THE OGRE OF THE POOL AND SANDY 



' THE missus do hanker after a rabbit-pie. I wish 

 ye'd come along some evenin' and shoot a couple or so, 

 sir. Ye might have a try to catch the great old trout 

 in Boulder Pool same time. Though I'd lay a so verm' 

 to a hayseed he wouldn't give ye a touch even," said 

 Farmer Perry as we sat discussing a matutinal horn of 

 " October " in the worthy yeoman's quaintly pictur- 

 esque homestead under the Kentish hills. 



" But there must be plenty of young ones suckling," 

 was my objection to the farmer's suggestion. It does 

 not seem " cricket " to shoot rabbits in June, despite 

 that delightfully unsportsmanlike medley of injustice, the 

 Ground Game Act, which permits nay, encourages 

 the killing of rabbits and hares all the year round, in 

 season and out of season. But Farmer Perry so im- 

 pressed upon me the fact that his better-half was " wholly 

 bent upon havin' a rabbit -pie " that a compromise was 

 arrived at, namely, I was to shoot only such rabbits as 

 were three-parts grown with a -250 rifle. 



The bunnies inhabited a steep, sandy bank and disused 

 sandpit on the outskirts of a small covert, while a modest 

 but rapid stream, which, like the brook immortalised 

 by Tennyson, harbours " here and there a lusty 

 trout," flanked the warren and ran, twisting, chattering 

 and babbling over pebbles and boulders, stickles and 

 deeps, to join its mother-river, the Medway. The banks 



of the stream were fringed with belts of sallow and 



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