io THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



readers. It too often happens that highly-bred women, 

 who emerge from the vortex of the fashionable world to 

 reside in the country with the husbands of their choice, 

 look slightingly on the wives and daughters of the 

 gentlemen in the neighbourhood who may not have had 

 the entree into similar walks of life (from which, indeed, 

 their situation and circumstances excluded them), or are 

 unable to exhibit so many quarterings in their escutcheons. 

 This was not Lady Charlotte's failing. On the contrary, 

 like a woman of good sense, she conformed to the 

 situation which she had selected for herself in every 

 respect ; and although, within the circle of her visiting, 

 there were several ladies holding rank nearly equal to her 

 own, still there were no young ladies of her acquaintance 

 oftener to be seen at the Abbey than the daughters of the 

 rector of the parish. 



The rector of Amstead was an old-fashioned country 

 clergyman of whom John Bull was once wont to be so 

 proud, and to whom obedience and tithes were paid 

 without a murmur. Enabled, by the value of his 

 preferment, the prudent management of his income, and 

 a limited family two daughters and one son to make a 

 most respectable appearance in society, and to add to the 

 valuable instruction given by him to his congregation in 

 the church, assistance to such as stood in need of it at 

 their homes, he was extremely beloved in his parish. In 

 fact, he was to the poor a " Man of Ross ; " and to his flock 

 so much a pastor to their mind that dissent was unknown 

 in his parish. And yet the rector was a sportsman at 

 least to a certain extent. He was an excellent shot, in 

 cover especially, the woodcock being his favourite quarry. 

 And here his turn-out was somewhat remarkable, for he 

 was always accompanied by his clerk, who was not only 

 an excellent beater of a wood, but, having been the son 

 of an Amstead gamekeeper, well knew the haunts of a 

 cock, in all the covers in his neighbourhood. The clerk, 

 however, like his rector, was much respected in his 

 village, where he was considered a man of no mean 

 accomplishments, inasmuch as, exclusively of his sacred 

 avocation, he was both a shoemaker and a schoolmaster, 

 which induced a wag to indite this couplet over his 

 door : 



John Wells' trades are three 

 Cobbler, clerk, and dominel 



