THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



for the house, of which they were not a little proud, as there 

 was no great abundance of them on the estate — Mr. Raby being 

 averse to their increase, on account of the injury done by them 

 to young trees. To a certain extent, however, he wished to 

 preserve them, as the means of ensuring litters of foxes in his 

 covers. Still, as it may be supposed, this intimate alliance 

 with Jem Perren, the young keeper, was not without its effect 

 on the aspiring mind of his young master. From the superi- 

 ority of Jem's knowledge in these matters, as w^ell as having the 

 advantage in years, Frank looked up to him as his chief pre- 

 ceptor — his reverence the tutor only being second. Then, 

 again, Jem was an accomplished youth of his kind. In the 

 first place. Nature had not been unkind to him ; he inherited a 

 great share of his father's acuteness, and, for his years, more 

 than his share of his Herculean frame and strength. In fact, 

 he was quite the ' cock of the walk ' among all the lads of the 

 villao"e in which he had received his learnin(j, and had often 

 amused his young master with accounts of the various battles 

 he had been engaged in, at least those which had ended in 

 victory. 



As may be supposed, all this was not lost on our hero, who 

 listened to such tales with delight ; neither can we marvel at 

 his having done so. He was now in his thirteenth year, and 

 had been reading history with his tutor, as well as listening 

 to his brother when reading it, in portions considered beyond 

 his own reach at the time ; and had paid particular attention 

 to the accounts given of those heroes of antiquity who had 

 sio-nalised themselves in gymnastic exercises, boxers and 

 wrestlers especially. He found that the first kings of the 

 world obtained their dominion by being superior to all others 

 in strength and courage— in fact, that, even in Homer's time, 

 the argumentwm haculinum was essential to the existence of 

 all little governments. Leaving out of the question those 

 apocryphal heroes, Hercules, Theseus, Pollux, and others, who 

 were feigned to have been the original inventors of games and 

 combats (considered so admirably calculated for rendering the 

 bodies of youth robust and vigorous, and capable of supporting 

 the severe fatigue of a soldier's life, that they were wisely 

 made to form a part of their religious worship), he had read 

 that the most celebrated characters of their day excelled in 

 the boxing and wrestling arts. Epaminondas, for example, 



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