First came an old man, walking stiffly--not so much from age as
rheumatism--and helping his unsteady steps on the slippery sarsen stones
with a stout ground-ash staff. Behind him followed a younger man, and in
the rear a boy. Sometimes there was an extra assistant, making four;
sometimes there was only the old man and one companion. Each had a long
and strong ash stick across his shoulder, on which a load of rabbits was
slung, an equal number in front and behind, to balance. The old fellow,
who was dressed shabbily even for a labourer, was the contractor for the
rabbits shot or ferreted in these woods.
He took the whole number at a certain fixed price all round, and made
what he could out of them. Every evening in the season he went to the
woods to fetch those that had been captured during the day, conveying
them to his cottage on the outskirts of the village. From thence they
went by carrier's cart to the railway. Old Luke's books, such as they
were, were quite beyond the understanding of any one but himself and his
wife; nor could even they themselves tell you exactly how many dozen he
purchased in the year. But in his cups the wicked old hypocrite had
often been known to boast that he paid the lord of the manor as much
money as the rent of a small farm.
One of Luke's eyes was closed with a kind of watery rheum, and was never
opened except when he thought a rabbit was about to jump into a net.
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