Landscape with Figures

by Richard Jefferies

  When the village governs itself and takes all matters into its own hands, in time the sentiment of independence may grow up and men begin to work and strive and save, that they may settle at home. It would be a very noble thing indeed if the true English feeling for home life should become the dominant passion of the country once again. By home life I mean that which gathers about a house, however small, standing in its own grounds. Something comes into existence about such a house, an influence, a pervading feeling, like some warm colour softening the whole, tinting the lichen on the wall, even the very smoke-marks on the chimney. It is home, and the men and women born there will never lose the tone it has given them. Such homes are the strength of a land. The emigrant who leaves us for the backwoods hopes to carve out a home for himself there, and we consider that an ambition to be admired. I hope the day will come when some at least of our people may be able to set up homes for themselves in their own country. To-day, if they would live, they must crowd into the city, often to dwell in the midst of hideous squalor, or they must cross the ocean. They would rather endure the squalor, rather say farewell for ever and sail for America, than stay in the village where everyone is master, and none of their class can be independent. The village must be its own master before it becomes popular. County government may be reformed with advantage, but that is not enough, because it must necessarily be too far off. People in the country are scattered, and each little centre is naturally only concerned with itself. A government having its centre at the county town is too far away, and is likely to bear too much resemblance to the boards of guardians and present authorities, to be representative of land and money rather than of men. Progress can only be made in each little centre separately by means of village councils, genuinely representative of the village folk, unswayed by mansion, vicarage, or farm. Then by degrees we may hope to see the re-awakening of English home-life in contradistinction to that unhappy restlessness which drives so many to the cities.

  Men will then wake up and work with energy because they will have hope. The slow, plodding manner of the labourer – the dull ways even of the many industrious cottagers – these will disappear, giving place to push and enterprise. Why does a lawyer work as no navvy works? Why does a cabinet minister labour the year through as hard as a miner? Because they have a mental object. So will the labourer work when he has a mental object – to possess a home for himself.

  Whenever such homes become numerous and the new life of the country begins to flow, pressure will soon be brought to bear for the removal of the mediaeval law which prevents the use of steam on common roads. Modern as the law is, it is mediaeval in its tendency as much as a law would be for the restriction of steam on the ocean. Suppose a statute compelling all ships to sail, or, if they steamed, not to exceed four miles an hour! One of the greatest drawbacks to agriculture is the cost and difficulty of transit; wheat, flour, and other foods come from America at far less expense in proportion than it takes to send a waggon-load to London. This cost of transit in the United Kingdom will ultimately, one would think, become the question of the day, concerning as it does every individual. Agriculture on a large scale finds it a heavy drawback; to agriculture on a small scale it is often prohibitory. A man may cultivate his two-acre plot and produce vegetables and fruit, but if he cannot get his produce to London (or some great city), the demand for it is small, and the value low in proportion. As settlers increase, as the village becomes its own master, and men pass part at least of their time labouring on their own land, the difficulty will be felt to be a very serious one. Transit they must have, and steam alone can supply it. Engines and cars can be built to run on common roads almost as easily as on rails, and as for danger it is merely the interested outcry of those who deal in horses. There is no danger. Fine smooth roads exist all over the country; they have been kept up from coaching days as if in a prophetic spirit for their future use by steam. Upon these roads engines and cars can travel at a good fair pace, collecting produce, and either delivering it to the through lines of rail, or passing it on from road-train to road-train till it reaches the city. This is a very important matter indeed, for in the future easier and quicker transit will become imperative for agriculture. The impost of extraordinary tithe – the whole system of tithe – again, is doomed when once the country begins to live its new life. Freedom of cultivation is ten times more needful to the small than to the large proprietor.

  These changes closely examined lose their threatening aspect, so much so that the marvel is they did not commence fifty years ago instead of waiting till now, and even now to be only potential. What is there in the present condition of agriculture to make farmer or landowner anxious that the existing system of things should continue? Surely nothing; surely every consideration points in favour of moderate change. Those who quote the example of France, and would argue that dissatisfaction must, as there, increase with efforts to allay it, must know full well in their hearts that there is no comparison whatever with France. The two peoples are so entirely different. So little contents our race that the danger is rather the other way, that they will be too easily satisfied. Such changes as I have indicated, when examined closely, are really so mild that in full operation they would scarcely make any difference in the relation of the classes. Such village councils would be very anxious for the existence of the farmer, and for his interests to be respected, for the sufficient reason that they know the value of wages. Perhaps they might even, under certain conditions, become almost too willing partisans of the farmer for their best interests to be served. I can imagine such conditions easily enough, and the possibility of the three sections, labourer, farmer, and owner, becoming more closely welded together than ever. There is far more stolidity to be regretted than revolution to be feared. The danger is lest the new voters should stolidify – crystallize – in tacit league with existing conditions; not lest we should go hop, skip, and jump over Niagara.

  A probable result of these changes is an increase in the value of land: if thousands of people should ever really begin to desire it, and to work and save for the object of buying it, analogy would suppose a rise in value. Instead of a loss there would be a gain to the landowner, and I think to the farmer, who would have a larger supply of labour, and possibly a strong posse of supporters at the poll in their men. Instead of division coalescence is more probable. The greater his freedom, the greater his attachment to home, the more settled the labourer, the firmer will become the position of all three classes. The landowner has nothing whatever to fear for his park, his mansion, his privacy, his shooting, or anything else. What is taken will be paid for, and no more will be taken than needful. Parks and woods are becoming of priceless value; we should have to preserve a few landlords if only to have parks and woods. Perfect rights of possession are not at all incompatible with enjoyment by the people. There are domains to be found where people wander at their will, and enjoy themselves as much as they please, and yet the owner retains every right. It is true that there are also numerous parks rigidly closed to the public, demonstrating the folly of the proprietors – square miles of folly. The use of a little compulsion to open them would not be at all deplorable. But it must stop there and not encroach farther. Having obtained the use, be careful not to destroy.

  The one great aim I have in all my thoughts is the acquisition of public and the preservation of private liberty. Freedom is the most valuable of all things, and is to be sought with all our powers of mind and hand. Freedom does not mean injustice, but neither will it put up with injustice. A singular misapprehension seems to be widely spread in our time, it is that there are two great criminals, the poor man or ‘pauper’ and the landlord. At opposite extremes of the scale they are regarded as equally guilty. Every right – the right to vote, the right to live in his native village, the right to be buried decently – is taken from the unhappy poor man or ‘pauper’. He is a criminal. To own land is to be guilty of unpardonable sin, nothing is so bad; as criminals are ordered to be searched and ev
erything taken from them, so everything is to be taken from the landowner. The injustice to both is equally evident. Any one by chance of circumstances, uncontrollable, may be reduced to extreme poverty; how cruel to punish the unfortunate with the loss of civil rights! Any one by good fortune and labour may acquire wealth, and would naturally wish to purchase land: is he then guilty? In equity both the poor and the rich should enjoy the same civil rights.

  Let the new voter then bear in mind above all things the value of individual liberty, and not be too anxious to destroy the liberty of others, an action that invariably recoils. Let him, having obtained his freedom, beware how he surrenders it again either to local influence in the shape of land or money, or to the outside orator who may urge him on for his own ends. Efforts will be made no doubt to use the new voter for the purposes of cliques and fanatics. He can always test the value of their object by the question of wages and food – ‘How will it affect my wages and food?’ – and probably that is the test he will apply. A little knot of resolute and straightforward men should be formed in every village to see that the natural outcome of the franchise is obtained. They can begin as vigilance committees, and will ultimately reach to legal status as councils.

  Shooting Poachers

  First published in the Pall Mall Gazette, 13 December 1884

  First collected in Chronicles of the Hedges, 1948

  The sport of shooting poachers, which comes in towards Christmas, is now in full swing, some capital sport has already been obtained, and there appears to be a plentiful supply of human game on hand. Bands of men go into the woods armed with guns, and bands of men carrying revolvers go to meet them. The savage encounters that ensue read like those with banditti in the days of Königsmark the Robber. Indeed, while our expedition toils up the Nile (to rescue Gordon) and correspondents have little to describe beyond hard rowing, another war is proceeding at home, accompanied with serious bloodshed. If a ‘special’ were on the spot he would have to relate something like this. The keepers on a large preserve, by means of scouts and vedettes, ascertain the probable intentions of a gang of poachers, and settle themselves in ambush as the night approaches. They are well armed with breech-loading guns and revolvers, six-shooters, in American ‘frontier’ style, as if for a battle with Indians. The poachers, not having wealthy people to buy good weapons for them, generally have old muzzle-loading guns, and have not yet arrived at the civilization of the revolver. Heavy shadows settle in the hollow by the firs; it is night, and by-and-by a scout creeps up with the intelligence that the enemy is busy at the side of the plantation. Fetching a detour the ‘frontier’ men suddenly rush out from a gateway. There is a scuffle – curses – quick flashes of red flame light up the scene. On one side a curl of white smoke ascends from the barrel of a levelled gun. On the other a curl of smoke darts from a revolver extended by an arm in velveteen. Two more men are rolling over each other on the ground, bound up inextricably in a great net into which they have fallen and drawn round them. Another lies twisted in a heap, doubled up, hard hit; a pheasant projects from his coat-pocket. Bang! bang! There are groans, curses, a lantern is turned on, and the fight is over. Next morning, if you visited the spot early, you might see scene two. On the wet grass, stained cartridge-cases; marks of heavy iron-shod boots dug deeply into the soil in the struggle; a broken pipe; a hare wire; blood on the grass and on the crushed bunch of rushes, blood which remains though a fine rain is falling, and drip, dripping from the still trees. Some pheasant feathers lie scattered by the ditch. Away in a shed a stiff and human carcass is extended under a sheet. Other human game, wounded but not mortally, is bagged in the cells at the nearest town. Cold and wet the grey winter’s morning casts its chill over the view; this is the time to think of the fatherless children and the widow. Is not this a noble sport for Christmas-tide? A grand subject here for the next Academy Exhibition, two panels – (one) ‘The Battle’: (two) ‘Next Morning’.

  ‘The right to kill!’ A fresh addition to the rights of man, invented when Madame Clovis Hugues shot M. Morin. In Paris you may avenge your honour – at least, a lady may; these are privileged cases. In England – moral England, which expressed such horror – everybody has a right to kill – a poacher. A keeper is a licensed killer; he shoots cats, weasels, crows, poachers, and other vermin equally. It is his royal pleasure – the keeper s’amuse. The boast of our civilization is the high value we set upon human life. Never, never before in the whole history of man was life so sacred as it is now. The tribunals hold that even starvation does not justify homicide. What, then, can justify this shooting of poachers? Of course a poacher is engaged in an unlawful act, but is that act sufficiently unlawful to render it right to kill him? He is not a burglar, he does not enter a house and put the lives of the inmates in danger. He is not a garrotter – he does not attack people with violence in the street. A wood is not a house – nor even a garden. The argument that he goes by night is merely a legal quibble – poaching by night is the same in this respect as poaching by day; neither by day nor night is there any assault. The poacher, in short, is simply a thief who steals rabbits and pheasants instead of watches from a shop window. It is not nearly so much an assault upon the person as stealing without violence, from the pocket. A man has his pocket picked at Charing-Cross Station; Policeman B. witnesses the robbery, runs up and seizes the thief; suppose Policeman B. drew a revolver from his breast and shot the thief instead? Would that be justifiable? It even remains a moot point what does and what does not justify one in shooting a burglar. Only a poacher may be shot with impunity.

  But a poacher goes armed, true, but with the purpose of shooting pheasants. The keeper does not shoot pheasants at night, nor at any time, with revolvers; such weapons are intended to be used upon man. Those who have had any experience of the combative instincts of rude men know very well that there are many keepers – and others – who go to these brutal encounters with delight. Cases have been seen even of young farmers joining the keeper’s gang to enjoy the battle. It is altogether nonsense to suppose that they go out armed with revolvers with the purely virtuous intention of protecting property. They like the row; they like to ‘do’ for somebody. Good keepers are perfectly well acquainted with various ways and means of tracking and identifying poachers, and if the present be not sufficient some one should invent a portable electric lantern to be suddenly turned on, and so, by making the covers as light as day, afford a view. Poachers would dread a bright light – which means identification – far more than gunpowder. The truth is that these bloodthirsty affairs are a disgrace to our boasted humanity. We have just had an outburst of indignation against keepers shooting cats; but shooting a poacher is nothing – it does not happen in Bulgaria, and is no atrocity. The truth also is that these bloodthirsty businesses are part and parcel of a marked change of tone in the population, they belong to the same class of sentiment that promotes prize-fighting, now so much on the increase. It is downright brutality, and nothing else. It is most injurious to the interest of sport, against which it must ultimately create a prejudice. Shooting doves from a trap became a fashionable atrocity a short while since; rank and fashion arrayed themselves on the side of the poor doves. But the poacher is an outlaw, outside the pale of humanity, far below a pigeon. If a man be privy to a murder, though he be not actually present, he is in law an accomplice; if a man sanction his keeper ‘going for’ poachers with revolvers, what is his position? His conscience at all events cannot be at ease, if slaughter ensues. Poaching is no new thing, but years ago before we became so humane it was the custom to ‘go for’ poachers armed with good stout cudgels, and with those good stout cudgels many a gang of poachers was captured. Then every consideration was in favour of the keepers; now, by using revolvers, they place themselves obviously in as bad a moral position as the poachers. Nor is suspicion wanting that when these local shooting cases come before local magnates the keepers are usually discharged. The whole thing has a bad odour – a very bad odour. Much blame lies in the law
which visits night-poaching with penalties of ridiculous severity, not much better than the old plan of hanging for sheep-stealing. On the one hand, the poacher thinks he may as well be hung (so to say) for a sheep as a lamb; on the other hand, the keeper, knowing that the law is so heavily on his behalf, thinks himself fighting on the ‘side of the angels’, so that nothing he can do is wrong. It is scarcely possible now to pick up a newspaper without finding ‘Serious Poaching Affray’, ‘Keepers Shot’, ‘Poachers Wounded’, and so on ad nauseum. All this is most injurious to sport; as a champion of sport, a true believer in sport, I trust a stop will be put to it, or in time we shall get back to the days (and ways) of spring guns, steel man traps, bloodhounds, and similar amenities. Or shall we go forward and develop, as this is the age of evolution? We shall perhaps find that there are people better off than keepers and poachers who would like a ‘brush’ of this sort – the people who pay the money for prize fights. Here is a cutting from the sporting paper of the period: – ‘The Hon. Jim Masher has a large party of guests staying at Pepperem Hall in anticipation of the Christmas Poacher Shooting. They are all armed with Winchester repeating rifles, and are looking forward anxiously to the full moon in order to take better aim. There is a very strong gang of poachers, and splendid sport is expected; they want decimating sadly. The poachers are said to have a big punt gun, carrying three pounds of shot, and place much reliance on this field-piece. The battue will probably come off in the Lower Plantations, and will be a noisy affair. P.S. The J.P.s have been squared.’