io The Gamekeeper at Home, 



must have been an athlete. There is still plenty of 

 power in the long sinewy arms, brown hands, and 

 bull-neck, and intense vital energy in the bright blue 

 eye. He is an ash-tree man, as a certain famous 

 writer would say ; hard, tough, unconquerable by 

 wind or weather, fearless of his fellows, yielding but 

 by slow and imperceptible degrees to the work of 

 time. His neck has become the colour of mahogany, 

 sun and tempest have left their indelible marks upon 

 his face ; and he speaks from the depths of his broad 

 chest, as men do who talk much in the open air, 

 shouting across the fields and through the copses. 

 There is a solidity in his very footstep, and he stands 

 like an oak. He meets your eye full and unshirk- 

 ingly, yet without insolence ; not as the labourers do, 

 who either stare with sullen ill-will or look on the 

 earth. In brief, freedom and constant contact with 

 nature have made him every inch a man ; and here 

 in this nineteenth century of civilised effeminacy may 

 be seen some relic of what men were in the old 

 feudal days when they dwelt practically in the woods. 

 The shoulder of his coat is worn a little where the 

 gun rubs, and so is his sleeve ; otherwise he is fairly 

 well dressed. 



Perfectly civil to every one, and with a willing 

 manner towards his master and his master's guests, 



