His senses quickened. His eyes were like the sharp eyes of a hunting owl so that he felt that in daylight he had been blind. His ears were tuned to an exquisite degree of sensitiveness. The cracking of a twig, a distant step on leaves, the least tremor of a growing tree, sent a shock of alert pleasure into his brain. And the impalpable cool mist of autumn sharpened his scent to a keenness that delighted him. This state of acute sensitiveness was the basis on which the more than physical thrill of imminent danger was imposed. The labourers who worked on the farms of Squire Delahay’s estate were naturally in league with Badger against the depredations of these foreigners. Each of them was himself a poacher in a quiet way; but they poached for the pot rather than for the market and felt that the presence of Mick and his gang was a menace to their privileges. These men, if less intelligent, were as skilled in woodcraft as the Irishman himself, and Mick’s friends followed their craft in a constant peril of discovery. It was a profitable adventure. Abner soon found that his wages were trebled. Grouse from the mountains, pheasants from the spinneys, partridges from the stubbles, all found their way into Mick Connor’s bag and were driven in a ragman’s cart to Craven Arms. Mick was content to leave the rabbits to the labourers who spied upon him. He spent his money wildly. It even pleased him to treat Badger to drinks in the Pound House bar, knowing very well that the keeper guessed where the money came from. In November salmon began to run up the Barbel to meet the winter floods, and Mick Connor was more than ever in his element, remembering desperate days upon the Barrow when he was a boy. Salmon spearing was to Abner the most exciting pastime of all: the stealthy approach to the riverside up to his knees in the ditches of the water-meadows: the milky whiteness of November fogs; the nearing clamour of the river roaring whitely over stickles into the salmon pool where it lay dumb and black: Mick Connor’s hoarse whispers, the lumbering shadow of Curly Atwell, and, in the darkness, the swirl of an eddy black as ink. ‘Ready . . .’ Mick would whisper, and suddenly a flare of light, reddening faces, casting grotesque shadows, lighting the yellow tree-tops, making a beacon for miles of dreamy country, as though the forest were aflame. The night sounds vanished from Abner’s ears. The woods held their breath and listened. He could hear nothing of the river’s tumult—only the harsh breathing of Atwell and the hiss of the colza flare. ‘By the houly! Look at him! Fourteen pounds if he’s an ounce!’ The shadow of a lifted arm against the light. A violent descent, and then a swirl in the black water and the great fish struggling on the bank. For Mick Connor never missed his mark. ‘Out with the light!’ And then a sudden darkness in which the roar of the stickle and the vague noises of the trees returned.