Be) TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING: 
memory of living men the shoot had yielded three 
to four hundred brace a season, Six and a half 
brace set no impossible standard; at any rate, I 
could not bring about a result much worse. 
Since I was more or less familiar with the smaller 
portion of my ground, my first act of game-keeping 
was to make, on the morning following my removal, 
a long tour of inspection over the main portion, 
which was one big farm. I encountered a farmer, 
of whom I took special stock, knowing full well 
that much depended on how we got on together. 
I saw at once that he was a consequential sort of 
man, and evidently under the impression that he 
understood most other things as well as he did 
farming. He had a large family, which when I 
ceased my connection with his farm apparently had 
come to a conclusion at five brace. Small wonder 
that his manner was somewhat autocratic when 
dealing with outsiders! He struck me as being 
just the sort of man who, with a little more practical 
knowledge of the requirements of game and a little 
more tact, would have been an ideal farmer in a 
keeper’s eyes. He told his men in the most 
truculent tone, which made me want to blush, that 
he had let his shooting, and ‘if e’er a one on ye 
gets slippin’ down wires or anyways playin’ the fool, 
off you goes to gaol, mind, sharp! 
He possessed the most scrupulous reverence for 
hospitality in a liquid form, and at our first interview 
