THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



into a room, or an under-butler of the same genus, who could 

 clean a service of plate ; and no man's table in the country 

 was better set out than Mr. Raby's. Of his coach-horses he 

 was justly proud, and he liked to see them ridden and driven 

 to his mind. His postillions — for in those days gentlemen's 

 carriages in the country were not driven from the box — were 

 always Hounslow-bred ones ; that is to say, sons of Hounslow 

 post-boys, having had their education on the road. His turn- 

 out, in this respect, was perfect. 



The out-of-doors establishment was still more numerous. 

 Tliere was a pack of harriers in the kennel, six able coach- 

 horses in one stable, ten hunters in another, besides a hack 

 or two to go to post, or to carry ' how do ye do's ' about the 

 country — no sinecure in those days : a capital team of spaniels 

 for cock-shooting, pointers and setting dogs for partridges and 

 hares, under the care of an experienced gamekeeper, and a 

 small kennel of greyhounds to contend for prizes at the 

 neighbouring coursing meetings. One appendage to the 

 present establishment of an English gentleman, however, was 

 wanting ; I mean a band of night- watchers to protect the game 

 from poachers, an operation beyond the power of any single 

 keeper. And yet it is not to be supposed that there were no 

 poachers of game in those days, as, in that case, Fielding's 

 Black George would have been an anachronism ; but the 

 battue system was unknown. Still, of pheasants, there was a 

 sprinkling in the woods of this estate ; and the delight which 

 the Squire and his friends experienced when they saw Juno on 

 the foot of a pheasant, and the bird shot dead to her point, 

 more than equalled that afforded by a battue of three hundred 

 head in one day, the game being put up by stable-boys, without 

 the use of dogs, the Newfoundland retriever excepted. 



But the reader may well ask how all this was done on an 

 income of seven thousand pounds. — By management, in the 

 first place ; and, in the next, by only occasionally visiting 

 London for the season, Mr. Raby having little inclination for 

 the bustle and hurry of a town life ; and Lady Charlotte (he 

 had married an Earl's daughter) had likewise the good sense 

 to be satisfied with what she had seen of it, in its best form, 

 during her residence with her father in Grosvenor Square, 

 But the ' management ! ' that calls forth some remarks. 



As procrastination is the thief of time, payment delayed is a 



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