KEEPERS 149 



spirits, and he is happy with his wife and family. 

 This is not always the case with some only who 

 do not hunt. It is true they are also away all day, 

 and return to dinner, but looking pale and wretched, 

 having no appetite, and find fault with everything 

 at table, — probably not forgetting the table they 

 have been at during their absence. In short, 

 men must be employed ; and if they have no 

 amusement in the country, it is natural to sup- 

 pose that they will congregate, as abroad, in the 

 metropolis, or a large town. 



Although the scent was good, the writer thinks 

 it right to whip off, for he has just discovered that 

 many may suppose he had changed his fox, but he 

 was only a little wide ; and, as skirting is not 

 approved of, he returns to the subject of the 

 keeper, by relating a fact which will prove how 

 very difficult it is to believe some of them. A 

 gentleman who kept a pack of fox-hounds in the 

 west of England (with whom the writer was on a 

 visit just before the following circumstance had 

 occurred, and afterwards) was desirous of pre- 

 serving both game and foxes, as he always had 

 done, and had just engaged a new keeper, who 

 came from a suspicious quarter, and was therefore 

 strictly ordered not to destroy a fox. As he kept 

 a pack of fox-hounds, his orders were that the 

 foxes should be more thought of than the pheasants ; 



