Last
time the chairman said to I, "So you be here again, Oby; we hear a good
deal about you." I says, "Yes, my lard, I be here agen, but people never
don't hear nothing about _you_." That shut the old duffer up. Nobody
never heard nothing of he, except at rent-audit.
'However, they all knows me now--my lard and the steward, and the keeper
and the bailies, and the farmers; and they don't take half the notice of
I as they used to. The keeper he don't dare, nor the policeman as I
telled you, and the rest be got used to me and my ways. And I does very
well one week with t'other. One week I don't take nothing, and the next
I haves a good haul, chiefly hares and rabbits; 'cause of course I never
goes into the wood, nor the plantations. It wants eight or ten with
crape masks on for that job.
'I sets up about four wires, sometimes only two; if you haves so many it
is a job to look after 'em. I stops the hare's other runs, so that she
is sure to come along mine where I've got the turnpike up: the trick is
to rub your hand along the runs as you want to stop, or spit on 'em, or
summat like that; for a hare won't pass nothing of that sort. So pussy
goes back and comes by the run as I've chose: if she comes quick she
don't holler; if she comes slow she squeals a bit sometimes before the
wire hangs her. Very often I bean't fur off and stops the squealing.
That's why I can't use a gin--it makes 'em holler so.
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