POACHING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 93 



be heard at any great distance ; but, as he made a 

 rule of only shooting at close quarters, any pheasant 

 that Sans Pouce honoured with his selection was sure 

 to fall. It was at once picked up, wrapped in a linen 

 bag, and stowed away along with the gun at the foot 

 of a tree. Sans Pouce immediately betook himself to 

 the public road, lighted his lantern, and marched along 

 the middle of the road, talking aloud to himself, as 

 people often do when they are alone and feel nervous. 

 If a patrol or keeper happened to hear the gun 

 fired, and ran to the place, he never guessed that the 

 peasant whom he met coming from the direction of 

 the shot, talking noisily, and carrying a lighted 

 lantern, could be the poacher of whom he was in 

 search ; he was therefore certain to ask Sans Pouce 

 for information. Sans Pouce never failed to retort 

 that he had seen the men who fired the shot running 

 away in the opposite direction to that which he was 

 following himself. The keeper at once set off in the 

 wrong direction in search of the imaginary offenders. 

 As soon as he saw his enemy out of the way. Sans 

 Pouce used to slip back into the forest, pick up his 

 gun and bird, and start in quest of a second quarry. 

 He was not particularly greedy, and seldom troubled 

 to kill more than a brace of birds in an evening. 

 'It was this inoderatioii,' as his biographer naively 



