The Poacher. 357 



turned, so there was nothing to be done in his line just then. He 

 found his gang disorganized, and many of them settled down into 

 steady labourers ; but there were two or three lawless spirits who 

 were too far gone ever to settle down steadily, and they welcomed 

 their old captain back, and longed for the dark winter nights to come 

 once again. 



Except a little fowl-stealing, we had, however, nothing to com- 

 plain of now -j but it was quite evident that Hammerton was 

 organizing another gang for the winter, and at Johnson's request his 

 band of night-watchers was doubled. There would assuredly have 

 been some roughish work this winter if Hammerton could only 

 have kept himself quiet for a few months j but he was longing to 

 be revenged upon Johnson, and this revenge he determined to 

 gratify on the first occasion. But this was not an easy task. John- 

 son very rarely went out without his gun; and "old Sailor," who 

 seldom left his heels, was as good, and perhaps better, than any one 

 man. 



Our village feast was in the beginning of October, and on the 

 Monday afternoon he rode over to spend the afternoon with his 

 brother, a farmer in our place. He had neither gun nor dog with 

 him. I looked in to smoke a pipe with them in the afternoon, and 

 talk over the season. About five, Johnson left. On his road home, 

 half way between our village and his lodge, was a small spinny, 

 which lay one field from the road; and just as he passed a double 

 shot was fired, apparently in this spinny. It took him a very few 

 minutes to tie his pony to the gate, and run down the ditch under 

 cover of the hedge, to see what was up ; and when he reached the 

 coppice a decently-dressed man, quite a stranger to him, was stand- 

 ing loading his gun, about twenty yards in the wood. The man 

 never attempted to escape, and his reply to Johnson's challenge, 



" Now, who the are you, and where's your certificate ?" was, 



" You'd better come and see." Johnson was scrambling over the 

 hedge into the spinny, when suddenly another man sprang up from 

 the ditch behind him (he had been covered up under a heap of 

 ferns), and in less time than it takes to write it the keeper was 



