132 The Young Gijjsy : a Village Sketch. [Feb. 



finger as shoes and stockings were likely to be to Willy's feet. She 

 forgot her sorrows, and tripped home to her oak-tree the happiest of 

 the happy. 



Thomas Lamb, Willy's new master, was, as I have said, of my ac- 

 quaintance. He was a remarkably fine young man, and as well-man- 

 nered as those of his calling usually are. Generally speaking, there are 

 no persons, excepting real gentlemen, so gentlemanly as game-keepers. 

 They keep good company. The beautiful and gi-aceful creatures whom 

 they at once preserve and pursue, and the equally noble and generous 

 animals whom they train, are their principal associates ; and even by 

 their masters they are regarded rather as companions than as servants. 

 They attend them in their sports more as guides and leaders than as 

 followers, pursuing a common recreation with equal enjoyment, and 

 often with superior skill. Gamekeepers are almost always well-behaved, 

 and Thomas Lamb was eminently so. He had quite the look of a man 

 of fashion ; the person, the carriage, the air. His figure was tall and 

 striking ; his features delicately carved, with a paleness of complexion, 

 arid a slight appearance of ill health that added to their elegance. 

 In short, he was exactly what the ladies would have called interest- 

 ing in a gentleman ; and the gentleness of his voice and manner, 

 and the constant propriety of his deportment, tended to confirm the 

 impression. 



Luckily for him, however, this, delicacy and refinement lay chiefly 

 on the surface. His constitution, habits, and temper, were much 

 better fitted to his situation, much hardier and heartier than they 

 appeared to be. He was still a bachelor, and lived by himself in a 

 cottage, almost as lonely as if it had been placed in a desert island. 

 It stood in the centre of his preserves, in the midst of a wilderness 

 of coppice and woodland, accessible only by a narrow winding path, 

 and at least a mile from the nearest habitation. Wlien you had 

 threaded the labyrinth, and were fairly arrived in Thomas's dominion, 

 it was a pretty territory. A low thatched cottage, very irregularly 

 built, with a porch before the door, and a vine half-covering the case- 

 ments ; a garden a good deal neglected, (Thomas Lamb's four-footed 

 subjects, the hares, took care to eat up all his flowers : hares are 

 animals of taste, and are particularly fond of pinks and carnations, 

 the rogues !) an orchard and a meadow, completed the demesne. 

 There was, also, a commodious dog-kennel, and a stable, of which the 

 outside was completely covered with the trophies of Thomas's industry — 

 kites, jackdaws, magpies, hawks, crows, and owls, nailed by the wings, dis- 

 plai/ed, as they say in heraldrjr, against the wall, with polecats, weazels, 

 stoats, and hedgehogs figuring at their side, a perfect menagerie of dead 

 game-killers.* 



But the prettiest part of this woodland cottage was the real living 

 game that flitted about it, as tame as barn-door fowls ; partridges flock- 

 ing to be fed, as if there were not a dog, or a gun, or a man in the 

 world ; pheasants, glorious creatures ! coming at a call ; hares, almost 



* Foxes, the destruction of which is so great an object in a pheasant preserve, 

 never are displayed, especially if there be a pack of hounds in the neighbourhood. 

 That odious part of a gamekeeper's occupation is as quietly and unostentatiously per- 

 formed as any operation of gunnery can be. Lords of manors will even affect to 

 ])reserve foxes — Heaven forgive them ! — ^jast as an unpopular ministry is sure to talk 

 <rf protecting the liberty of the subject. 



