His Old Age, 37 



influences, and thus for a lengthened period there must 

 be a predisposition towards this special occupation. 



Long service in one particular situation is not so 

 common now as it used to be. Men move about from 

 place to place, but wherever they are they still engage 

 in the same capacity ; and once a gamekeeper always 

 a gamekeeper is pretty nearly true. Even in the pre- 

 sent day instances of families holding the office for 

 more than one or two generations on the same estate 

 may be found ; and years ago such was often the case. 

 Occasionally the keeper's family has in this way by 

 the slow passage of time become in a sense associated 

 with that of his employer ; many years of faithful ser- 

 vice sensibly abridging the social gulf between master 

 and servant. The contrary holds equally true ; and 

 so at the present day short terms of service and con- 

 stant changes are accompanied by a sharp distinction 

 separating employer and employe. 



In such cases of long service the keeper holds a 

 position more nearly resembling the retainer of the 

 olden time than perhaps any other ' institution ' of 

 modern life. Pensioned off in his old age in the cot- 

 tage where he was born, or which, at any rate, he first 

 entered as a child, he potters about under his own 

 vine and fig-tree — z. e. the pear and damson trees he 

 planted forty years before — and is privileged now 



