watcher woke, and the grey 

 twilight of the drear winter's morning revealed to him the ghastly 

 features of the dead man who had been his companion through the 

 night upon that damp, chill bed on whiph they had both fallen. 



The young poacher's sad death caused no little sensation among 

 our simple villagers, and I remember a melancholy ballad was made 

 by some rustic poet on the events of that fatal night. It was a 

 standard song at our harvest-homes for years after. I do not recol- 

 lect it now nor, if I did, should I inflict a repetition of it upon the 

 reader j but the refrain ran thus : 



" The keepers heard us fire a gun, 

 And to the spot did quickly run, 

 And swore before the rising sun 

 That one of us should die." 



The whole occurrences of that eventful night were faithfully 

 described, and the song was sung in a melancholy, drawling tone, 

 so peculiar to a country harvest-home or in the forecastle of a ship. 

 And strange to say, many years after, when I had nearly forgotten 

 not only the song itself, but all the circumstances upon which it 

 was founded, I was standing O n the forecastle of the good barque 

 Blackheath, one fine calm night, in the middle watch, south of the 

 equator, watching the rippling waves as they sparkled under our 



