HOMELY MEDICINES 7 



keeper's dinner is a movable feast, and must be 

 ready at any time between noon and night. The 

 sheet-anchor of one such dish is proper home-cured 

 bacon, in winter baked in a pie-dish with alternate 

 layers of parboiled potatoes, for which in summer 

 the contents of eggs beaten just enough to blend the 

 yolks and whites are substituted. Served with new 

 potatoes, it is the very dish to put heart in a man. 



The gamekeeper is among the few people left in the 

 country who have any knowledge of herb -lore, and 

 faith in home-brewed herbal remedies. His 

 MeTtoines me di cme - cnest contains a varied assort- 

 ment. From rose-pink centaury he boils 

 an appetising tonic for his pheasants, which he is not 

 above drinking himself. The roots of couch-grass 

 provide him with a powerful emetic for dogs in the 

 first stages of distemper. He bakes acorns, grinds 

 them to powder, and with its aid quells a rebellious 

 stomach. His good-wife has the secret of cowslip 

 and nettle tea. From the pounded leaves of dock 

 blended with lard, he prepares a salve for cuts. Rheu- 

 matism, from which all keepers suffer in their old 

 age, is treated with the fat of hedgehogs, well rubbed 

 in not that this is a herbal remedy. Cramp in 

 pheasants calls for cayenne pepper boiled in their 

 food ; chopped onions are for gape-worms ; a little 

 saffron with drinking water as much as will lie on 

 a threepenny-bit in the water for a thousand birds 



