302 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



Game-keeping is by no means a short-cut to 

 fortune. People are apt to think that because a 

 keeper may eat free rabbits, most of his bobs-a-week 

 are clear profit. But even a keeper cannot live on 

 rabbits and fresh air alone, to say nothing of his wife 

 and the usual little keepers. There are, of course, 

 1 plummy ' keepering berths. But the ordinary 

 keeper does all that honest income will allow if he 

 manages to maintain a wife and family respectably, 

 pay into a club, and have a glass of beer for supper. 

 I began at fifteen shillings a week, and ended at 

 twenty-two ; in addition, I had a free cottage and 

 garden, four tons of coal, and some small firewood, 

 and one suit of clothes each year ; and probably I 

 averaged rather under than over ten pounds yearly 

 in tips, with perhaps fifty shillings in hunting fees. 

 Many keepers nowadays lose their berths through 

 no fault of their own, owing to so much shooting 

 being let and frequently changing hands. Lucky 

 indeed is the keeper who can save enough to retire 

 on ; and to retire means, as a rule, to take a public- 

 house. 



Depend upon it, there is nothing like an experience 

 as a working keeper to give a man an appetite and 

 rheumatism. 



