Kitabı oku: «Poachers and Poaching», sayfa 13
IV
After an hour's hard climbing we gain one of the topmost outliers, whence we command an extensive map-like view of the circumjacent mountains. A final struggle for the last ridge, and then along its crest. We are at an angle formed by the vales of Grasmere, Legberthwaite, and Patterdale, when a magnificent effect is produced as the sun suddenly pierces the clouds. A golden mass of molten sea stretches eastward. Bright sunny patches light up the landscape below; and a billowy sea of mountains rolls away, with every wave a name. Purple pavilions of hills stretch far and beyond on every side. Now we are among the clouds, and look down on all things mundane.
We "rush" the last slope, and at last stand three thousand feet above sea level—upon the topmost jag of the mighty Helvellyn!
The grandeur of a mountain is always enhanced by a storm; and as by the wave of a wizard's wand the sun is suddenly shut out by black, inky clouds. A couple of ominous ravens rise slowly uttering a dismal croak, croak, croak; and a merlin rushes past on the wings of the storm. Mists gather, roll up the mountain-side, and far-off mutterings are heard in the hills. As a cold plash strikes the face, we seek a cairn, drawing closer our wraps. Suddenly the storm bursts. In a moment we are soaked with blinding mist and chilled to the marrow. The storm lashes itself to a fury, and for a moment the grandeur is terrible and fascinating. It spends itself, passes as quickly as it came, and a glorious transformation is at hand.
Quivering lines of light shoot from the heavens, the sun bursts in all its strength, and Nature is a flood of dripping gold. The gauzy vapours disperse, and every grass-blade is draped and glowing with resplendent gems. A blue, foam-flushed sky displaces the sullen clouds, and the storm miracle is complete. Then we emerge from the dripping cairn to look abroad. That far, silvery streak, lying shimmering and blue, is Windermere. Directly south Esthwaite Water, whilst Coniston, with its pine-clad slopes, lies to the west. Ulleswater is at our feet, and Red Tarn, black and silent, below. Striding Edge is the spot where young Gough was killed. To its north-west is Swirrel Edge. That is Catchedecam. Betwixt the last-named and Saddle-back a bit of the Solway is seen; while the skyline beyond is formed by the Scotch mountains. The ravines and precipices of the sides of Helvellyn exemplify in a striking manner the possible power of those elements whose ordinary effects are trivial and unnoticed.
A mountain storm in summer is terrible enough if long continued; but the same phenomenon in winter is grander and more terrible still. The crags of the English mountains claim a long list of victims; but for tragic interest the following is perhaps the saddest of all. The subject of it was a young man of great promise, who in early life had been educated for the Church. Just as he was ripe for college, his father, who was at the head of a great mercantile concern, died. This event made it imperative that the young scholar should immediately embark in trade—an undertaking as uncongenial as imperative. The fortunes of his family were threatened, and the only hope of his mother and sisters was that the son should successfully carry on what the father had commenced. A student of books rather than of men, he was ill fitted for the unequal fight, and after struggling for ten years was only liberated by ruin. His brother it is said, made him a bankrupt. "The din of populous cities had long stunned his brain, and his soul had sickened in the presence of the money-hunting eyes of selfish men, all madly pursuing their multifarious machinations in the great mart of commerce. The very sheeted masts of ships, bearing the flags of foreign countries, in all their pomp and beauty sailing homeward or outward bound, had become hateful to his spirit—for what were they but the floating enginery of Mammon? Truth, integrity, honour, were all recklessly sacrificed to gain by the friends he loved and had respected most—sacrificed without shame and without remorse—repentance being with them a repentance only over ill-laid schemes of villainy—plans for the ruination of widows and orphans—blasted in the bud of their iniquity." Following upon the loss of worldly fortune Gough's mother died, and had it not been for a legacy which came to him about this time he would have been absolutely penniless. A relative had died abroad—almost his only one, and the last of his name. Upon his small means he determined to seek an asylum among the northern mountains, where he might study nature and daily stand face to face with her most majestic forms and moods. He left the city which had wrought his ruin at midnight, the last definite object which his eyes rested upon being his mother's grave. The graveyard which contained it lay hard by one of the great arteries of life, and the roar of its myriad sounds was absent neither night nor day. A myriad graves were matted and massed together—a dank, unlovely sight, and one which invested death only with its worst and darkest attributes.
As late winter passed into spring, Gough took up his abode with the family of a northern yeoman in a Westmorland cottage. The majesty of the mountains on this first spring day deeply impressed the city-bred man, and his solitary life among the hills was begun with much heartfelt meditation. The mighty Helvellyn stood out boldly, its crest sharply etched against the sky. Even in this remote spot the wanderer wished to withdraw himself for a time wholly from the eyes of men; and as he gazed upon the passionless peak he thought that there he should be alone—there find solitude. As the short afternoon fell he started to make the rugged ascent. Every shoulder of the mountain gained put him farther beyond human aid, and each look at the peaceful valley below was nearer his last. Still he progressed. The keen air, the first deep inspiration of a purer joy—these lured him on. The face of the sky changed, but he saw it not. Its little lot of stars came out over the mountain, and, oblivious of the fact that night was at hand, he hurried on. The crescent moon rose and floated over its reflection in Red Tarn; and now the wanderer has reached the topmost, silent peak. Steeped in softest moonlight, he looked on the wondrous world below, and saw an English sight such as man has rarely seen. In the delirium of a new bliss the mountain "looked lovelier than dreamland in the reflected glimmer of the snow; and thus had midnight found him, in a place so utterly lonesome in its remoteness from all habitations, that even in summer no stranger sought it without the guidance of some shepherd."
Rising from the stone on which he sat, a flake of snow touched his face, then another, and another. He ran rapidly down the first slope, struck the path, and hurried on. The light was quickly fading. The moon was hidden, and the tarn, which but a moment before lay at his feet, had gone out. Neither road nor path was now visible, and the poor pilgrim of nature, utterly bewildered, plunged blindly into the almost inextricable passes of the mountains. The snow fell thicker and thicker, and as the storm rose it was swept hither and thither in blinding banks and opaque masses until every familiar object was hidden. Although almost overcome with the lashing and fury of the storm the traveller in wildest desperation staggered on, until an awful precipice for ever put a cruel end to his wanderings….
Snow-lines are sketched along the fences of the fells, but this is all that remains. Everything out of doors testifies to the coming of spring, and green grass-shoots are everywhere. The foaming fell "becks" sparkle in the sun, and the sheep are sprinkled over the crags. A breadth of blue is overhead, and the feeding flock is steadily turned towards the skyline. This is the first token of the short summer, and all the sheep on all the hills rejoice. It is at this season that the shepherds most keenly scan their flocks and note the ravages of winter. By the torrent side, by the leas of the boulders, along the rock ledges—everywhere is dotted a white fleece.
It was upon such an occasion, the snow having melted, that a shepherd on his rounds came suddenly upon a dog which emerged from a bracken- and boulder-strewn brae. The poor creature was reduced almost to a skeleton, and upon the man following, it whined and ran forward. It stopped over a weathered corpse—the body of young Gough, beside which it had kept watch and ward for months. It would allow no one to come near, though it was noticed that its collar bore a name—the name of its master, and that which established his identity. In the absence of the dog on its food forays the hill foxes, ravens, and buzzards had done their carnage on the body. This was taken by a party of yeomen and shepherds and interred in the burial ground of the Friends' Meeting House at Tirrel.
Both Scott and Wordsworth have fittingly commemorated the incident, though the lines are too well known to be quoted here.
CHAPTER XIII.
WORKERS IN WOODCRAFT
I
The gamekeeper's cottage stands at the end of the oak lane. An orchard surrounds his dwelling, the brown boughs now drooping with ripened fruit. Under an overhanging sycamore is a kennel of silky-coated setters and a brace of spaniels. The former have beautifully-domed heads and large soft eyes. The spaniels with their pendulous ears are a black and a brown. Pheasant pens are scattered about the orchard, each containing half-a-dozen birds. In a disused shed are traps for taking game, and nets and snares found in rabbit runs or taken from poachers. The keeper does not always take these engines when he finds them, but waits quietly until they are visited by the "moucher;" then he makes a double capture. Few of the poachers, however, leave their traps after dark, and only the casual is caught in this way. At the other end of the orchard divisional boxes are ranged round an old barn-like building where pheasants' eggs are hatched. A shaggy terrier, with fresh mould upon its nose, peeps from beneath the shed doorway. Drowsy bluebottles buzz about the vermin larder, and under the apple-trees are straw-thatched hives. Contented pigeons coo and bask on the hot slates of the barn roof, and bird-sounds are everywhere. These blocks, upon which sit their falcons, act as a reminder of an old English sport fast passing away. These are merlins and peregrines, kept for a friend by the keeper, who is fond of hawking. The merlins can pull down partridges, while the peregrines are flown at larger game. No sport so exhilarating as falconry, none so fascinating.
The interior of the keeper's cottage is as characteristic as its surroundings. Here are guns of every description—from the old-fashioned fowling piece and matchlock to the ponderous duck-gun. Above the chimney-piece hangs a modern breechloader with Damascus barrels. The keeper admires the delicate mechanism of this, but deprecates the spirit of the age which produced it. Such cunningly-devised engines will make old-fashioned sport, or what he calls "wild shooting," extinct. By this he means the traversing of rough ground in healthful anticipation of a miscellaneous and always uncertain bag. It is this very uncertainty which gives the chief zest to sport. Against the walls are cases of stuffed birds, with a red squirrel or a white stoat to relieve the feathers. In one case a knot-hole is imitated from which peer three young weasels; and an old one is descending the hole with a dead bird in its mouth. All these are portrayed to the life by the keeper's own hand. Looking at the contents of the cases, he deplores his want of ornithological knowledge in earlier years. Among the stuffed specimens are a Greenland falcon, a pair of hobbies, several rare owls, swallow-tailed kite, hoopoe, rose-coloured pastor, and others equally rare.
The gamekeeper's life is essentially an outdoor one. He is far from populous towns, and needs but little assistance. Poachers rarely come to his preserves in gangs, and a couple of village mouchers he can easily manage. His powerful frame has once been the seat of great strength, though now it needs but a glance to show that his eye is less keen and his hand less firm. Still he is quick to detect, and with his hard-hitting muzzle-loader he rarely misses. Given favourable conditions he is almost infallible with the gun, though he gives his game law. He cannot now cover his extended ground in a single day, and perhaps does less night watching than formerly. His beat covers a widely diversified district with almost every species of game. The pheasants wander about the woods and copses; the partridge are among the corn and stubble; and rabbits pop in and out everywhere. Hares haunt the meadows and upland fields, and snipe go away from the marshes. Woodcock come to the wet woods, and a host of sea-haunting creatures feed along the bay. There is a heronry in the wood, and pigeons build in the larches. Of the habits of these creatures the keeper is full; and if he is garrulous he is always instructive. By observing, he has found that animals and birds have stated times and well-defined routes. Exactly at the same hour, according to the sun, the partridges and pheasants resort to the same spots. Hares follow the tracks day by day, and rooks fly morning and evening along the same valleys. Nightly, herons stalk the pools and the otter traces the mountain burns to their source. At noon a sparrow-hawk speeds by the covert, and at evening a kestrel hangs over the rickyard. In the afternoon, regularly, weasels run along the old wall; and as these things the flowers in their times of opening and closing are not less constant.
The keeper's domain encloses a park in which are red deer and fallow. Sometimes he has to shoot a fawn for the "great house." This he singles out, hitting it if possible just behind the shoulder. In season he must provide a certain "head" of game. Twice weekly he procures this, and takes it to the hall. For its proper hanging in the larder he is responsible. When the keeper wants game he knows to a yard where it may be found—where the birds will get up and in what direction they will go away. If a hare, he knows the gate or smoot through which it will pass, and out of this latter fact he makes capital. It is well known to poachers that when once a hare has been netted there is no chance of its being taken again in like manner. Rather than go through a second time, even though a "lurcher" be but a yard behind, it will either "buck" the gate or take the fence. Consequently the keeper has netted every hare on his ground. This greatly reduces the poacher's chances, and wire snares are now the only engines that can be successfully used. Spring and summer are taken up with breeding and rearing pheasants, and this is an anxious time. The work is not difficult but arduous. And then so much of the keeper's work is estimated by the head of game he can turn out. This result is tangible, and one that can be seen by both his master and visitors. There is nothing to show for long and often fruitless night-watching but rheumatism; and so the keeper appreciates all the more readily the praise accorded him for the number of well-grown birds he can show at the covert side. After pheasant-shooting in October the serious winter work of the keeper begins. Each week he has to kill from three to five hundred rabbits, which are sent to the markets of the large manufacturing towns. He can employ what engines against them he pleases, but the number must be produced. Firing a hundred shots a day is now more jarring than it was once; it has made him slightly deaf, and he adopts other means of destruction. He works the warrens in winter, but long waiting for a glutted ferret in frost and snow is not pleasant. Under favourable conditions, however, a great many rabbits may be taken in this way. Iron spring traps are used in the rabbit tracks, but these are impracticable on a large scale; and the pheasants and partridges, which run much, are apt to be caught in them. Moreover it is now illegal to set these traps in the open. The most certain and wholesale method of capture is by the "well-trap." This is a pit, placed immediately opposite to a hole in the fence through which the rabbits run from the woods to the field or pasture. Through the "run" a wooden trough is inserted, and as the rabbits pass through the floor opens beneath their weight and they drop into the "well." Immediately the pressure is removed the floor springs back to its original position; and thus a score or more rabbits may often be taken in a single night. In the construction of these traps rough and unbarked wood is used, and even then the rabbits will not take them for weeks. Then they become familiar, the weather washes away all scent, and the "well-trap" is a wholesale engine of capture. The rabbits of course are taken alive. These the keeper stretches across his knee, dislocating the spine. English rabbits are degenerating in size, and the introduction of some of the continental varieties would be beneficial. With the rabbits in autumn great quantities of wood-pigeons are sent away, the birds at this time becoming exceedingly plump and fat. An almost incredible number of acorns may be found in the crop of a single bird when the former have fallen.
These are a few of the keeper's duties. He himself has a russet, weather-beaten face, bounded by silvery hair. He might stand for a picture of a highly-idealised member of his class. So secluded is his cottage that he locks the door but once a year, and that on Christmas Eve. He can remember when there was larger game than now, when badgers and wild cats were not uncommon. One of his ancestors was an inveterate deer-stealer, as the parish books show. Then the red-deer roamed almost wild on the fells. To-day he has but one regret—that he was not contemporary with the wolf, the wild boar, and the bear. Of these in Britain he has just read an account, together with the vast primitive forests through which they roamed.
II.
THE CHARCOAL BURNERS
The humid climate of the north-west of England is peculiarly favourable to the growth of coppice-wood; and scattered along the slopes of the valleys copses prevail, consisting for the most part of oak, ash, birch, and hazel. This growth beautifully clothes the hill-slopes, and in addition to taking away the bareness, brings to them much animal and bird life; and besides this, the young timber is fairly remunerative. The coppice woods are cut every fifteen years, and the ground set apart to it pays about equal to that devoted to grazing. This is owing to the fact that every part of the wood is well suited to some particular use, and finds a ready market. What these uses are will be presently seen.
As to the beauty and well-woodedness which the copses give to the north-west valleys there can be no question; and that life abounds in them which was foreign to the bare Fells is made equally clear by traversing them at almost any season of the year. Shelter they give, too, which is always important in districts subject to mountain storms. Metallic-lustred and brightly-coloured lichens light up the floor of the wood, the rabbits rustle through; innumerable birds are there, and dormice hang their ball-like nests among the hazel boughs. As the coppice grows the squirrel comes to the nuts, wood pigeons coo, and jays screech in the glades. Even a few pheasants have wandered here, and an occasional woodcock breeds among the dead oak leaves.
Just as the kindly sheltering woods have brought birds which are foreign to the district, so they have brought human settlers, and standing above on the bare Common we see rising from the trees columns of pale blue smoke. In the primitive cottages from whence these come reside the charcoal burners. Men they are whose lives glide on almost without influence from the outside world—quiet workers of many virtues. They observe well times and seasons, are full of country proverbs, wise as to signs of wind and weather, and draw deductions from the nature around them. Their occupation is such as keeps them in the woods for months at a spell, not even leaving them on Sundays. And so it comes that the decay of the black bryony berries and the rustle of the dead oak leaves have lessons for them; and as the winds of autumn sough through the bare branches, they are conscious that a time will come when they too must pass away. Piety in men so lived may seem strange, but when a man stands face to face with nature, by far the best elements of his nature are developed. He is brought, as it were, back to his primitive life, and is more a man than the dweller in towns.
During the summer we have tramped through the coppice woods. These will be felled when autumn comes round, having grown their fifteen years. And to one unaccustomed to such rapid growth the progress made would be somewhat astonishing. The trees are spindle high. The ash-poles are straight and smooth, the young oaks radiant in rich chestnut, the hazels catkin-covered, and the frail birch—the lady of the woods—towers her silvery stem afar up. Of course, when cut, each species of tree has some special virtue—some quality in which it most excels. The young oaks, for instance, are felled at the time of ascending sap in early summer, as then the bark is easily "peeled." This is extensively used in the process of tanning. The torn staves are used in making baskets and hoops. The "afflictive birch, cursed by unlettered idle youth," has other uses than that which the quotation would seem likely to imply. The variously sized boughs are used in making crates, and the wood is also extensively used by the cottagers as fire "eldin," which may be detected when in proximity to the cottages. The use, however, to which the majority of the wood is put is bobbin-turning—quite an extensive and important industry in the northern valleys.
The enemies of the trees, and the only ones which stop their growth, are two. Insects with their borings, and rabbits. The latter, in severe winters, eat the bark of the young trees to a surprising height from the ground, and by so doing impede their growth.
The second industry to which the coppice woods give rise, and by far the most interesting, is the charcoal burning, almost peculiar to this part of the country. We shall detail it as practised in the extensive Honeybee Woods. At the felling of the copse the wood is roughly divided into two "sets." The thick upright poles, of whatever tree, are stacked for "bobbin wood," and the thinner parts await the charcoal burners. These are also the men that from autumn to spring are busily employed in cutting, stacking, and arranging the wood.
The first months of spring are employed in peeling the oak for its bark, and from early summer into autumn the actual charcoal burning is done. The men who take part in the lonely trade live in rude huts in the woods, thatched with heather and bracken. Heaps of dried ferns serve them for beds, and their wants are few. Their huts are fixed first as to shelter and the presence of water, then with regard to proximity to their labours. From this ground they are never absent, the burning wood heaps requiring constant attention and aid from a quick eye as to change of wind and the coming of rain. The burning is conducted as follows: The faggots (from one to four feet in length and about one and a half inches thick) are built up round a vertical stake, which forms the centre of the mass, until the heap has attained considerable dimensions. It is round, and represents a low stack terminating in an apex at the top. When sufficient faggots have been piled up, the whole is covered with turf and wet sand, so as to exclude the air. The heap, now about thirty feet in diameter, is flattened by beating with spades, and made to present a smooth dome-like surface. The vertical stake is withdrawn from the centre, and lights are dropped down the passage left, to ignite the wood. The air has been carefully excluded so as to regulate the burning of the heap. From the centre the fire gradually spreads outwards until it reaches the edges. The burners always have in readiness large screens to regulate the supply of air, and these are planted on that side of the heap from which the wind blows. The screens consist of wooden hurdles intertwined with dead grass, dried fern, and bracken. Of course success depends upon the slow and equal burning of the whole mass. A shifting wind sometimes ill regulates the supply of air and fires the heap. When this occurs nothing can stop it, and the charcoal is completely spoiled. This, however, from the great watchfulness of the men, is generally avoided. To return to the heap. The products of combustion escape by the channel occasioned by the withdrawal of the vertical stake. The process is continued from twenty to thirty hours, when smoke and fumes seem to come off every part alike. This is a sign to put out the fire, which is done by applying water. The faggots have now been converted into charcoal. The critical part of the operation, and the one that wants most experience, is to catch the heap when it is "enough"—that is when it is neither overdone nor underdone. After allowing half a day for cooling, the charcoal is taken out, put into sacks, and carted away. Three or four men generally work together and have four heaps in hand at one time. At night, especially when there is much wind, the burners work by shifts. The charcoal when carted away is just half the weight of the wood from which it has been prepared. Much of the charcoal prepared hereabouts is used in smelting at the Backbarrow and other neighbouring ironworks. Iron so smelted is of much higher commercial value than that obtained by the ordinary processes. Charcoal burning, consequently, is likely to continue a lucrative employment for many years to come, especially as coppice woods—the raw material—thrive so abundantly in the district.
To watch these men at their lonely employment in the woods is well worth a visit. They and their work are alike interesting, and the woods which provide their employment are fascinating at all seasons. A nearer acquaintance with the workers will reveal the fact that they know the "herbs and simples of the woods," and also much of the contents of an old "herbal" lying in the hut. In the virtues of plants they have great belief, and can tell of interesting traits in the life-history of wild flowers. We believe, too, that they exercise "free right and warren" of the woods where they reside, and of this no one seems to care to deprive them. They are pleasant, primitive fellows wonderfully intelligent as to out-door questions, and command the respect of every one with whom they come in contact. We might have said that their necessary victuals are supplied periodically from the outside world, but in domestic matters they do all things for themselves.
