MY BROTHER KEEPERS 199 
trend of their abilities had time to mature, and to 
assert itself. They are broader-minded, and not so 
liable to pigheadedness as lifelong keepers. I call 
to mind three men who, by becoming keepers after 
years in other callings, had made a great success of 
their life’s main work. One was a bricklayer, 
another a groom, the third a schoolmaster ; each of 
them I have known for years as eminently successful 
keepers. And I could tell of numberless others 
whose careers have proved the wisdom of stepping 
from distasteful employment to the field of game- 
keeping, with all its romantic fascination. Here 
their natural gifts, their love of nature and of sport, 
have found free play, instead of lying dormant and 
smouldering, and maybe sternly repressed. 
Though in my heart I had always been a keeper, 
it was with a feeling of the most intense pride that 
I set out on a round, clad for the very first time in 
regulation keeper dress. I cannot say how often 
my hands explored the deep recesses of those clean 
new hare-pockets. J was happier than an empire’s 
ruler going forth for the first time in robes of State ; 
no jewelled sceptre could compare with my hazel 
stick. With keepers and others who knew me by 
name before I took ‘velveteen’ I had several rather 
funny experiences. One man spent about twenty 
minutes plying me with questions about my former 
self. I imagine I did a good deal to curb his future 
curiosity by telling him that though I did not claim 
