He was a collector of old battle-axes, swords,
daggers, spears, pikes, curious reaping-hooks,
ancient locks, wonderful keys, and ornamented
door-hinges, torn out of old castle walls. His
cottage walls were adorned with such
relics. He also collected antlered heads of
deer, brushes of foxes, pads and ears, hares'
feet, the claws of hawks, wings of the jay,
peacocks' feathers, herons' legs, the skins of
snakes. He stuffed birds cleverly, and many
rare birds given to him by the neighbouring
keepers, or by gentlemen, were stuffed and
added to his treasures. Ben's cottage was
regarded in the parish as "quite a museum,"
and was visited on that account by many of
the curious.

This pattern man showed a great love also
for ancient woods and rural scenery. He
spent most of his leisure by the river bed, or
about old pools, milldams and water-courses;
on open moors falsely called barren, in obscure
lanes choked with thorns and briars, by
cliffs and forest paths and by-paths. He was
to be seen enjoying nature in the neighbourhood
of ancient orchards, of old garths and
stone quarries, and he was a tremendous man
for noticing all that he saw. He was an
oracle on many subjects, and especially upon
the whereabout of game. There was not a
brood of partridges or pheasants within two
or three miles of Baggenham with which he
was not well acquainted. He observed the
runs of the hares, their forms and feeding
grounds. He listened to what others said on
such points, but took care not to tempt with
dangerous knowledge any of the villagers.
With the keepers he was on good terms; for
he gave them a great deal of useful
knowledge. They especially considered him a
pattern villager, whom they were as little
likely ever to see with poachers on the
Baggenham preserves as they were likely to catch
there the Bishop of Beechester himself, with
his lawn sleeves tucked up to his shoulders,
hooking down the pheasants with his crozier.
The two events were in fact equally unlikely.
Ben never did go out with poachers; yet
none knew so well as he how the trees
rustled in Baggenham woods at midnight.

For it is to be understood that Ben, when
he came home from work during the shooting
season, found his wife prepared to make him
wonderfully comfortable, and to see him off to
bed soon after six o'clock in the evening. At
about eleven o'clock or earlier she roused her
husband, and let out of the cellar a lurcher
of a famous breed named Snap, who lived in
the cellar quiet as a mouse all day, and whose
existence was known only to his master and
mistress. Snap only and Mrs. Close knew
Ben's secret; for Snap was the only creature
whose eyes ever saw honest Ben's misdeeds.
No light was kindled in Ben's cottage when
he rose upon the verge of midnight. Secretly
and quietly he dressed himself in a strong
fustian round jacket with an immense pocket
occupying the whole skirt, took with him his
collection of well-tempered snares, gate-nets,
purse-nets, and other instruments; handled a
stout stick, and started out with his eager
companion Snap, never by the front door, but
over the fence at the bottom of his garden,
which adjoined the open fields.

Once out, it was a rule with him that his
feet never should touch a public road, except
in crossing it from hedge to hedge. He knew
every old footway, by-path, temporary bridge,
drain, water-course, copse, osier-bed, and cover
in the district; so he chose his path with skill
and caution, set only a few snares as he went
along in well-known runs, and paused to
listen at the feeblest unaccustomed noise.

Ben was, in truth, a solitary poacher. He
believed that it was no sin to catch what he
called wild animals; but as the law laid traps
for poachers, he determined not himself to be
caught in them. He was a brawny fellow;
but he thought discretion the better part of
valour; and, to avoid all scrapes, avoided all
encounters with the hostile power, or all
chance of danger from the follies of illiterate
accomplices. He studiously kept out of the
public-house, because he did not wish to be
tempted into any interchange of confidence;
he worked well every day, partly, I think,
because he had in him the mind of a good
workman, partly because he knew that a
steady and hard-working day-labourer was
not likely to be suspected of committing
misdemeanours when he ought to be in bed. He
cultivated character most carefully;
reverenced the vicar, was respectful and, so far as
he thought it prudent, confidential in his
friendship with the gamekeepers. Ben would
have been a great diplomatist had he been
born a noble lord.

His great care when out at night was to
avoid contact with a gang of poachers
furnished by his village. When they were to be
heard among the woods Ben always made a
prompt retreat. When all was silent, however,
as the march of the night-clouds—when
the very wood-pigeons were too far gone in
sleep to furnish a single coo—Ben would open
quietly the gate that led into a close preserve,
and spread his net from post to post. At a
wave of his hand the quiet lurcher—to be
mute is a characteristic of the breed—set out
on an expedition over the adjoining field in
which the hares were feeding. The hares,
alarmed, scampered back to the cover by
their old path through the gate: there the
net was spread to stop them, and Ben with
his stick ready to slay them as they came.
When the model villager had caught as many
hares as were required, he rolled his net up,
closed the gate, and pocketed the spoil. He
never used, or possessed, a gun. He had a
net of silk and hair some forty yards long,
which he pegged down in a circle, and with
which he secured partridges by the covey
at a time; and as to pheasants, it was afterwards
the legend that he caused them to
drop from their roost, by holding under them