Studies in the Art of Rat-catching

As we worked round a big field, we got into softer ground, a red sand and soil mixed; and here the holes were much deeper and often ran through the bank and out for yards under ground into the next field. Here Jack and I changed places, Jack doing the ferreting, and I going to his side with the garden spade. One, two, three, four, five yards the ferret went and stopped, and all was quiet. I listen, but not a sound. Jack pulls gently on the line and finds it tight, and for a minute we wait, hoping a rabbit may bolt from the hole the ferret went in at. But no such luck. I take the small ratting-spade, and with the spike end feel into the ground at the foot of the bank, and at once come upon the hole; this I open out and clear of earth, and Jack, who has crept through the hedge, kneels down and finds the line passing this hole in the direction of the field and going downwards. At that moment there is a sound like very distant thunder, and the line is pulled quickly four yards further into the hole, and the marks show six yards are in. I go about this distance out into the field, lie down and place my ear close to the ground. I shift about in all directions listening intently, and at last hear a faint thudding sound. I shift again a few inches in this direction, and lose it; in that, and recover it; again a few inches, and the sound is directly under my head, but pretty deep down. I take the big spade and open out a hole a yard square, and dig down as far as I can reach. I get into the hole and sink deeper. I have to enlarge it a foot all round to get room, and then I dig down again till only my head appears above ground when I stand up. Then I take the long spade, and with that sink two more feet, and plump I come on the top of the hole, and the ferret shoves a sand-covered head up and looks at me. I reverse the long spade and catch the line with the hook and pull the ferret up, and then calling Jack, I send him head first into the well-like pit, holding on to one of his feet myself as I lie flat on the ground to allow him to go deep enough. In a minute a dead rabbit is taken out and two live ones, whose necks Jack breaks as he hangs suspended, and then I pull him up with his plunder, and he rights himself on the surface, very red in the face, very sandy, spluttering and rubbing his eyes. Then the ferret is swung down again by the line, it goes a little way into the hole and returns, and so we know we have made a clean sweep. The big hole is filled up and stamped down, and after filling a pipe and resting a few minutes, on we go with our work.

On the high sandy part of the field we have several deep digs like the above, with varying success, and we rejoice when we reach the last side of the field and get into clay again, where holes are short and most of the rabbits bolt at once. During all the day we only stopped once for half-an-hour to get a snack of bread and cheese, and by the time the cock partridges began to call their families together for roost, and the teams in the next field to knock off ploughing, we are all, man, boy, dogs and ferrets, fairly tired, and are glad to tumble seventeen couple of rabbits into the keeper's cart that has been sent out for them, and trudge off home ourselves.

Now for another day's sport that was quite different. No dogs with us, only a bag of ready-muzzled ferrets, a bundle of purse nets and a spade. Success will depend on perfect quiet, and even the patter of the dogs' feet would spoil our sport, so they are at home for once, and Jack and I are alone. It is one of those soft mild dull days that now and then appear in mid-winter, a sort of day to gladden the heart of foxhunters and doctors, and to make wiseacres shake their heads and say "most unseasonable." It is a good day for Jack and me, and we feel confident as we steal into a plantation of tall spruce firs, placed so thick on the ground that beneath them is perpetual twilight, and not a blade of grass or bramble to hide the thick carpet of needle points. Softly we creep forward to a lot of burrows we know of in the corner of the wood, and then I go forward alone and spread a net loosely over every hole, firmly pegging it down by the cord. This done I stand quietly down-wind of the holes, and Jack comes and slips the six ferrets all into different holes, and then crouches down on his knees. All is quiet; only the whisperings of the tree-tops, the occasional chirp of a bird, or the rustle of a mouse in the dead leaves. Five minutes pass, and then out dashes a rabbit into a net, which draws up round it. Jack moves forward on tip-toe, kills the rabbit and takes it out of the net, and covers the hole again. While he is doing this, three more rabbits have bolted and got netted, one has escaped, and a ferret has come out. The captured ones are killed, the ferret sent into another hole, and for an hour this work goes on, and during all the time neither of us have spoken, for we know there is nothing that scares wild animals more than the human voice, unless it is the jingle of metals, such as a bunch of keys rattling. They dread the human voice because they have had too much experience of it, and the rattle of metal because they have not had experience enough of it, for it is a sound they have never heard, and nothing like, in the quiet woods and fields. On the other hand, animals pay but little attention to a whistle, for in one shape or another they are constantly hearing it from their feathered companions.

But to go back to our netting. An hour over, we pick up the ferrets as they come out and bag them, and then I go off to some fresh holes and spread the nets again, and we repeat the same performance; and during the day we kill, without any digging or hard work, about twenty-two couple of rabbits. In the above account I have written of a day's sport that took place in a fir plantation in a little village in Norfolk, where it would have been madness to work the ferrets without muzzling them, for they would have been sure to kill some rabbits in the holes and then have laid up; but I should mention that I have killed many rabbits in the same way on the Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire, and I was much astonished when I first got there to find men who thoroughly understood their business working their ferrets under nets without muzzling them. I adopted the plan myself, and have rarely had a ferret kill a rabbit underground. For some reason that I could never find out, a Cotswold rabbit will always bolt from a hole with a ferret in if it can. It is well known in Norfolk that if a rabbit is run into a hole by dogs, you may ferret it if you like, but it will never bolt, and it must be dug out. But in Gloucestershire I have seen the same rabbit bolt out of a hole, get shot at, be run by dogs, go to ground, and again bolt at once from a ferret. Few professionals ever use a line on a ferret on the Cotswold, one reason being that the burrows are nearly all in rocky ground, and there would be danger of the line being caught in the numerous cracks; besides it is not required, for a rabbit there is sure to bolt, and for this reason it is twice as easy to kill rabbits in Gloucestershire as it is in Norfolk, especially in the sandy or soft soil of the latter county.

Let me here beg of all my readers, especially students, never to keep a poor rabbit alive in their hands a second. I don't suppose any who read this book could be so unsportsmanlike and brutal as to keep a rabbit alive to course and torture over again with dogs, or for the fun of shooting at the poor little beast. Such ruffians should never be allowed a day's sport on a gentleman's property. They are only fit to go out mole-catching. No, directly you have a live rabbit in your hand, take it by its hind legs with your right hand, and the head with your left, with two fingers under its face; with these fingers turn the head back, and give the rabbit a smart quick stretch, and in an instant all its sufferings are over. Never hit it with your hand or a stick behind the ears: first, because you are not quite sure to kill it with the first blow; and secondly, if you do, half the blood in the rabbit will settle in a great bruise at the spot where it was struck, and make that portion unfit for table.

That is sufficient for this morning, and you may now turn to a little lighter work with some algebra.

CHAPTER VIII

Fortunately I don't live by the sea. I say fortunately, because I look upon the sea as a swindler, for it robs one of just half one's little world and upsets all calculations by forcing one to live in a mean semicircle. I actually know a rat-catcher who is stupid enough to live in a village on the east coast, and half his time he and his dogs are at home in idleness and are half starved, because the ever-restless tiresome sea rolls about and disports itself over all that is east of the village, so the poor man can only go rat-catching in one direction. Now and then I go to the sea-side, but when I go there it is on business – not in my Sunday clothes and with a "tripper's" return ticket, but with my dogs, ferrets, nets (the long ones) and the boy Jack; he and I dressed in our well-worn corduroys, gaiters, and navvy boots; and instead of choosing a town to visit with Marine Parade, Esplanades, Lodgings to let, Brass Bands, Nigger Minstrels and spouting M.P.'s, we go to a little village unknown to "trippers," and put up at a small inn for a week or ten days. We sleep in a room not unlike a hay-loft, and take our meals and rest in the common kitchen, with its rattling latticed windows and sanded floor.

We go there twice each winter to kill rabbits on what are called the "Denes," which are great, wide, down-like lands on the top of the steep earth cliff, partially covered with the ever-flowering gorse, a cover dear to rabbits and all sorts of game. We reach the inn in time for an early dinner; and after we have housed the ferrets in a big tub and the dogs in a warm dry shed with heaps of straw to sleep on, Jack and I despatch our food and then start off to inspect the field of our future operations. We have not far to go. First down the street, past two or three dozen flint-pebble cottages; past the church, with its square tower so high that it makes the really big church look small in proportion; past the rectory; past the schools, where some forty or fifty future fishermen and sailors have just finished their tasks for the day and come rolling out, dressed all alike in dark, sea-stained, canvas trousers and thick sailor jerseys; past the low one-storied cottage where the old retired naval captain has lived for many years, and then up a sandy lane between high crumbling banks and out on to the open Denes. We take a path that runs close along on the top of the cliff, mounting a steep hill as we go till we reach a spot half a mile further on, where the sea cliff is four hundred feet high and nearly perpendicular; and here among the ruins of an old church, part of which has fallen with the slipping cliff into the sea many years ago, Jack and I halt and take a look round. We are on the highest spot within miles, and spread out in front of us, as we face inland, are, first, the down-like hills, dotted over with patches of gorse and with turf between as fine and soft as a Persian carpet; then cultivated fields intersected by thick hedges; and in the distance we could distinguish a clustering village here, a homestead there, an old manor-house in its well-kept garden and park-like grounds, and in all directions the square, solid, picturesque towers of village churches peeping from among the trees, that became thicker and thicker the further the eye travelled from the sea. Close to our left, just under the shoulder of a hill which protects it from the keen east wind off the sea, is a tiny village of some ten cottages, all different, all neat and snug-looking, each in its own garden. There is a stand of bee-hives in one, a honeysuckle-covered porch to another, and, though it is mid-winter, there is a warm home-like look about all. Then there is the one farm-house, well kept and well cared for, but old and belonging to other days, as its gables and low windows denote; and from our high hill we look over the house into a garden and orchard beyond, both enclosed by grey lichen-covered walls. On either side in front of the house are the farm buildings, all, from the big barn to the row of pigsties, thatched with long reeds, which give the whole a pleasant English home appearance.

There are big yards filled with red and white cattle up to their middle in straw, others full of horses or young calves; cocks and hens are everywhere, ducks and geese swim in the big pond by the side of the road, and turkeys, so big and plump they make one long for Christmas, mob together in the yard, and the turkey-cocks "gobble-gobble" at a boy who is infuriating them by whistling. A man crosses the yard with two pails on a yoke, evidently going a-milking; and another passes with a perfect hay-stack on his back, and a dozen great heavy horses come out of the stable in Indian file and stump off to the pond to drink. Beyond the farmstead, in a field on the right of the road, is a double row of heaped up mangels and swedes; and a little further on are a number of stacks, so neatly built and thatched that it seems quite a pity they should soon be pulled down and thrashed, but all showing signs of prosperity and plenty.

Beyond this stands a tiny church, with reed-thatch roof. It is all, church and tower, built of round flint stones as big as oranges, cleverly split in two and the flat side facing outwards; and from the dog-tooth Saxon arch over the door one knows it has seen many generations pass away and find rest from the buffets and storms of the world in the peaceful, carefully-tended "God's acre" that surrounds it. If one passed down the red gravel churchyard path, and on in front of the south door to the far corner, under the big cedar, a small door would be found, which would lead through a well-kept, old-fashioned garden to the Rectory: a good old Elizabethan house, covered with thick creepers up to the very eaves, the model of one of England's snug homes – homes that have turned out the very best men the dear old land has produced, to fight, struggle, conquer or die in all professions, in all parts of the world; men who in such shelters learned to be honest and true, brave and persevering, lions in courage, women in gentleness; who could face hardships and poverty without a moan, and prosperity and riches without swagger; and through all the difficulties of life thought of the old home, and when success arrived, be they ever so far away, packed up and came back to finish their days in just such another home and such surroundings.

Turn round now, Jack; turn round and take a look at the restless sea rolling its big waters on the smooth strip of sand there below on this side; and on the other, Jack, far, far away over there in the south, on the other side of the world, laving the roots of the palm and the mangrove, beneath the burning rays of tropical suns; and away round here, Jack, far in the north, dashing its storm-driven waves against the face of frost-bound rocks and treacherous icebergs. There on the dancing waters, with all sails set, chasing the lights and shadows as they flit before it, sails a boat bound south to sunny climes. There on the horizon, against wind and wave, steams a collier, taking fuel to lands where the snow lies deep on the ground for four months in the year; and right and left, outward bound or coming home, are various white sails dotting the waters. But, Jack, how about supper? I ordered eggs and bacon for supper, and those chimney corners at the inn looked as if they might be snug and warm to smoke a pipe in afterwards before turning in. Step on, Jack, and have supper ready in half an hour, while I go round by the Rectory and see if the two young gentlemen are at home. They are the right sort, and as keen as Pepper after the rabbits, and they always have half a dozen good terriers as fond of the sport as they are.

At the Rectory I received a kindly welcome from Miss Madge Ashfield, the rector's only daughter and the sister of the two lads I came to enquire for; and I was told that they were not yet back from school, but were expected in three days, and that only that morning a letter came from them asking when I was likely to come and work the Denes. I comforted Miss Madge, who at first feared the pick of the sport might be over before her brothers arrived, by telling her that for the next four days Jack and I should be busy "doctoring" holes, and that during that time we could not "away with" boys or dogs, as both were too noisy for the work.

Miss Madge took me round to the kennels to see some rough wire-haired terriers, old friends; also three new ones, all supposed to be wonders; and she told me she would arrange for her brothers to bring one day five small beagles belonging to a friend.

Jack and I did our duty by the ham and eggs that night at the inn, and the pipe in the old-fashioned chimney corner was very sweet; and if the beds were a bit hard and knubbly, we did not keep awake to think of them, for we had both been up since day-break. By eight o'clock the next morning we had finished breakfast, given the dogs a few minutes' run to stretch their legs, fed the ferrets that were not wanted, and were on our way to the Denes, each with two strong male ferrets, a spade, and game-bag with cold meat and bread in it. We were on our way to "doctor" the burrows, and this is done by running a muzzled ferret that has first been smeared with a little spirits of tar down every hole, with a line on it. It is necessary to keep very quiet, so as to get the rabbits to bolt. We don't want to kill a single rabbit, but only to disturb hole after hole, bolt what rabbits we can, and leave a nice sweet smell of tarred ferret behind us. No time is lost. Jack goes one way and I another, and every hole is visited till evening shades stop us; then back home to supper and bed, and at it again in the morning; but on the second day we begin by visiting each hole we ferreted the day before, stopping them tight down with sods, and sticking a piece of white paper on the top of such stopped holes. No fear of shutting in a rabbit, as the smell of the tarred ferret will keep them out for days; and no fear of their opening the stopping, as the paper will drive them away. For four days this work goes on, and we are ready to wager there is not a hole in the cliffs or Denes that is not doctored, and not a rabbit that is not above ground.

It was Wednesday night when we had finished, and that evening the two boys from the Rectory came down to the inn to see us and get instructions for the morrow; but I was glad they did not stay long, for we wanted to go to bed early, so as to get a good night and yet be up betimes. By eight o'clock next morning, Jack and I were already back from the Denes, after having run out one thousand yards of long nets. The nets are in lengths of about one hundred yards, and two feet six inches high, made of fine string, and each of the top and bottom meshes knotted on to a cord that runs the entire length. To set these nets, they are threaded on to a smooth stick, four feet long, and the stick with the nets on is thrown over a man's shoulder. The man walks off with the nets along the border of the piece of ground to be enclosed, while another, after fixing the end of the first net fast to a starting stick, follows behind. As the man with the net proceeds, he lets the net slip slowly off the stick on his shoulder, piece by piece; and, as it comes down, the man behind picks up the top line, gives the net a shake, and twists the line round the top of stakes previously placed in the ground about fifty yards apart, taking care as he goes that the bottom of the net lies for a few inches on the ground. In this way squares of gorse of about two hundred yards can be entirely enclosed, and every rabbit inside them surrounded like sheep inside a fold.

Our breakfast over, we were soon out again with all our dogs (except old Chance, who had been left at home on account of her age, and also on account of her trick of always liking to go up to the carrier's each night to sleep), and we had also two real good lurchers. At the foot of the Denes we met the boys from the Rectory, with a friend about their own age, and the curate of the next parish with a business-like ash stick under his arm; and among them they had mustered a pack of ten terriers, some of which wanted to begin work by a fight with my dogs; but it takes two to make a quarrel, and my dogs knew better than to waste their strength in fighting when there was a day's work in front of them.

In a few minutes we were at the first piece of netted gorse – a real tearer, close, compact and a mass of thorns; but what dogs or boys care for gorse thorns when rabbits are on foot? So it is, "Over you go, boys!" "Hie in, dogs! Roust them out there!" and the old dogs spring the nets and are at work in a minute, while the young ones blunder and struggle in the nets, and have to be lifted over. The curate, Jack and I, and the man who drove the cart with the nets, and who will carry off the dead rabbits, stand at the nets and take out and kill the rabbits that get caught; and for the first hour we have as much as we can do, and work our hardest. Many rabbits do get through the nets, and others go back, and these latter it is difficult to get into the nets a second time, and they are killed by the dogs in the thick gorse. Yap! yap! yap! "Hie in, good dogs! hie in, young ones! Ah! back there! back! no going over the nets! Would you? Look here! hie there! in you go!" Yap! yap! yap! all scurry, rush and bustle; and the Rectory boys and their friend are all over the square at once, and in ten minutes so tingle from innumerable pricks from the gorse that they are benumbed and feel them no more. "Go, Fly, go!" and a big hare dashes out, with Fly after it, and both jump the net and make for another clump of gorse; but Fly has never been beaten since she was a puppy, and soon returns with the hare in her mouth. "Hie in, dogs! hie in!" There are more yet, and we are bound to make a clean sweep; and so the work goes on.

First one patch, and then another, till lunch-time, which said lunch, according to a long-standing custom, comes up in a cart from the Rectory; but after snatching a hurried bit, the man and I have to bustle away to shift the nets, a work that keeps us hard at it for an hour and more; but long before we have done, the boys, parson and dogs are at it again in one of the first patches we have surrounded, and it is night and the moon is up before we have finished and picked up the nets. We find on counting the bag that we have two hundred and seventy rabbits, and feel content with our day's work. On Friday and Saturday the same work, and when we turned homewards on this last night, it was as much as man, boys or dogs could do to drag themselves along; but we had killed six hundred and fifty rabbits in the three days and were well content.

CHAPTER IX

Sunday was to us all a real day of rest, and we enjoyed every minute of it, and for once listened to a very long sermon without the fidgets. The Rectory boys came up for a chat in the afternoon, so we let the dogs out and went down to the beach and strolled quietly about, neither dogs nor humans indulging in anything like play – all were too stiff and sore to think of it.

We were all out again early on Monday morning, but without nets and taking only sticks; and we spent a short day, with a long lunch, looking up outlying rabbits in the hedges of the farm at the foot of the Denes; and here the two lurchers, who during the days at the nets had taken it easy and refused to face the gorse, had the chief of the work, for directly a rabbit was started by the other dogs, it made straight off across the open for the gorse on the Denes, and the lurchers were the only dogs fast enough to catch them. We finally had to give up work because the dogs of all sorts were too tired to move, and also because the weather, that had been fine and calm all the previous week, began to break, and before we reached shelter there was half a gale sending big green waves thundering on to the beach and carrying the salt spray far inland.

That night, after Jack was in bed and asleep, I put on my hat and went out, called by the noise of the waters. I joined a group of weather-beaten hard-featured men dressed in thick blue jerseys and "sou-wester" hats, who stood with their hands tucked deep into their trouser pockets, watching the sea from behind the shelter of a boat stranded high up on the beach. I got a civil word of greeting as I came up, and then we all watched in silence, for by this time the "half gale" had become a storm, and it was only by shouting we could have made each other hear. It was a wild weird scene, awe-inspiring, but intensely attractive – at least I found it so; but then such scenes did not often come before me, and I daresay my companions, who were well used to being out on such a night, only felt thankful they were safe on shore, and thought with anxiety of those of their friends and neighbours who were out battling with the storm. The moon when I reached the beach was nearly at the full and high up in the heavens, but it shed a fitful light, as each few seconds dark clouds and veils of mist flew across its face. One moment the sea lay before us a dark black mass, only marked along the beach by a broad strip of breaking, foam-crested waves; and the next it was a dancing, tossing, roaring sheet of ever-changing liquid silver; or far away we would see the spray like pearls rising high in the air before the storm, and at our feet the waves curled up like huge furious monsters, dashing at the sands and shingle as if bent on destruction, and then with a swirl sliding back, a mass of foam, to meet and join the next wave, and with its help again come on to the attack.