CHAPTER XII. A WINTER NIGHT: OLD TRICKS: PHEASANT-STALKING: MATCHLOCK versus BREECH-LOADER: CONCLUSIONWhen the moon is full and nearly at the zenith it seems to move so slowly that the shadows scarcely change their position. In winter, when the branches are bare, a light that is nearly vertical over a tree can cast but little shadow, and that falls immediately around the trunk. So that the smallness of the shadow itself and the slowness of its motion together tend to conceal it. The snow on the ground increases the sense of light, and in approaching the wood the scene is even more...
Nonfictions - Post by : eggibiz - Date : May 2012 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 2096
CHAPTER XI. FERRETING: A RABBIT-HUNTERThe ferreting season commences when the frosts have caused the leaves to drop, and the rabbits grow fat from feeding on bark. Early one December morning, Orion and I started, with our man Little John, to ferret a double-mound for our old friend Farmer 'Willum' at Redcote. Little John was a labourer--one of those frequently working at odd times for Luke, the Rabbit-Contractor. We had nicknamed him Little John because of his great size and unwieldy proportions. He was the most useful man we knew for such work; his heart was so thoroughly in it. He was...
Nonfictions - Post by : eggibiz - Date : May 2012 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 3464
CHAPTER X. FARMER WILLUM'S PLACE: SNIPE SHOOTINGOne October morning towards the end of the month, Orion and I started to beat over Redcote Farm upon the standing invitation of the occupier. There was a certainty of sport of some kind, because the place had remained almost unchanged for the last century. It is 'improvement' that drives away game and necessitates the pheasant preserve. The low whitewashed walls of the house were of a dull yellowish hue from the beating of the weather. They supported a vast breadth of thatched roof drilled by sparrows and starlings. Under the eaves the swallows' nests...
Nonfictions - Post by : eggibiz - Date : May 2012 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 3528
CHAPTER IX. LUKE, THE RABBIT CONTRACTOR: THE BROOK-PATHThe waggon-track leading to the Upper Woods almost always presented something of interest, and often of beauty. The solitude of the place seemed to have attracted flowers and ferns as well as wild animals and birds. For though flowers have no power of motion, yet seeds have a negative choice and lie dormant where they do not find a kindly welcome. But those carried hither by the birds or winds took root and flourished, secure from the rude ploughshare or the sharp scythe. The slow rumble of waggon-wheels seldom disturbed the dreamy silence, or...
Nonfictions - Post by : eggibiz - Date : May 2012 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 1265
CHAPTER VIII. CHURCHYARD PHEASANTS: BEFORE THE BENCHThe tower of the church at Essant Hill was so low that it scarcely seemed to rise above the maples in the hedges. It could not be seen until the last stile in the footpath across the meadows was passed. Church and tower then came into view together on the opposite side of a large open field. A few aged hawthorn trees dotted the sward, and beyond the church the outskirts of a wood were visible, but no dwellings could be seen. Upon a second and more careful glance, however, the chimney of a cottage...
Nonfictions - Post by : eggibiz - Date : May 2012 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 2306
CHAPTER VII. OBY AND HIS SYSTEM: THE MOUCHER'S CALENDAROne dark night, as I was walking on a lonely road, I kicked against something, and but just saved myself from a fall. It was an intoxicated man lying at full length. As a rule, it is best to let such people alone; but it occurred to me that the mail-cart was due; with two horses harnessed tandem-fashion, and travelling at full speed, the mail would probably go over him. So I seized the fellow by the collar and dragged him out of the way. Then he sat up, and asked in a...
Nonfictions - Post by : eggibiz - Date : May 2012 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 2380
CHAPTER VI. LURCHER-LAND: 'THE PARK'The time of the apple-bloom is the most delicious season in Sarsen village. It is scarcely possible to obtain a view of the place, although it is built on the last slope of the Downs, because just where the ground drops and the eye expects an open space, plantations of fir and the tops of tall poplars and elms intercept the glance. In ascending from the level meadows of the vale thick double mounds, heavily timbered with elm, hide the houses until you are actually in their midst. Those only know a country who are acquainted with...
Nonfictions - Post by : eggibiz - Date : May 2012 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 1222
CHAPTER II. THE OLD PUNT: A CURIOUS 'TURNPIKE'The sculls of our punt, being short and stout, answered very well as levers to heave the clumsy old craft off the sand into which it sank so deeply. That sheltered corner of the mere, with a shelving sandy shore, and a steep bank behind covered with trees, was one of the best places to fish for roach: you could see them playing under the punt in shoals any sunny day. There was a projecting bar almost enclosing the creek, which was quite still, even when the surf whitened the stony strand without, driven...
Nonfictions - Post by : eggibiz - Date : May 2012 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 877
CHAPTER I. THE FIRST GUNThey burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. Otherwise his pelt would not have been so perfect. And why else was he put away up there out of sight?--and so magnificent a brush as he had too. But there he stood, and mounted guard over the old flintlock that was so powerful a magnet to us in...
Nonfictions - Post by : eggibiz - Date : May 2012 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 2786
The following pages are arranged somewhat in the order of time, beginning with the first gun, and attempts at shooting. Then come the fields, the first hills, and woods explored, often without a gun, or any thought of destruction: and next the poachers, and other odd characters observed at their work. Perhaps the idea of shooting with a matchlock, or wheel-lock, might, if put in practice, at least afford some little novelty. R.J....
Nonfictions - Post by : eggibiz - Date : May 2012 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 2598
The goldfinches sing so sweetly hidden in the topmost boughs of the apple-trees that heart of man cannot withstand them. These four walls, though never so well decorated with pictures, this flat white ceiling, feels all too small, and dull and tame. Down with books and pen, and let us away with the goldfinches, the princes of the birds. For thirty of their generations they have sung and courted and built their nests in those apple-trees, almost under the very windows--a time in their chronology equal to a thousand years. For they are so very busy, from earliest morn till night--a...
Essays - Post by : investx - Date : September 2011 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 4416
The sun first sees the brook in the meadow where some roach swim under a bulging root of ash. Leaning against the tree, and looking down into the water, there is a picture of the sky. Its brightness hides the sandy floor of the stream as a picture conceals the wall where it hangs, but, as if the water cooled the rays, the eye can bear to gaze on the image of the sun. Over its circle thin threads of summer cloud are drawn; it is only the reflection, yet the sun seems closer seen in the brook, more to do...
Essays - Post by : gdsdrs - Date : September 2011 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 3230
Ten years have passed away,(1) and the Wiltshire labourers have only moved in two things--education and discontent. I had the pleasure then of pointing out in 'Fraser' that there were causes at work promising a considerable advance in the labourers' condition. I regret to say now that the advance, which in a measure did take place, has been checkmated by other circumstances, and there they remain much as I left them, except in book-learning and mental restlessness. They possess certain permanent improvements--unexhausted improvements in agricultural language--but these, in some way or other, do not seem now so valuable as they looked....
Essays - Post by : Labbe - Date : September 2011 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 2692
The money-lender is the man I most fear to see in the villages after the extension of the county franchise--the money-lender both in his private and public capacity, the man who has already taken a grasp of most little towns that have obtained incorporation in some form. Like Shylock he demands what is in his bond: he demands his interest, and that means a pull at every man's purse--every man, rich or poor--who lives within the boundary. Borrowing is almost the ruin of many such little towns; rates rise nearly as high as in cities, and people strive all they can...
Essays - Post by : trout1 - Date : September 2011 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 3465
The bare fallows of a factory are of short duration, and occur at lengthened intervals. There are the Saturday afternoons--four or five hours' shorter time; there are the Sundays--fifty-two in number; a day or two at Christmas, at Midsummer, at Easter. Fifty-two Sundays, plus fifty-two half-days on Saturdays; eight days more for bona-fide holidays--in all, eighty-six days on which no labour is done. This is as near as may be just one quarter of the year spent in idleness. But how fallacious is such a calculation! for overtime and night-work make up far more than this deficient quarter; and therefore it...
Essays - Post by : aneesh - Date : September 2011 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 2912
The great centres of population have almost entirely occupied the attention of our legislators of late years, and even those measures which affect the rural districts, or which may be extended to affect them at the will of the residents, have had their origin in the wish to provide for large towns. The Education Act arose out of a natural desire to place the means of learning within the reach of the dense population of such centres as London, Birmingham, Manchester, and others of that class; and although its operation extends to the whole country, yet those who have had any...
Essays - Post by : nyvisitor - Date : September 2011 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 1813
In the way of sheer, downright force few effects of machinery are more striking than a steam-ploughing engine dragging the shares across a wide expanse of stiff clay. The huge engines used in our ironclad vessels work with a graceful ease which deceives the eye; the ponderous cranks revolve so smoothly, and shine so brightly with oil and polish, that the mind is apt to underrate the work performed. But these ploughing engines stand out solitary and apart from other machinery, and their shape itself suggests crude force, such force as may have existed in the mastodon or other unwieldy monster...
Essays - Post by : pilotga - Date : September 2011 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 3484
We have all of us passed through Swindon Station, whether en route to Southern Wales, to warm Devon--the fern-land--to the Channel Islands, or to Ireland. The ten minutes for refreshment, now in the case of certain trains reduced to five, have made thousands of travellers familiar with the name of the spot. Those who have not actually been there can recall to memory a shadowy tradition which has grown up and propagated itself, that here the soup skins the tongue, and that generally it is a near relative of the famous 'Mugby Junction.' Those who have been there retain at least...
Essays - Post by : ken_ang - Date : September 2011 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 1183
I.--JAMES THARDOVER A weather-beaten man stood by a gateway watching some teams at plough. The bleak March wind rushed across the field, reddening his face; rougher than a flesh-brush, it rubbed the skin, and gave it a glow as if each puff were a blow with the 'gloves.' His short brown beard was full of dust blown into it. Between the line of the hat and the exposed part of the forehead the skin had peeled slightly, literally worn off by the unsparing rudeness of wintry mornings. Like the early field veronica, which flowered at his feet in the short grass...
Essays - Post by : samzbuzy - Date : September 2011 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 2112
I.--SPRING The soft sound of water moving among thousands of grass-blades is to the hearing as the sweetness of spring air to the scent. It is so faint and so diffused that the exact spot whence it issues cannot be discerned, yet it is distinct, and my footsteps are slower as I listen. Yonder, in the corners of the mead, the atmosphere is full of some ethereal vapour. The sunshine stays in the air there as if the green hedges held the wind from brushing it away. Low and plaintive comes the notes of a lapwing; the same notes, but tender...
Essays - Post by : William_J - Date : September 2011 - Author : Richard Jefferies - Read : 2547
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The Amateur Poacher - Chapter 12. A Winter Night: Old Tricks: Pheasant-Stalking...
