168 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



When, in the first instance, I came down to look at his 

 place, not taking anything for granted, an application was made 

 by me to see a net drawn in the river to ascertain if there were 

 any trout in it. He sent his men with me, and I convinced 

 myself that there were trout. In the accounts he tried to im- 

 pose on me, I found the payment for the day of his men set 

 down to my charge. So annoying was this man's conduct that 

 I confess to the folly of having entertained the wish to give him 

 what is vulgarly called " a bit of one's mind : " what that might 

 have been followed up by. Heaven only knows. He lived in his 

 cottage, to furnish which he had abstracted from the manor- 

 house the fm-niture he had leased to me, and I knew by his 

 tracks that at times he walked about my woods, and strongly 

 suspected that he took his perambulations, in summer, when he 

 heard my dinner-bell ring. I dined at three o'clock, and gene- 

 rally fished after dinner. To give him a meeting, the dinner- 

 bell inang at the usual hour, but the act of dining was postponed 

 till six ; and instead of the bell's having proclaimed me safe, it 

 rang only to deceive him. The ruse answered ; and I saw him 

 in my woods, but unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, accom- 

 panied by his daughters. Their presence prevented any inter- 

 ference at my hands. 



My keeper reported a litter of four cubs at the stone quarries ; 

 and the next day being a still and sunny one, the sort of weather 

 during which young things like to bask, about three o'clock I 

 crept softly to the cliff" above and peeped over. One cub was at 

 first only visible : he stretched and yawned as a boy might do 

 who had only just pulled oft' his nightcap ; so I guessed the 

 others would soon be on the stir. A second little nose peeped 

 out, and, the owner of it having been propelled forwards by 

 some pressure from within, out he stumbled, and a third, and 

 then a fourth, cub pitched upon him with a little leap at play. 

 "The keeper is right," I said to myself; but ah, ha! there are 

 more yet ! a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, and at last twelve cubs 

 lay huddled together in the sun, fair to be seen and fully in 

 view. Two of them. Hunt and Roskell not then being known 



