\ DEEK-STEALERS 247 



milawf Lilly killed the buck in these romantic glades. 

 Sometimes, for the devilment of it, the dashing young 

 hlades of the countryside — sons of the squires and 

 others — would hunt the deer. 



' From four to twenty assembled in the evening, 

 dressed in cap and jack and quarter-staff, wdth dogs 

 and nets. Having set the watchword for the night 

 and agreed whether they should stand or run if they 

 should meet the keepers, they proceeded to the Chase, 

 set their nets, and let slip their dogs to drive the deer 

 into the nets ; a man standing at each net, to strangle 

 the deer as soon as they were entangled. Frequent 

 desperate and bloody battles took place ; the keepers, 

 and sometimes the hunters, were killed.' 



Other law-breakers were of a humbler stamp, and 

 ferocious enough to murder keepers at sight. Thus, 

 in 1738, a keeper named Tollerfield was murdered on 

 his way home from Fontmell Church ; and another 

 at Fernditch, near ' Woodyates Inn.' For the latter 

 crime a man named Wheeler was convicted, and 

 suffered the extreme penalty of the law ; his body 

 being hanged in chains at the scene of the murder. 

 His friends, however, in the course of a few nights cut 

 the body down, and threw it into a very deep well, 

 some distance away. The weight of the irons caused 

 it to sink, and it was not discovered until long- 

 afterwards. 



One of the most exciting of these encounters 

 between the deer- stealers and the keepers took place on 

 the night of 16th December 1781. Chettle Common, 

 away at the back of the ' Cashmoor Inn,' was the scene 

 of this battle. The stealers, assembling in disguise at 



