40 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



eve — the capacity to work being even more essential 

 than capital ; and so it happens that the smaller farms 

 are occasionally held by men who have risen from the 

 lower classes. The sons of keepers also become 

 gentlemen's servants, as grooms, &c, in or out of the 

 house. 



A proposal was not long since made that gentle- 

 men who had met with misfortune or were unable to 

 obtain congenial employment should take service as 

 gamekeepers — after the manner in which ladies were 

 invited to become ' helps.' The idea does not appear 

 to have received much practical support, nor does it 

 seem feasible looking at the altered relations of society 

 in these days. A gentleman ' out of luck,' and with a 

 taste for outdoor life and no objection to work, could 

 surely do far better in the colonies, where he could 

 shoot for his ' own hand,' and in course of time achieve 

 an independence, which he could never hope to attain 

 as a gamekeeper. 



In the olden times, no doubt, younger brothers 

 did become, in fact, gamekeepers, head grooms, hunts- 

 men, &c, to the head of the family. There was less 

 of the sense of servitude and loss of dignity when 

 the feeling of clanship was prevalent, when the great 

 house was regarded as the natural and proper resource 

 of every cadet of the family. But all this is changed. 



