238 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



This tenant subsequently gave up the farm, and the 



next man who took it was permitted to carry a gun 



to frio-hten — they very seldom kill — the rabbits ; 



and as this farm adjoins my pleasure grounds, and 



comes within a hundred and fifty yards of my house, I 



well knew that, with no keeper over him, the new tenant, 



if inclined so to do, would shoot at every head of tame 



o-ame I reared. I cared not how much he shot Sir 



George Rose's partridges, for I thought that served his 



landlord right ; but I was resolved to punish him if he 



came near my grounds. As I expected, he used to 



live all his leisure hours under the hedge of my little 



o"orse cover, taking good care to keep his side of the 



ditch, and when he thought no one was looking he 



fired into the tame coveys of birds that fed at the 



drawing-room window and from Mrs. Berkeley's 



hand. Many a shot he got at what my keeper, 



James Dewy, now at Spetchley Park, called " a 



guy;" this was no other than a rabbit-skin rudely 



stuffed, and set up on his land as if at feed. After 



crawling for some hundred yards, he got a shot at 



this, and then Dewy would rise from the gorse in 



peals of laughter, and cry out " What ! not killed 'un 



yet ? Dang it, I never heard tell of so stout a rabbut." 



One year the crop was beans, and, while the man in 



charge of them hoed on one way, Dewey crept out the 



other and set up the guy for the labourer to see when 



he came back : as he expected, the man saw the rabbit, 



and down he went on hands and knees till he had come 



within reach, when he got up and broke his hoe over 



the " stout 'un." Dewy, as usual, was there to laugh 



immoderately ; saying, "What! youha'nt done for him 



yet, then ? Your master has wasted many charges of 



powder and shot at that poor thing, and now thou 



