36 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



The book-learning of the keeper's boy is rather 

 limited, for he was taught by the parish clerk and 

 schoolmaster before the Education Acts were 

 formulated. Still, he can read, and pores over the 

 weekly paper of rural sports, &c, taken for the 

 guests at the great house and when out of date sent 

 down to the keeper's cottage. In fact, he shows a 

 little too much interest in the turf columns to be quite 

 satisfactory to his father, who is somewhat anxious 

 about his acquaintance with the jockeys from the 

 training-stables on the downs hard by — an acquaint- 

 ance he discourages as tending to no good. Like 

 his father, he is never seen abroad without a pair of 

 leathern gaiters, and, if not a gun, a stout gnarled 

 ground-ash stick in his hand. 



The gamekeeper's calling naturally tends to per- 

 petuate itself and become hereditary in his family. 

 The life is full of attraction to boys — the gun alone is 

 hardly to be resisted ; and, in addition, there are the 

 animals and birds with which the office is associated, 

 and the comparative freedom from restraint. There- 

 fore one at least of his lads is sure to follow in his 

 father's steps, and after a youth and early manhood 

 spent cut of doors in the woods it is next to impossi- 

 ble for him ever to quit the course he has taken. His 

 children, again, must come within reach of similar 



