io THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



spring and holding it near the ear, it strikes the hour last 

 passed, then the quarters which have since elapsed ; so 

 that even when he cannot see an inch before his face he 

 knows the time within fifteen minutes at the outside, which 

 is near enough for practical purposes. 



In personal appearance he would be a tall man were 

 it not that he has contracted a slight stoop in the passage 

 of the years, not from weakness or decay of nature, but 

 because men who walk much lean forward somewhat, 

 which has a tendency to round the shoulders. The 

 weight of the gun, and often of a heavy game-bag drag- 

 ging downwards, has increased this defect of his figure, 

 and, as is usual after a certain age, even with those who 

 lead a temperate life, he begins to show signs of corpulency. 

 But these shortcomings only slightly detract from the 

 manliness of his appearance, and in youth it is easy to see 

 that he must have been an athlete. There is still plenty 

 of power in the long sinewy arms, brown hands, and bull- 

 neck, and intense vital energy in the bright blue eye. 

 He is an ash-tree man, as a certain famous writer would 

 say ; hard, tough, unconquerable by wind or weather, 

 fearless of his fellows, yielding but by slow and imper- 

 ceptible degrees to the work of time. His neck has 

 become the colour of mahogany ; sun and tempest have 

 left their indelible marks upon his face ; and he speaks 

 from the depths of his broad chest, as men do who 

 talk much in the open air, shouting across the fields 



