THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 3 



who could bring a message into a room, or an under-butler 

 of the same genus, who could clean a service of plate; 

 and no man's table in the country was better set out than 

 Mr. Raby's. Of his coach-horses he was justly proud, and 

 he liked to see them ridden and driven to his mind. His 

 postillions for in those days gentlemen's carriages in 

 the country were not driven from the box were always 

 Hounslow-bred ones ; that is to say, sons of Hounslow 

 post-boys, having had their education on the road. His 

 turn-out, in this respect, was perfect. 



The out-of-doors establishment was still more numerous. 

 There was a pack of harriers in the kennel, six able coach- 

 horses in one stable, ten hunters in another, besides a hack 

 or two to go to post, or to carry " how do ye do's " about the 

 country no sinecure in those days : a capital team oi 

 spaniels for cock-shooting, pointers and setting dogs for 

 partridges and hares, under the care of an experienced 

 gamekeeper, and a small kennel of greyhounds to contend 

 for the prizes at the neighbouring coursing meetings. One 

 appendage to the present establishment of an English 

 gentleman, however, was wanting ; I mean a band of 

 night-watchers to protect the game from poachers, an 

 operation beyond the power of any single keeper. And 

 yet it is not to be supposed that there were no poachers of 

 game in those days, as, in that case, Fielding's Black George 

 would have been an anachronism ; but the battue system 

 was unknown. Still, of pheasants, there was a sprinkling 

 in the woods of this estate ; and the delight which the 

 Squire and his friends experienced when they saw Juno 

 on the foot of a pheasant, and the bird shot dead to her 

 point, more than equalled that afforded by a battue of three 

 hundred head in one day, the game being put up by stable- 

 boys, without the use of dogs, the Newfoundland retriever 

 excepted. 



But the reader may well ask how all this was done on an 

 income of seven thousand pounds. By management, in the 

 first place ; and, in the next, by only occasionally visiting 

 London for the season, Mr. Raby having little inclination 

 for the bustle and hurry of a town life ; and Lady Charlotte 

 (he had married an Earl's daughter) had likewise the good 

 sense to be satisfied with what she had seen of it, in its best 

 form, during her residence with her father in Grosvenor 

 Square. But the " management ! " that calls forth some 

 remarks. 



