OLD RECOLLECTIONS 271 



guarding with their under-keepers estates which 

 were situated on the border lines of four coun- 

 ties, where lived degenerated descendants of 

 nomads who inherited their parents' vices, 

 without many of their wild virtues owning 

 only one lord, the Lord of Misrule. Man 

 to man, the keepers and the poachers met 

 many a time, and fought the matter out under 

 the forest trees, both being afterwards cared for 

 by the same medical men. When rough work 

 was expected at night, the doctors of that dis- 

 trict slept with "one eye open." Indepen- 

 dently of the position of high trust which they 

 held, they valued most highly the confidence 

 of the gentlemen whose covers and fields they 

 guarded. We are many of us familiar with 

 that typical portrait which a famous artist pre- 

 sented to its original the keeper, who is de- 

 picted as taking a pheasant from the mouth 

 of his noted retriever. The artist, depend upon 

 it, respected that man. 



And the masters of that day, large game- 

 preservers and sportsmen, were not easy men 

 to deal with. They rode as straight to hounds 

 as they looked down their doubles when the 

 partridges whirred from the stubbles, or the 

 pheasants went rocketing and chouk-chouking 



