THE POACHERS:

A TALE.

THE first star of a calm evening of October was twinkling in the horizon, as Alice Green lingered with her lover near the green porch of her father's cottage. This humble and happy dwelling was in a sequestered part of Windsor Forest. It was situated in the bottom of a deep glade, surrounded by the most lofty and majestic trees. A traveller might pass it by unobserved, if he did not hear the bark of the sheep-dog, or was regardless of the grey smoke of a turf fire, climbing upwards between the oaks and beeches of several centuries' growth. A little exertion, however, soon led the inmate of this lowly spot to an eminence which overlooked the surrounding country. On one side they might behold the Thames wandering through a long series of fertile meadows; on another the majestic castle of Windsor, telling of old times, might be seen through the openings of the foliage, shining in the broad light of the western sun, or blackening in the evening shadows against the loftier and more distant hills. There was a seat near the cottage which commanded this beautiful prospect ;and here would Alice Green, and her father, whose age she nourished with the affection and duty of an only child, sit through the long hours of the summer evenings, while they ate their simple meal, and the fond old man would call up the recollections of his youth, and tell his daughter over and over again, the few, but to him important, incidents of a contented and unvarying life. It was on this ancient bench, carved with many a rustic name, that Alice and her lover lingered, ere they parted for the night. The hour was one of tranquillity;-but as the setting sun threw its last rays upon the many-coloured branches of the forest, and as the wind whistled amongst the falling leaves, the mind of Alice gradually acquired that pensiveness which belongs to this season, and she received with trembling forebodings the confident language of anticipated happiness which Charles Seabrook

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(for such was the young man's name) addressed to her. Their acquaintance had been blessed with the full sanction of Alice's father. The young man was entirely his own master. He possessed a few acres of land, and rented a few more;- -and he hoped that Alice would assist him in the duty of managing his little farm, and be to him as affectionate a wife as she was a daughter. They each sincerely loved the other;-but their characters were widely different. Seabrook was eager, passionate, and presumptuous-Alice was doubtful, timid, and retiring. The old man was, however, satisfied to intrust his daughter's happiness to his young friend ;-and the day of their marriage was already named.

By the time that Seabrook had received the cordial good night of Alice's father, the twilight was almost passed. His home was about two miles distant. He was intimately acquainted with the least frequented paths of the forest; and he therefore fearlessly penetrated into the wood, without an apprehension of losing his way. He had not walked far before it became dark. He still persevered in his course, sometimes dashing through the thick fern, and at others putting aside the prickly underwood. Within half a mile of his house, which was on the edge of the forest, he heard a shot;-and presently three or four young men ran up to him, and demanded his business there. He at once recognised several village acquaintance. They without hesitation told him they were beating for game ;-that the pheasants were plenty, and the risk little. Seabrook had unfortunately acquired a notion which is very common in the country, that the laws for the preservation of game are arbitrary inventions of the rich to oppress the poor;-that the birds of the air are the property of all;-and that there is no moral guilt in violating or evading those enactments which secure the right of taking them to the possessors of the land upon which they are fed.* Seabrook had, indeed, seen several fatal examples of the wretched career of

*It is a delusion to imagine that this notion can ever be eradicated that game will ever come to be regarded as other property is regarded. The Game Laws must be abo

poachers. He had seen some of the companions of his boyhood embarking in this perilous pursuit, some with a systematic dislike of regular exertion, and others perhaps from want, or a mere love of adventure; - and he had beheld them gradually losing all the distinctions of the respectable citizen, becoming outcasts and vagabonds, suffering, perhaps, the lighter penalties of the law for such offences, but still going on till they were engaged even in more desperate pursuits, and were visited with more complete punishment and disgrace. But there are moments which the wisest and the best should ask to be spared;-when the lessons of experience are thrown away. "Lead us not into temptation" is a striking part of the Christian's prayer; and the weakness of human nature is always furnishing evidence of the wisdom in mercy of that heavenly teacher who prescribed it for our infirmities. Seabrook was led by curiosity to join these careless and wicked men. They placed a fowling-piece in his hand and he penetrated with them into the farther recesses of the wood. At the pass of a narrow brook, the gamekeepers rushed out upon the party. The foremost of the poachers fired, and a man fell. Seabrook immediately threw down the gun, and surrendered himself. Two others of the gang were secured.

How immense a change had a moment of imprudence produced in this young man's situation and feelings! Instead of his own peaceable cottage, with his cheerful meal, and the quiet hour of prayer and sleep, he found himself in a common gaol,-surrounded by profligate and impenitent violators of the laws. That night brought with it no rest. In the morning he was conveyed, in fetters, to a neighbouring magistrate. The worthy man immediately recognised Seabrook; and he remonstrated

lished, or greatly changed, before any real improvement can take place in the rural population. The moral of this tale is not wholly for poachers: it may glance at the position of those who are placed in antagonism to poachers, and are thus greatly responsible for the evils of a system which has been the destruction of many a man with better principles than those which belong to habitual poachers.

more as a father than a judge, upon the danger and degradation of his condition. The unfortunate youth in a few words convinced the magistrate that he was not an habitual offender;-that his participation in this crime had been the effect of accident and thoughtlessness. But the magistrate could not allow his pity to usurp the place of his duty. The evidence was clear that Seabrook had been found with arms in his hands-that he was an accessary in the offence ;-and that a man had been shot. The life of the wounded gamekeeper was in danger ;and there was no alternative but that of committing all the prisoners to the county gaol, upon the capital charge of firing at a fellow-creature with intent to murder.

The news of Seabrook's disgrace of course quickly circulated. Upon Alice it fell with a fearful weight, which bowed her to the earth. She no longer went about her household duties, receiving and diffusing happiness, like a glad and ministering spirit ;-she no longer called her aged father from his bed, with a voice that gave assurance of a day of cheerfulness;-she no longer prepared for him his evening meal, with an alacrity that showed the peace of a mirthful and innocent heart. Her occupations were however not neglected. She struggled with her grief; but the melody of her happy voice was no more heard in that cottage;-and even when the father and the child sung their daily hymn of praise and thankfulness, a feeble and a broken sound went up from Alice to the throne of grace, instead of the harmonious gratitude of a pious heart. Her health gradually wasted. She was however in some degree consoled, by the universal assurance that Seabrook was not deeply engaged in the profligacy of those men into whose snares he had fallen. The old man too visited him in prison; and received from his own lips a full explanation of the unhappy transaction. But Alice was broken in spirit;-her lover had become degraded by the participation in a crime;-the being in whom she hoped to repose her best and purest thoughts was the inmate of a prison.

The day of trial approached: the two poachers were capitally arraigned for wounding the gamekeeper-were

convicted and were sentenced to die. Seabrook was indicted upon a less serious charge-and he was adjudged to be transported beyond the seas. The mercy which in this country is almost always extended to those that are deserving was exercised in the case of this unfortunate young man. The neighbours, magistrates, and all who knew him, united in a petition to the highest authority; and, after a confinement of a few months, Seabrook was discharged with a royal pardon.

The first impulse of his mind, upon obtaining his liberty, was to hasten home. But he felt himself disgraced. He went therefore to visit a relation in a more distant part of the county; but he soon became alarmed when he thought of his Alice-and he lost no time in reaching her neighbourhood. The winter was now set in. It was late in a cold and misty afternoon that he arrived at the cottage of Alice's father. He walked round with a sad foreboding--but he heard nothing;he opened the wicket with a trembling hand-but no one appeared ;-he at last passed the porch, and beheld no one but an aged woman whom he knew as an attendant on the sick. He dared not express his fears-he rushed towards the village.

In the lane where he had often walked with Alice, he at length met some persons approaching. They made way for his eager steps;-but they did not address him. A sudden turn at length brought him to the sad procession of a few persons returning, in the habiliments of woe, from the place of burial to the house of mourning. He saw an old man supported by two friends; it was Alice's father. The fulness of his misery at once burst upon him—he fell down in the pathway, and was carried lifeless to his own house.

A fever of the most serious kind was the consequence of this agony of the soul. Seabrook at length recovered. There was a quiet decision in his manner which alarmed all his friends. One morning he was missing. His brother entered upon the farm;-and, after a few years, the unhappy youth was forgotten, except by those who delighted to tell a tale of woe by their Christmas fires.