HIS OFFICE HEREDITARY. 39 



seen abroad without a pair of leathern gaiters, and, if not 

 a gun, a stout gnarled ground-ash stick in his hand. 



The gamekeeper's calling naturally tends to perpetuate 

 itself and become hereditary in his family. The life is 

 full of attraction to boys the gun alone is hardly to be 

 resisted ; and, in addition, there are the animals and birds 

 with which the office is associated, and the comparative 

 freedom from restraint. Therefore one at least of his lads 

 is sure to follow in his father's steps, and after a youth 

 and early manhood spent out of doors in the woods it is 

 next to impossible for him ever to quit the course he has 

 taken. His children, again, must come within reach of 

 similar influences, and thus for a lengthened period there 

 must be a predisposition towards this special occupation. 



Long service in one particular situation is not so com- 

 mon now as it used to be. Men move about from place 

 to place, but wherever they are they still engage in the 

 same capacity ; and once a gamekeeper always a game- 

 keeper is pretty nearly true. Even in the present day 

 instances of families holding the office for more than one 

 or two generations on the same estate may be found ; and 

 years ago such was often the case. Occasionally the 

 keeper's family has in this way, by the slow passage of 

 time, become in a sense associated with that of his em- 

 ployer ; many years of faithful service sensibly abridging 

 the social gulf between master and servant. The contrary 

 holds equally true ; and so at the present day short terms 



