ight boots will
enable you to wade wherever necessary. This is a great advantage with
wild fowl, which are sometimes shot and lost in deep ooze and strong
currents and eddies, and on thin ice where men cannot go and even good
dogs are puzzled.

CHAPTER XI

FERRETING: A RABBIT-HUNTER

The ferreting season commences when the frosts have caused the leaves to
drop, and the rabbits grow fat from feeding on bark. Early one December
morning, Orion and I started, with our man Little John, to ferret a
double-mound for our old friend Farmer 'Willum' at Redcote.

Little John was a labourer--one of those frequently working at odd times
for Luke, the Rabbit-Contractor. We had nicknamed him Little John
because of his great size and unwieldy proportions. He was the most
useful man we knew for such work; his heart was so thoroughly in it.

He was waiting for us before we had finished breakfast, with his tools
and implements, having carefully prepared these while yet it was dark at
home in his cottage. The nets require looking to before starting, as
they are apt to get into a tangle, and there is nothing so annoying as
to have to unravel strings with chilled fingers in a ditch. Some have to
be mended, having been torn; some are cast aside altogether because weak
and rotten. The twine having been frequently saturated with water has
decayed. All the nets are of a light yellow colour from the clay and
sand that has worked into the string.

These nets almost filled a sack, into which he also cast a pair of
'owl-catchers,' gloves of stout white leather, thick enough to turn a
thorn while handling bushes, or to withstand the claws of an owl
furiously resisting capture. His ferrets cost him much thought, which to
take and which to leave behind. He had also to be particular how he fed
them--they must be eager for prey, and yet they must not be starved,
else they would gorge on the blood of the first rabbit, and become
useless for hunting.

Two had to be muzzled--an operation of some difficulty that generally
results in a scratched hand. A small piece of small but strong twine is
passed through the jaws behind the tusk-like teeth, and tightly tied
round, so tightly as almost to cut into the skin. This is the old way of
muzzling a ferret, handed down from generations: Little John scorns the
muzzles that can be bought at shops, and still more despises the tiny
bells to hang round the neck. The first he says often come off, an