Читать книгу Farmer's Glory - A. G. Street - Страница 5

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My earliest recollections of this farm seem to be the holidays home from school. Possibly I took things very much for granted, but I can remember quite definitely that the farm was an extraordinarily nice place to come back to from school. I don’t know that I cared very much about the business side of farming in those days, but the pleasure side was another matter for a schoolboy.

The Christmas holidays were connected chiefly with shooting. My father got a lot of good shooting in the large wood at the top end of the farm. The landlord had large shooting parties of his own friends before Christmas, but after that rarely had a shoot without inviting some of his tenants. In January it was usually tenants only, and rabbits were the bulk of the bag, with a few cock pheasants and an occasional woodcock in addition.

I used to accompany my father on these expeditions, and was very proud of his skill. He was a fair shot at wing game, but at rabbits dodging between trees and undergrowth, or darting across a narrow rack, I have yet to see his equal. He and his friends were always playing tricks on each other, rather like overgrown schoolboys. A favourite one was to plant a rabbit skin stuffed with straw down a rack where a notoriously bad shot would go in the next beat, in the hope that he would shoot at it; it was infra dig to shoot at a sitting rabbit. As usual the best humour was the unplanned, for on one occasion a very good shot, with a habit of boasting about the size of his personal bag, went down the rack by mistake, and shot at the stuffed rabbit to the great joy of the keepers and everybody else.

On rabbit days nearly every farmer would bring his own dog to help hunt, and it was necessary to shoot carefully, as there were dogs and rabbits running all over the place. One day, before lunch, someone shot a dog. Another individual, being a bit peppery, said after lunch that he wasn’t going to have his dog shot, and accordingly tied it up to a bush. We went on without it—it was a very wild liver spaniel—and when we came back at the end of the day, we found that it had hung itself in its endeavours to join in the sport.

But the most enjoyable shooting party to me was a day’s ferreting. Two or three under-keepers would come with their ferrets, and my father would invite two or three neighbours. The keeper of our beat was an old wizened man named Frank Hard. He would always bring his own gun, and I would wait eagerly, oh so eagerly, for him to say to my father: ‘I don’t want to shoot, sir, if young master Jim can manage my gun.’ It was a very ancient hammer gun, but how proud I was to be entrusted with it. Throughout the day I was always placed in the most unlikely spot. ‘One’s guests must have the best places,’ my father would say.

Presently the ferrets would lie up, the main party would move on to fresh ground, and I would be left with Ted Bridge to find the loose ferrets, and shoot anything that might bolt. Ted was a cheerful soul. He suffered from some form of bronchial catarrh, but he was a fine digger and drinker. He would cough, dig, spit, dig, swear, dig, and spit, in one continuous stream. On one never-to-be-forgotten occasion after a long dig, he pulled nine rabbits alive out of a hole, and put them in a bag. He then let them run one at a time for me to shoot, and I only let one get away. I was a very proud boy that day when we rejoined the main party, as Ted never breathed a word about the rabbits being first dug out.

As I have mentioned, he was a great drinker. He could drink beer without visibly swallowing; it just went straight down.

One day it was very cold, and he and I were sent ahead to a sheltered cover to build a fire, and put the lunch ready. He got a fire going nicely, and then tried the beer. Finding it too cold for his liking, he placed the jar close to the fire to warm it. When the party assembled for lunch it was found that the heat had cracked the jar, and that most of the beer was gone. Ted’s face was a study.

One of the chief joys during the Easter holidays was connected with the water-keepers. At that season they were busy wiring pike. The essential thing for this sport was a still sunny day, so that there would be no ripple on the water, thus making it possible to spot the fish. Long slender ash or hazel wands with a wire noose at one end were the implements used.

Pike lie absolutely motionless in the water until disturbed, and can be wired rather easily. At first it is a bit difficult to see whether your wire is round the fish or not, but you soon get the trick of it. Having spotted a pike within reach, you slide the wand gently into the water well above the fish, push it out to the estimated distance, and then let it drift gently downstream towards the pike. Sometimes you have not got it out quite far enough, and the far edge of the noose will scrape along the near side of the fish without disturbing it. When you judge it correctly, there are a few breathless moments as you watch your wire drift over the pike’s head, down past the first fins, and then you give a joyous pull, feel the weight of him, and in a trice he is out on the bank, snapping his jaws ferociously.

The water-keeper who instructed me in this business was a gentle, lovable old man with a long beard. He is dead long since, but I shall never forget the happy days he gave me in the peaceful green Wiltshire meadows.

Organized shooting being finished at this season, there were still young rabbits to be shot. This was chiefly an evening occupation, and the weapon used was a .22 rook rifle. My father was carefulness itself in the handling of a gun, and would allow no liberties to be taken by anyone in his company. The earliest smacking I can remember was administered by him in the nursery, because I had pointed a toy gun at the nursemaid. He had a great idea, too, of teaching children to connect cause and effect. The first time I accompanied him on one of these rabbit-stalking expeditions with a rifle, he said I could come if I would keep quiet. I agreed to do so, but was soon chattering gaily. During our walk he told me about it several times to no purpose. We got no rabbits that night. A few evenings later he took the rifle down from the gun rack, and I immediately asked if I could go. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I want to get some rabbits. You talk too much.’ I remained at home, very miserable, but the lesson was learnt for all time, and what fun I had with him later on those expeditions, creeping, sometimes crawling, being especially careful never to put one’s foot on a stone or rotten twig, and, above all, learning to shoot with a rifle not only quickly but safely, always remembering that a rifle bullet goes a long way.

I suppose boys still use catapults, but in those days I rarely went out of doors without this silent and efficient weapon. It has one peculiar joy in that you can watch the bullet in its flight until it strikes or misses the mark. The first victim of my skill was a sparrow on the cow-house roof, which I slew with a small potato. I can feel it between my fingers now, still see the glorious curve of its flight finishing square on the sparrow’s chest, and sweeping him into oblivion from the ridge into the cow-yard on the other side of the building. And I ate him that night for supper, after roasting him on a string in front of the kitchen fire. Looking back on those days I do not think that I failed to slay a specimen of every species of bird and animal life on the farm with this weapon, save only the lordly heron and the elusive snipe.

August holidays brought the joys of the harvest, both pleasure and toil. The main sport was the killing of the rabbits in the corn fields. I believe rabbits come under the heading of vermin, which is not a nice name to give to an animal which affords such a lot of pleasure to bloodthirsty boys. My father would stand with his gun between the burrows and the remaining piece of standing corn. I and other boys had to keep back out of his way, but were at liberty to chase any rabbit that ran out on our side of the field. It sounds very cruel perhaps, but in those days to run a rabbit down, fall on it, and then slay it with one’s bare hands, was a gorgeous experience.

Helping with the harvest work, and, as one grew older, being promoted from the lowly leading of horses to the final peak of rick-making, was a satisfying pleasurable thing. Also, for this, I was paid in cash every Saturday with the men. More cause and effect.

This record seems to be all about pleasure and sport. I suppose the business side of farming had its worries in those days, but it is difficult to recall any. There were good seasons and bad ones, doubtless. I can remember wet weather in harvest time and good weather. Good luck at lambing time and bad I can also call to mind, but nothing ever seemed to make any difference in our home life. It all seemed such a settled, certain, prosperous thing. Not that there was any display or luxury or any ostentation of any kind, but there was a spaciousness, and an aura of solid well-being that is sadly lacking to-day.