1 8 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



he fears nothing, has a vague feeling that sometimes 

 there is ' summat ' inexplicable in the dark and desolate 

 places. Such is this modern man of the woods. 



The impressions of youth are always strongest with 

 us, and so it is that recollecting the scenes in which he 

 passed his earlier days he looks with some contempt upon 

 the style of agriculture followed in the locality ; for he 

 was born in the north, where the farms are sometimes of 

 a great area, though perhaps not so rich in soil, and he 

 cannot forgive the tenants here because they have not got 

 herds of three or four hundred horned cattle. Before he 

 settled down in the south he had many changes of situa- 

 tion, and was thus brought in contact with a wonderful 

 number of gentlemen, titled or otherwise distinguished, 

 whose peculiarities of speech or appearance he loves to 

 dwell upon. If the valet sees the hero or the statesman 

 too closely, so sometimes does the gamekeeper. A great 

 man must have moments when it is a relief to fling off 

 the constant posturing necessary before the world ; and 

 there is freshness in the gamekeeper's unstudied conversa- 

 tion. The keeper thinks that nothing reveals a gentle- 

 man's character so much as his ' tips.' 



' Gentlemen is very curious in tips,' he says, ' and 

 there ain't nothing so difficult as to know what's coming. 

 Most in general them as be the biggest guns, and what 

 you would think would come out handsome, chucks you a 

 crown and no more ; and them as you knows ain't much 



