32 RAMBLES AFTER SPORT. 



from where I am sitting is the mansion of the Hon. 

 Mr. — well, we will call him Smith, so that everyone 

 may know whom I mean. This gentleman can draw 

 cheques for thousands ; he does not live with his wife ; 

 a '^ difficulty ^^ occurred somehow. This gentleman finds 

 he can't get along on 10,000?. a year, his expenses are 

 so enormous ; true, he doesn't live much at his country 

 seat, but town runs away with a heap of money, and 

 as for Mile. Helene, of the King's Theatre, really she 

 does go ahead tremendously. " Those brutes of farmers 

 must pay up,'' writes the Hon. S.; "I must have some 

 money by the quarter ; you must get it out of some one.'' 

 Of course the '^ someone " is poor Hodge. The bailiff 

 squeezes the tenant farmers, and they in their turn 

 squeeze the labourer. The above is no exaggeration. 

 I lived in Dorsetshire many years, near some of the 

 richest landed proprietors in the country ; the condition 

 of some of the labourers was (and is) appalling, and a 

 disgrace to a man, let alone a gentleman. {Vide daily 

 papers passim.) 



As I am reflecting in a highly philosophical frame of 

 mind on these important affairs, I hear a voice outside, 

 " Be Maister Oliver inside ? — oh, I seed, zur, thick 'ere 

 duck this marning, and I allow he'll be round again to 

 evening," says Joyce the under-keeper. "Yery well; 

 just take those birds up to the house and we'll go and 

 have a look after him." I finish my pipe, and the two 

 dogs are having just forty winks before the fire, when 

 Joyce returns and off we go. " Any news, Joyce ? " 

 '' No, zur, nothing perticler, except as how I seed that 

 danged young poacher, Joe Simmons, prowling about as 

 I came along." '^Ah, we shall have to ground-ash that 

 young man if we catch him." " He be a tur'ble hard 

 cove to catch, zur." 



