INTRODUCTION 



have lived on his gun, but with an utter contempt of, and 

 animosity against, all those who employ the more ignoble 

 means of snaring and trapping game; and this makes him 

 fulfil his duty as keeper better than many persons trained 

 regularly to that employment. 



He is rather a peculiar person in his way, and has a nat- 

 ural tendency to the pursuit of the rarer and wilder ani- 

 mals, such as otters, seals, wild-fowl, etc. — which accords 

 well with my own tastes in the sporting line — many a day, 

 and many a night too, at all seasons, has he passed lying 

 in wait for some seal or otter, regardless of wet or cold. 

 His neighbours, though all allowing that he was a most in- 

 veterate poacher, always gave him credit for a great deal of 

 simple honestyinother things. Sooneday,havingcaught him 

 in a ditch waiting for wild ducks, on my shooting-grounds, 

 instead of prosecuting, I took him into my service, where 

 he has now remained for some years; and though he some- 

 times shows an inclination to return to his former way of 

 life, he lives tolerably steady, taking great delight at all 

 idle times, in teaching my children to shoot fish or trap 

 vermin — a kind of learning which the boys, young as they 

 are, have become great proficients in, preferring Simon 

 Donald to their Latin master ; and though they attend 

 regularly and diligently to the latter, they make equally 

 good use of the lessons of the former, and can dress a fly 

 and catch a dish of trout for dinner, gallop on their Shet- 

 land ponies across the wildest country, or hit a mark with 

 a rifle as well as most boys of double their age. And, after 

 all, this kind of education does boys more good than harm 

 (as long as they do not neglect their books at the same 

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