WATCHING LABOURERS. 171 



A gun has been found before now concealed in a heap 

 of manure, such as are frequently seen in the corners of 

 the fields. These heaps sometimes remain for a year or 

 more in order that the materials may become thoroughly 

 decomposed, and the surface is quickly covered with a 

 rank growth of weeds. The poacher, choosing the side 

 close to the hedge, where no one would be likely to go, 

 excavated a place beneath these weeds, partly filled it in 

 with dry straw, and laid his gun on this. A rough board 

 placed over it shielded it from damp ; and the aperture 

 was closed with ' bull-polls ' — that is, the rough grass of 

 the furrows chopped up (not unlike the gardener's ' turves ') 

 — and thrown on the manure-heap to decay. If the 

 keeper detects anything of this kind he allows it to stay 

 undisturbed, but sets a watch, and so surprises the owner 

 of the treasure. 



The keeper is particularly careful to observe the 

 motions of the labourers engaged in the fields ; especially 

 at luncheon -time, when men with a hunch of bread 

 and a slice of bacon — kept on the bread with a small 

 thumb-piece of crust, and carved with a pocket knife — are 

 apt to ramble round the hedges, of course with the most 

 innocent of motives, admiring the beauties of nature. 

 Slowly wandering like this, they cast a sidelong glance at 

 their wire, set up in a ' drock ' — i.e. a bridge over a ditch 

 formed of a broad flat stone — which chances to be a 

 favourite highway of the rabbits. Nowadays, in this age 



