TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



CHAPTER I 



HOW I BECAME A KEEPER 



Early days Schemes and dreams by day and night The fascination 

 of game-keeping The bright side I fire a gun Caps and 

 candles Mimic shoots The question of a career I become a 

 gamekeeper at fifteen shillings a week First impressions The 

 finger trick The best start Value of education Responsi- 

 bilities Worries of first shoot. 



So soon as I could run I acquired a determined 

 love for rabbits, and acquired also the most dis- 

 appointing proof that they could run faster than I 

 could. For all that, my sister and I persevered 

 heroically, encouraged by the suggestion of our 

 nurse that the placing of salt on a rabbit's tail 

 would insure our catching it. To live for ever in 

 a shepherd's hut in a field of rape, to which thou- 

 sands of pigeons flocked, was one of our childish 

 schemes. We thought in those sanguine days that 

 we could make, not only a living, but a fortune, by 

 shooting pigeons and selling those we could not 

 eat. To miss a pigeon seemed impossible, then. 

 Of poachers we talked with awe by day, and by 



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