178 



CHAPTER IX. 



" Now was the game destroyed, and not a hare 

 Escaped at least the danger of the snare ; 

 Woods of their feather'd beauty were bereft, 

 The beauteous victims of the silent theft : > , 



The well-known shops received a large supply. 

 That they who could not kill at least might buy." Crabbe. 



There are sporting trophies hanging up now in my 

 dressing-room to which I will allude, as some of the 

 circumstances under which they were won are curious. 

 In the seven years I was at Harrold I had got up a 

 great deal of game, and of course the game I reared 

 spread to other woods, to the Harrold Woods, over 

 which j\lr. Magenis shot, and elsewhere. The Harrold 

 AVoods were the property of Lord De Grey. There 

 is no country, wherever there is land unpreserved, that 

 has not its quota of poachers or thieves of game; 

 and as there were several tracts of land both belong- 

 ing to Lord De Grey, and to Mr. Alston, to which 

 every night- shooter was free, of course there were 

 plenty of poachers in the vicinity of Harrold Hall. 

 It is not the well-preserved head of game that makes 

 the poacher, or the idle and bad character ; but it is 

 an unprotected district of land, whereon there is a 

 natural or indigenous head of game, to which any one 

 is free who likes to take it. Youno; men thus obtain 

 the means of pleasurably earning a few shillings to 

 spend in drink and debauchery ; and when they have 

 imbibed a taste for it, and the little unprotected 

 game is nearly exterminated, then they follow up 



