One night I got this old man to drive me about for some hours. He is a
smart hand with horses, and when I said, "Can you manage without lamps
in this dark?"--he answered, "I could find my way for twenty miles round
here if you tie my eyes up. There's nary gate that my nets hasn't been
under; there's hardly a field that I haven't been chased on." As our
trotter swung on, I found that the poacher associated almost every gate
and outhouse and copse with some wild story. For example, we passed a
clump of farm-buildings, and the poacher said; "I had a queer job in
there. Three of us had had a good night--a dozen hares--and we got
half-a-crown apiece for them, so we drank all day, and came out on the
game again at night. We put down a master lot o' wires about eleven, and
then we takes a bottle o' rum and goes to lie down on a load of hay.
Well, we all takes too much, and sleeps on and on. When I wakes, Lord,
we was covered with snow, and a marcy we was alive. We dursn't go for
our wires in the daylight, and there we has to stand and see a keeper go
and take out three hares, one after another.
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