1 6 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



bless you, you must live in it. People go abroad, I'm 

 told, to live in the pine forests to cure 'em : I say these 

 here oaks have got every bit as much good in that way. 

 I never eat but two meals a day breakfast and supper : 

 what you would call dinner and maybe in the middle of 

 the day a hunch of dry bread and an apple. I take a 

 deal for breakfast, and I'm rather lear [hungry] at supper ; 

 but you may lay your oath that's why I'm what I am in 

 the way of health. People stuffs theirselves, and by 

 consequence it breaks out, you see. It's the same with 

 cattle ; they're overfed, tied up in stalls and stuffed, and 

 never no exercise, and mostly oily food too. It stands to 

 reason they must get bad ; and that's the real cause of 

 these here rinderpests and pleuro-pneumonia and what- 

 nots. At least that's my notion. I'm in the woods all 

 day, and never comes home till supper 'cept, of course, 

 in breeding-time, to fetch the meal and stuff for the 

 birds so I gets the fresh air, you see ; and the fresh air 

 is the life, sir. There's the smell of the earth, too 

 'specially just as the plough turns it up which is a fine 

 thing ; and the hedges and the grass are as sweet as 

 sugar after a shower. Anything with a green leaf is the 

 thing, depend upon it, if you want to live healthy. I 

 never signed no pledge ; and if a man asks me to take 

 a glass of ale, I never says him no. But I ain't got no 

 barrel at home ; and all the time I've been in this here 

 place I've never been to a public. Gentlemen give me 



