300 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



one ? I shrank from shooting horses with the 

 utmost loathing ; yet I more or less had to shoot a 

 good many. I always had a horror of a weak cart- 

 ridge, or that the poor brute might jerk its head at 

 the moment I pulled the trigger. Still, I would 

 sooner shoot a horse myself than be compelled to 

 watch someone else do it. Such repulsive jobs 

 (they cannot be called duties) brought in nothing ; 

 the only occasion on which I was offered a fee was 

 when a man begged me to shoot a cat. He wanted 

 to tie the cat to a post near a saucer of milk ; I 

 could not stand that. I consented to oblige him if 

 he would make the cat run its fastest, which he did, 

 and offered me twopence ; and because I refused to 

 take it, he, being a baker, sent me a twopenny cake. 

 I had to shoot one donkey, and that on a winter 

 evening by the light of a very indifferent bicycle- 

 lamp. Several things were a greater source of joy 

 than the gralloching of rabbits ; the aroma is so 

 clinging. 



The great quiet woods, the wide fields, the 

 hedgerows, the dells, and the hills these were the 

 sweetest joys of the life, and as different from the 

 foul discord of a town as heaven must be from hell. 



