232 A FARMER'S YEAR 



already a woman in middle life performed a feat which is worthy 

 of record. Over a period of years she lay for hours at a time 

 upon her back in a cradle slung to the roof of the chancel in 

 Ditchingham Church, every inch of which she painted by hand. 

 Already her labours are almost forgotten, although the result of 

 them remains, and I am glad that she has found her last resting- 

 place almost in the shadow of the fane she beautified. 



To-day, Sunday, is very cold again, with a thermometer refusing 

 to rise much above fifty. In the afternoon I walked to see how 

 the young pheasants were getting on, and found that many of them 

 have perished owing to the cold and wet, which Tommy, the 

 keeper's son, tells me have made them liable to a fatal disease in 

 the eyes. He says also that they have been greatly troubled by 

 the hawks, of which he and his father have shot several. One, he 

 informed me with pride, he killed himself while it was in the act 

 of flying away with a young pheasant. Strangely enough, the 

 shot passed through the hawk's head without injuring the chick 

 in its talons, which is now running about with the rest of the 

 brood. 



One of the worst sides of game-preserving is that it renders 

 the destruction of so much other life a necessity. For this 

 many are apt to blame the keepers ; but such critics should re- 

 member that, like the rest of us, the gamekeeper is a man with 

 his bread to earn, and that if he does not * show his birds ' in due 

 season, he is very probably requested to earn it elsewhere. It 

 is therefore in accordance with the rules of logic that he should 

 be severe on hawks and every other living thing which he 

 considers unfriendly to the well-being of pheasants, partridges, 

 and hares. For my own part I think that he is a little indis- 

 criminate, but wherever there is a doubt he prefers to be on the 

 right side, and gives it in favour of the game. Thus, I do not 

 believe that owls work any considerable harm to game, yet once 

 when I advanced this view to a keeper in my employ, he gave me 

 a striking instance to the contrary. He told me, and I always 

 found him a very truthful man, that once he watched an owl 



