The Poacher | Page 4

also
about the village had changed hands. People recollected Squire
So-and-So, and the Baronet, but now their lands were held by wealthy
manufacturers or retired merchants. All was new to Joe Rushbrook, and
he felt himself anywhere but at home. Jane Ashley, a very beautiful
young woman, who was in service at the Hall, the mansion
appertaining to the adjacent property, and the daughter of one of his
earliest friends, who had been transported for poaching, was almost the
only one who could talk to him after his absence of twenty-four years;

not that she knew the people at the time, for she was then an infant, but
she had grown up with them after Joe had left, and could narrate
anecdotes of them, and what had been their eventual destinies. Jane
having been the daughter of a man who had been transported for
poaching, was to Joe a sort of recommendation, and it ended in his
taking her for his wife. They had not been long settled in their cottage
before Joe's former propensities returned; in fact, he could not be idle,
he had carried a musket too long, and had lived such a life of
excitement in the service of his country, that he found it impossible to
exist without shooting at something. All his former love of poaching
came strong upon him, and his wife, so far from checking him,
encouraged him in his feelings. The consequence was, that two years
after his marriage, Joe Rushbrook was the most determined poacher in
the county. Although often suspected, he had never been detected; one
great cause of this was his appearing to be such a drunkard, a plan hit
upon by his wife, who had observed that drunken men were not
suspected of being poachers. This scheme had therefore been hit upon,
and very successfully; for proving before a magistrate that a man was
carried home dead drunk and speechless at midnight, was quite as good
an alibi as could be brought forward. Joe Rushbrook had, therefore, the
credit of being a worthless drunken fellow, who lived upon his pension
and what his wife could earn; but no one had an idea that he was not
only earning his livelihood, but laying by money from his successful
night labours. Not that Joe did not like a drop occasionally--on the
contrary, he would sometimes drink freely; but, generally speaking, the
wounds in his head were complained of; and he would, if the wind was
fresh and set in the right quarter, contrive to be carried home on the
night in which he had most work to do. Such was the case, as we have
represented in the first chapter.
Little Joey, who, as the reader may anticipate, will be our future hero,
was born the first year after marriage, and was their only child. He was
a quiet, thoughtful, reflective boy for his years, and had imbibed his
father's love of walking out on a dark night to an extraordinary degree:
it was strange to see how much prudence there was, mingled with the
love of adventure, in this lad. True it is, his father had trained him early,
first to examine the snares and conceal the game, which a little shrimp

like Joey could do, without being suspected to be otherwise employed
than in picking blackberries. Before he was seven years old, Joey could
set a springe as well as his father, and was well versed in all the
mystery and art of unlawful taking of game. Indeed, he was very
valuable to his father, and could do what his father could not have
ventured upon without exciting suspicion. It was, perhaps, from his
constant vigils, that the little boy was so small in size; at all events, his
diminutive size was the cause of there being no suspicion attached to
him. Joey went very regularly to the day-school of Mr Furness; and
although often up the best part of the night, he was one of the best and
most diligent of the scholars. No one could have supposed that the little
fair-haired, quiet-looking boy, who was so busy with his books or his
writing, could have been out half the night on a perilous excursion, for
such it was at the time we are speaking of. It need hardly be observed
that Joey had learned one important lesson, which was to be silent; not
even Mum, the dog, who could not speak, was more secret or more
faithful.
It is astonishing how much the nature and disposition of a child may be
altered by early tuition. Let a child be always with its nurse, even under
the guidance of a mother, regularly brought up as children usually are,
and it will continue to be a child, and even childish,