300 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



of corpses rabbits' corpses ! Me and Bill, we 

 ketched the ghost, whiles he was drinking your 

 'ealth." 



Many gamekeepers we have known. Looking back 

 down the years we can summon to view a serried 



regiment of the servants of sport ; large 

 Old men and small, rough and gentle, brown- 



iiTvelvV c ^ ac * men > some in velveteen, others in 

 teen rough tweed, most of them in stout leggings, 



all with the keen eyes of watchmen, bronzed 

 by the sun, beaten by the weather ; good men and 

 true, every man of them. The best of them are 

 strong, upright, fearless, full of confidence; men 

 who neither beg favours nor grant them ; set their 

 own standards ; keep their own counsels ; take no 

 false oaths, whatever the provocation of the poacher ; 

 who, in preserving game, have no enmity against 

 other living creatures ; who are all-round sportsmen 

 and lovers of fair play. At the end of the long line, 

 farthest from view yet most distinct, stands an old 

 man with silver hair, with light blue eyes, and a face 

 kindly, yet sharp as a hawk's, the keeper who was 

 first to show us how to hold a gun. 



Many fine stories this old man would tell, leaning 

 over a gate, gun in hand, of Master this and Master 

 that, uncles and such-like, even then old men to a 

 boy's eyes, yet still called, by the older keeper, by 

 their familiar names. " I mind the time," he would 



