290 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



not become the experienced to pin all their faith 

 to the well-known coverts. In a southern county 

 hounds have disturbed no fewer than twelve foxes 

 together probably a collection of suitors for the pad 

 of one or two eligible vixens. 



On a Sunday after Christmas we paid a visit to an old 



keeper, who, on his own confession, had not. dined 



wisely on the good fare provided by his wife 



A on Christmas Day. Into our sympathetic 



K66B61''S 



Dreams ears ne poured the strangest tale of the 

 dreams that he had dreamed. The first 

 began pleasantly enough, but ended in a nightmare. 

 He was one of a party shooting in his best wood, and 

 he was ever in the hottest part of the hottest corner, 

 but each time he threw up his gun to shoot the crowds 

 of pheasants, the gun fell all in pieces. Never, he 

 said, had he known such a nightmare ; though some 

 of the other dreams that succeeded were bad enough. 

 One was to the effect that on an important occasion 

 all the birds of his coverts utterly refused to rise and 

 rocket, and when he pressed them with beaters he 

 found that one and all had turned into foxes. This 

 dream merged into one in which the foxes in his 

 preserves were so numerous that they outnumbered 

 and overpowered the hounds, and then attacked the 

 Master, who was eaten. And there was a dream in 

 which the old keeper found that he had changed 



