Part 11

The Last of the Hurdlers

The ancient art of making hurdles is fast dying out. In a small Hampshire village, where a score of hurdlers could have been found a quarter of a century ago, to-day but one or two old men remain who can make a hurdle of the genuine sort. The reason is not that hurdle-making is profitless, for there is a demand for good workers, and the rate of pay is higher than of old--from four to five shillings for a dozen hurdles, which represent a day's hard work. But few boys follow the old calling of the hurdler, probably because a long apprenticeship must be served. There is difficulty in finding a qualified man to take a boy in charge; and for a long while the boy would be useful only to strip the rods of knots, and would earn but a nominal wage. At other work his earnings would be enough at least to pay his share of the family expenses at home. So that few hurdlers see their way to teach even their own sons this honourable trade.

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Hurdlers' Science

The first stage in making a hurdle is the splitting of the rods; and this is an art calling for years of practice before such perfect efficiency is attained that the worker can divide each rod exactly down the centre with his eyes shut. The bill-hook is inserted at the rod's smaller end, the other end is held between the knees, and the straight, clean split is made by directing the pressure of the bill-hook one way or the other--the edge of the hook being turned towards that side of the rod which threatens to splinter. When the rods are split, the "salins"--the upright stakes which form the framework of the hurdle--are fixed into the "mole"--a solid piece of wood, slightly curved, and drilled with holes. "Spurs" are the small, round, unsplit rods woven over the top and bottom to prevent slipping. The weather has much to do with the ease and speed of the work. Cold, sunless days with east winds tend to make the rods brittle, and then when a binding spur is being wound into place it will break, and part of the hurdle must be remade. Drought hardens the wood, and the rods lose elasticity. A hard frost may freeze the wood's moisture, and the rods may then snap. The most favourable weather is sunny, but not scorching, with occasional light showers. In wet weather the strongest worker is terribly handicapped, and rheumatism, sooner or later, is almost certain to take hold of him.

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LONDON, EDWARD ARNOLD.]

The Woodman

Not all who work in the woods are entitled to the name of woodman: a word standing for an ancient and an honourable calling. The woodman proper is an estate official, a sort of general foreman over the underwood and the timber. He ranks a grade below the gamekeeper. A man of parts, he knows his woods through and through. He can tell you the exact age of the various growths of underwood, for it is his duty to advise what shall be cut each year, to map it out in lots for sale, to undertake the marking and felling of timber, and to see to the upkeep of covert fences, and the trimming of rides. He receives a retaining weekly wage, except when he is turning underwood to account or laying a hedge, when he is paid by the piece. In time of need, the gamekeeper calls on the woodman's assistance, and he seldom goes long in want of a rabbit. The keeper is always generous with his friends and allies.

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A Dying Race

Below the woodman in rank, and not rightly to be called a woodman, is the copse-worker, or copser; a piece-worker, free to work for any one who will give him a job. He is a skilled craftsman, one of a dying race, for his boys are kept too long at school ever to take kindly to his calling. This is his constant complaint: and he will air his views freely on "eddication" and the making of "scholards." He himself had only enough learning drubbed into him to allow him to make every night an entry of his day's work--so many bavins, so many bundles of pea-sticks, so many fencing-poles. His daily earnings fluctuate with the quality of the wood, which he is sure to declare is nothing like what it was in the days of his youth.

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Choice Nesting-Places

It is the keeper's lot to make the best of many a bad job. If he could have his way, all underwood would be chopped and stacked in neat piles by the middle of April, so that his nesting birds might enjoy undisturbed peace in his woods. In olden days, all underwood was cut, worked up, and cleared off the ground by certain fixed dates so that the new shoots of the shorn stumps had full measure of light and air. But the dates are no longer remembered, and the work is carried on into early summer. The birds benefit in some ways. Pheasants find the long rows of felled underwood very attractive as nesting-places, and many pairs of partridges decide to give them a trial. Pheasants and partridges prefer to nest in dead material--it is warmer and drier than greenstuff, does not hold dew or rain, and cannot grow, and so possibly upset the nest. Dry leaves are driven by the wind beneath the rows of wood, so nesting material is plentiful. And there is no dense canopy of leaves to shut out the sun that is so loved by the sitting birds.

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Hidden Nests

Much underwood remains in the long drifts where it was laid after cutting until well on in May, and even into June. The keeper may search carefully, but unless the rows are very narrow and thin he can hope to find only a few of the many nests they shelter. Especially difficult is it to find the partridge nests. The finding is almost as much a matter of luck as of skill, for the eggs are covered completely by the birds with a drab quilt of leaves, perfectly matching the surroundings. The eggs of pheasants, too, though the birds seldom cover them, are often hidden through the play of the leaves in the wind. Even should a bird be sitting on her nest, she is not easily found--unless the keeper catches the glint of her dark eye. Her feathers are merely one shade more in the prevailing blends of brown. The woodworker, keeping the most careful watch for nests, often does not see the sitting bird until he strips the underwood from her very back.

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A Mutual Understanding

Between the gamekeeper and copsers in his woods there is an unwritten agreement, making for the good of all. The workers take heed and care of the game-nests, and the keeper sees that they are rewarded according to the care. He does not pay people to find nests, but to protect those discovered in the course of daily work--a small sum, by way of encouragement, usually a shilling for each nest. But the copser, while chopping up the rows of underwood, finds a good many small nests, with three or four eggs each, and the keeper may agree to pay him a penny for each of these odd eggs, as he calls them, and a shilling for each more respectable nest saved. The copser must leave cover for a few yards around the nests, and do nothing to disturb the tenancy. When the nest is so situated that it causes no inconvenience or delay to the copser's work, the shilling is paid only when the eggs hatch; in special cases the keeper takes the risk of safe hatching. It is a proud moment for the copser when he makes a satisfactory report of a nest. "That there old bird over agen they ash-stems," he will say delightedly, "she be hatched and gone, master."

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Many Guardians

Often a keeper must give judgment as to who is entitled to the reward for a nest found and protected by two or three men. It would be easy if the spirit of justice were satisfied by handing the shilling to the man who first found the nest; or if a shilling were given to each man; but this would make up an alarming account for nest-money. So the keeper may give the first finder a shilling, and the others a couple of rabbits each. It would not be policy to foster a man's interest only in the nest which he finds himself, and is the first to find, for a nest may need the guardianship of many workers. First it may be found by a copser, working up underwood; he keeps an eye upon it for a week, finishes his job, and departs. Then a hurdler comes, or perhaps a hoop-maker, who starts work, sees the nest and guards it for awhile. And then the nest catches the eye of a carter when he comes to fetch a load of wood; he notes the position, lest it should come to harm under the hoofs of his horse or the wheels of his waggon--and after his day's work he may walk a mile or two to lay his information at the keeper's cottage.

When three men work in the same part of a wood, one may have the luck to find several nests, and the others may have no luck. So the men, if good mates, arrange to pool the nest-money; but sometimes the lucky man is avaricious. The keeper must study the vagaries of luck and character. Some men will be spoiled by too liberal rewards; but an extra shilling or two may be well spent if it prevents a sour man from thinking he has been harshly treated. The keeper knows the labourer as a man who broods much, and is slow to forgive an insult, or to forget an injustice. And he knows it makes all the difference to his own work if the men who labour in the woods for six months in the year are his friends and allies. This, in turn, is no bad thing for them--many odd jobs the keeper puts in their way when work is slack, and he puts many rabbits into their hands to the comfort of their hearts.

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Mark's Day

The twenty-fifth day of April is one of the keeper's high days. A large number of the twenty or thirty thousand gamekeepers in this country then commit their first batches of pheasant eggs to the care of broody hens. Some keepers cling to this date because their fathers did so before them, in the same way that ancestral etiquette decrees that on a certain fair-day cabbage seed must be sown. No decided advantage is to be gained by very early hatching; but by April 25 the keeper usually has a goodly collection of eggs, taken from wild birds' nests, and their quality does not improve if kept, in an artificial way, longer than a fortnight. Eyes ignorant of woodcraft would pass a pheasant's nest which no keeper could fail to see; and would pass unseeingly over the brown form of the sitting bird, heedless of the bright, dark eyes that keenly watch the intruder's movements. Pheasants like a little light cover, but do not care to nest in thick and tangled undergrowth. They love sunshine, and prefer a site where falls a shaft of the morning sun; if you note the position of a sitting pheasant, you will probably find that her face is sunwards. The mother bird is very jealous of the sanctity of her nest; if disturbed she does not often return. The keeper, passing by a sitting pheasant, passes by as though he had seen nothing.