CHAPTER V 

 AN OLD RETAINER 



A relic of the past — " Master " Jessey — A desultory character — An 

 unpaid retainer — His self-imposed duties — Bees, ratting, rabbiting-, 

 fishing- — Other cares — Master Jessey's costume — His homely ver- 

 nacular — A " mollyern "—Honey -wine — Mead and "metheglum" — 

 Pike-fishing and its delights — Netting the Feeder — Great days — The 

 end of a placid life. 



EIGHTY or a hundred years ago the type of which 

 '' Master" Jessey was one of the last relics was, I 

 suppose, common enough. But by the late sixties and 

 early seventies, when I remember the old man, the 

 privileged unpaid retainer of the old English country- 

 house had become practically extinct. Master Jessey 

 was, in fact, a belated survivor of a system which rail- 

 ways, machinery, and the stress and hurry of modern 

 life have driven from their ancient abiding-places. 



He was never called anything else than "Master" 

 Jessey in the village in which he lived ; that old- 

 fashioned title signifying, I am inclined to think, in 

 his case, a rank somewhat below the large farmers and 

 graziers of the vicinity and yet a good deal above the 

 poorer folk. The old man came of good Warwick- 

 shire yeoman stock. Latterly the family had declined 

 a little from its former place, and Master Jessey's 

 relations were now chiefly substantial tenant farmers 

 under the great landlords of the county. Master 

 Jessey himself had been bred up as a maltster, and, 

 in the earlier half of the century, had, I have always 



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