Those who go poaching with ferrets choose a moonlight night:  if it is dark it is difficult to find the holes.  Small buries are best because so much more easily managed, and the ferret is usually lined.  If a large bury is attempted, they take the first half-dozen that bolt and then move on to another.  The first rabbits come out rapidly; the rest linger as if warned by the fate of their companions.  Instead of wasting time over them it is best to move to another place.

Unless a keeper should chance to pass up the hedgerow there is comparatively little risk, for the men are in the ditch and invisible ten yards away under the bushes and make no noise.  It is more difficult to get home with the game:  but it is managed.  Very small buries with not more than four or five holes may be ferreted even on the darkest nights by carefully observing beforehand where the holes are situate.

CHAPTER XII

A WINTER NIGHT:  OLD TRICKS:  PHEASANT-STALKING:  MATCHLOCK versus BREECH-LOADER:  CONCLUSION

When the moon is full and nearly at the zenith it seems to move so slowly that the shadows scarcely change their position.  In winter, when the branches are bare, a light that is nearly vertical over a tree can cast but little shadow, and that falls immediately around the trunk.  So that the smallness of the shadow itself and the slowness of its motion together tend to conceal it.

The snow on the ground increases the sense of light, and in approaching the wood the scene is even more distinct than during the gloomy day.  The tips of the short stubble that has not yet been ploughed in places just protrude above the surface, and the snow, frozen hard, crunches with a low sound under foot.  But for that all is perfectly still.  The level upland cornfields stretch away white and vacant to the hills—­white, too, and clear against the sky.  The plain is silent, and nothing that can be seen moves upon its surface.

On the verge of the wood which occupies the sloping ground there stands a great oak tree, and down one side of its trunk is a narrow white streak of snow.  Leaning against the oak and looking upwards, every branch and twig is visible, lit up by the moon.  Overhead the stars are dimmed, but they shine more brightly yonder above the hills.  Such leaves as have not yet fallen hang motionless:  those that are lying on the ground are covered by the snow, and thus held fast from rustling even were the wind to blow.  But there is not the least breath—­a great frost is always quiet, profoundly quiet—­and the silence is undisturbed even by the fall of a leaf.  The frost that kills them holds the leaves till it melts, and then they drop.