KEEPERS AND POACHERS. 
45 
Hark ; tzich, tzich ; the grasses rustle, 
Telling of impending danger ; 
Ah ! what means that stir and bustle ? 
Voices, too ! ' Down ; bide thee, ranger !' 
Crouch below the fence, and, peeping 
Cautiously the bushes over, 
See the wary poachers creeping 
Through the stubble to the cover. 
Leaded net between them bearing 
On the sleeping covey falling ; 
Soon the booty they'll be sharing — 
Profits of their honest calling. 
Through the copse sounds shrill the whistle, 
O'er the fence leap dog and keeper; 
Ha ! away through gorse and thistle, 
"Who'd escape must be no creeper. 
Now the staunch dog gains upon them, 
Close and fast the keeper follows ; 
What unmanly fear hath won them, 
Plunging 'mid the ferny hollows ? 
Four to one, and yield their booty ? 
Nay, the love of gain is stronger — 
Stronger than the sense of duty, 
And the chase is urged no longer. 
Keeper now, and night marauders, 
On the greensward sit together; 
There 's no safety in those borders. 
For the game, in fur or feather. 
Such we may imagine to be not an impossible termination 
to the discovery and pursuit of poachers by a keeper ; but 
more generally the former will manage to escape with their 
booty, or if hard pressed will drop it, and make off as best 
they can. If, however, they be desperate and hardened 
villains, an affray takes place, and bloodshed is often the 
consequence ; many a corpse, lying stiff and stark amid the 
ensanguined grass or woodland boughs, has been left as a 
ghastly memento of the fatal struggle, mutually appealing 
to the Great Avenger of all wrong and violence, and to the 
outraged laAvs and sympathies of humanity. What a 
fearful price has been oftentimes paid for ^ a brace of birds ' 
let the records of crime and pimishment connected with 
