The keeper's cottage stands in a sheltered "coombe," or narrow hollow of
the woodlands, overshadowed by a mighty Spanish chestnut, bare now of
leaves, but in summer a noble tree. The ash wood covers the slope at
the rear; on one side is a garden, and on the other a long strip of
meadow with elms. In front, and somewhat lower, a streamlet winds,
fringing the sward, and across it the fir plantations begin, their dark
sombre foliage hanging over the water. A dead willow trunk thrown from
bank to bank forms a rude bridge; the tree, not even squared, gives
little surface for the foot, and in frosty weather a slip is easy. From
this primitive contrivance a path, out of which others fork, leads into
the intricacies of the covers, and from the garden a wicket gate opens
on the ash wood. The elms in the meadow are full of rooks' nests, and
in the spring the coombe will resound with their cawing; these black
bandits, who do not touch it at other times, will then ravage the garden
to feed their hungry young, despite ingenious scarecrows. A row of
kennels, tenanted by a dozen dogs, extends behind the cottage: lean
retrievers yet unbroken, yelping spaniels, pointers, and perhaps a few
greyhounds or fancy breeds, if "young master" has a taste that way.
Beside the kennels is a shed ornamented with rows upon rows of dead and
dried vermin, furred and feathered, impaled for their misdeeds; and over
the door a couple of horseshoes nailed for luck--a superstition yet
lingering in the by-ways of the woods and hills. Within are the ferret
hutches, warm and dry; for the ferret is a shivery creature, and likes
nothing so well as to nozzle down in a coat-pocket with a little hay.
Here are spades and billhooks, twine and rabbit nets, traps, and other
odds and ends scattered about with the wires and poacher's implements
impounded from time to time.
In a dark corner there lies a singular-looking piece of mechanism, a
relic of the olden times, which when dragged into the light turns out to
be a man-trap. These terrible engines have long since been disused--
being illegal, like spring-guns--and the rust has gathered thickly on
the metal. But, old though it be, it still acts perfectly, and can be
"set" as well now as when in bygone days poachers and thieves used to
prod the ground and the long grass, before they stepped among it, with a
stick, for fear of mutilation.
The trap is almost precisely similar to the common rat-trap or gin still
employed to destroy vermin, but greatly exaggerated in size, so that if
stood on end it reaches to the waist, or above. The jaws of this iron
wolf are horrible to contemplate--rows of serrated projections, which
fit into each other when closed, alternating with spikes a couple of
inches long, like tusks. To set the trap you have to stand on the
spring--the weight of a man is about sufficient to press it down; and,
to avoid danger to the person preparing this little surprise, a band of
iron can be pushed forward to hold the spring while the catch is put
into position, and the machine itself is hidden among the bushes or
covered with dead leaves. Now touch the pan with a stout
walking-stick--the jaws cut it in two in the twinkling of an eye. They
seem to snap together with a vicious energy, powerful enough to break
the bone of the leg; and assuredly no man ever got free whose foot was
once caught by these terrible teeth.
The keeper will tell you that it used to be set up in the corner of the
gardens and orchard belonging to the great house, and which in the
pre-policemen days were almost nightly robbed. He thinks there were
quite as many such traps set in the gardens just outside the towns as
ever there were in the woods and preserves of the country proper. He
recollects but one old man (a mole-catcher) who actually had experienced
in his youth the sensation of being caught; he went lame on one foot,
the sinews having been cut or divided. The trap could be chained to its
place if desired; but, as a matter of fact, a chain was unnecessary, for
no man could possibly drag this torturing clog along.
Another outhouse attached to the cottage contains a copper for preparing
the food for both quadrupeds and birds. Some poultry run about the
mead, and perhaps with them are feeding the fancy foreign ducks which in
summer swim in the lake before the hall.
The cottage is thatched and oddly gabled--built before "improvements"
came into fashion--yet cosy; with walls three feet thick, which keep out
the cold of winter and the heat of summer. This is not solid masonry;
there are two shells, as it were, filled up between with rubble and
mortar rammed down hard.
Inside the door the floor of brick is a step below the level of the
ground. Sometimes a peculiar but not altogether unpleasant odour fills
the low-pitched sitting room--it is emitted by the roots burning upon
the fire, hissing as the sap exudes and boils in the fierce heat. When
the annual fall of timber takes place the butts of the trees are often
left in the earth, to be afterwards grubbed and split for firewood,
which goes to the great house or is sold. There still remain the roots,
which are cut into useful lengths and divided among the upper employes.
From elm and oak and ash, and the crude turpentine of the fir, this
aromatic odour, the scent of the earth in which they grew, is exhaled as
they burn.
The ceiling is low and crossed by one huge square beam of oak, darkened
by smoke and age. The keeper's double-barrelled gun is suspended from
this beam: there are several other guns in the house, but this, the
favourite, alone hangs where it did before he had children--so strong is
habit; the rest are yet more out of danger. It has been a noble weapon,
though now showing signs of age--the interior of the breech worn larger
than the rest of the barrel from constant use; so much so that, before
it was converted to a breech-loader, the wad when the ramrod pushed it
down would slip the last six inches, so loosely fitting as to barely
answer its purpose of retaining the shot; so that when cleaned out,
before the smoke fouled it again, he had to load with paper. This in a
measure anticipated the "choke-bore," and his gun was always famous for
its killing power. The varnish is worn from the stock by incessant
friction against his coat, showing the real grain of the walnut-wood,
and the trigger-guard with the polish of the sleeve shines like silver.
It has been his companion for so many years that it is not strange he
should feel an affection for it; no other ever fitted the shoulder so
well, or came with such delicate precision to the "present" position.
So accustomed is he to its balance and "hang" in the hand that he never
thinks of aiming; he simply looks at the object, still or moving, throws
the gun up from the hollow of his arm, and instantly pulls the trigger,
staying not a second to glance along the barrel. It has become almost a
portion of his body, answering like a limb to the volition of will
without the intervention of reflection. The hammers are chased and
elegantly shaped--perfectly matching: when once the screw came loose,
and the jar of a shot jerked one off among the dead leaves apparently
beyond hope of recovery, he never rested night or day till by continuous
search and sifting the artistic piece of metal was found. Nothing
destroys the symmetry of a gun so much as hammers which are not pairs;
and well he knew that he should never get a smith to replace that
delicate piece of workmanship, for this gun came originally from the
hands of a famous maker, who got fifty, or perhaps even seventy guineas
for it years ago. It did not shoot to please the purchaser--guns of the
very best character sometimes take use to get into thorough order--and
was thrown aside, and so the gun became the keeper's.
These fine old guns often have a romance clinging to them, and sometimes
the history is a sad one. Upstairs he still keeps the old copper
powder-flask curiously chased and engraved, yet strong enough to bear
the weight of the bearer, if by chance he sat down upon it while in his
pocket, together with the shot-belt and punch for cutting out the wads
from cardboard or an old felt hat. These the modern system of loading
at the breech has cast aside. Here, also, is the apparatus for filling
empty cartridge-cases--a work which in the season occupies him many
hours.
Being an artist in his way, he takes a pride in the shine and polish of
his master's guns, which are not always here, but come down at intervals
to be cleaned and attended to. And woe be to the first kid gloves that
touch them afterwards; for a gun, like a sardine should be kept in fine
oil, not thickly encrusting it, but, as it were, rubbed into and oozing
from the pores of the metal and wood. Paraffin is an abomination in his
eyes (for preserving from rust), and no modern patent oil, he thinks,
can compare with a drop of gin for the locks--the spirit never congeals
in cold weather, and the hammer comes up with a clear, sharp snick. He
has two or three small screwdrivers and gunsmith's implements to take
the locks to pieces; for gentlemen are sometimes careless and throw
their guns down on the wet grass, and if a single drop of water should
by chance penetrate under the plate it will play mischief with the
works, if the first speck of rust be not forthwith removed.
His dog-whistle hangs at his buttonhole. His pocket-knife is a basket
of tools in itself, most probably a present from some youthful sportsman
who was placed under his care to learn how to handle a gun. The
corkscrew it contains has seen much service at luncheon-time, when under
a sturdy oak, or in a sheltered nook of the lane, where the hawthorn
hedge and the fern broke the force of the wind, a merry shooting party
sat down to a well-packed hamper and wanted some one to draw the corks.
Not but what the back of the larger blade has not artistically tapped
off the neck of many a bottle, hitting it gently upwards against the
rim. Nor must his keys be forgotten. The paths through the preserves,
where they debouch on a public lane or road, are closed with
high-sparred wicket gates, well pitched to stand the weather, and
carefully locked, and of course he has a key. His watch, made on
purpose for those who walk by night, tells him the time in the densest
darkness of the woods. On pressing a spring and holding it near the
ear, it strikes the hour last past, then the quarters which have since
elapsed; so that even when he cannot see an inch before his face he
knows the time within fifteen minutes at the outside, which is near
enough for practical purposes.
In personal appearance he would be a tall man were it not that he has
contracted a slight stoop in the passage of the years, not from weakness
or decay of nature, but because men who walk much lean forward somewhat,
which has a tendency to round the shoulders. The weight of the gun, and
often of a heavy game-bag dragging downwards, has increased this defect
of his figure, and, as is usual after a certain age, even with those who
lead a temperate life, he begins to show signs of corpulency. But these
shortcomings only slightly detract from the manliness of his appearance,
and in youth it is easy to see that he must have been an athlete. There
is still plenty of power in the long sinewy arms, brown hands, and
bull-neck, and intense vital energy in the bright blue eye. He is an
ash-tree man, as a certain famous writer would say; hard, tough,
unconquerable by wind or weather, fearless of his fellows, yielding but
by slow and imperceptible degrees to the work of time. His neck has
become the colour of mahogany; sun and tempest have left their indelible
marks upon his face; and he speaks from the depths of his broad chest,
as men do who talk much in the open air, shouting across the fields and
through the copses. There is a solidity in his very footstep, and he
stands like an oak. He meets your eye full and unshirkingly, yet
without insolence; not as the labourers do, who either stare with sullen
ill-will or look on the earth. In brief, freedom and constant contact
with nature have made him every inch a man; and here in this nineteenth
century of civilised effeminacy may be seen some relic of what men were
in the old feudal days when they dwelt practically in the woods. The
shoulder of his coat is worn a little where the gun rubs, and so is his
sleeve; otherwise he is fairly well dressed.
Perfectly civil to every one, and with a willing manner towards his
master and his master's guests, he has a wonderful knack of getting his
own way. Whatever the great house may propose in the shooting line, the
keeper is pretty certain to dispose of in the end as he pleases; for he
has a voluble "silver" tongue, and is full of objections, reasons,
excuses, suggestions, all delivered with a deprecatory air of superior
knowledge which he hardly likes to intrude upon his betters, much as he
would regret to see them go wrong. So he really takes the lead, and in
nine cases in ten the result proves he is right, as minute local
knowledge naturally must be when intelligently applied.
Not only in such matters as the best course for the shooting party to
follow, or in advice bearing upon the preserves, but in concerns of a
wider scope, his influence is felt. A keen, shrewd judge of
horseflesh--(how is it that if a man understands one animal he seems to
instinctively see through all?)--his master in a careless way often asks
his opinion before concluding a bargain. Of course the question is not
put direct, but "By-the-by, when the hounds were here you saw
so-and-so's mare; what do you think of her?" The keeper blurts out his
answer, not always flattering or very delicately expressed; and his view
is not forgotten. For when a trusted servant like this accompanies his
master often in solitary rambles for hours together, dignity must unbend
now and then, however great the social difference between them; and thus
a man of strong individuality and a really valuable gift of observation
insensibly guides his master.
Passing across the turnips, the landlord, who perhaps never sees his
farms save when thus crossing them with a gun, remarks that they look
clean and free from weeds; whereupon the keeper, walking respectfully a
little in the rear, replies that so-and-so, the tenant, is a capital
farmer, a preserver of foxes and game, but has suffered from the
floods--a reply that leads to inquiries, and perhaps a welcome reduction
of rent. On the other hand, the owner's attention is thus often called
to abuses. In this way an evilly-disposed keeper may, it is true, do
great wrongs, having access to the owner and, in familiar phrase, "his
ear." I am at present delineating the upright keeper, such as are in
existence still, notwithstanding the abuse lavished upon them as a
class--often, it is to be feared, too well deserved. It is not
difficult to see how in this way a man whose position is lowly may in an
indirect way exercise a powerful influence upon a large estate.
He is very "great" on dogs (and, indeed, on all other animals); his
opinion is listened to and taken by everybody round about who has a dog,
and sometimes he has three or four under treatment for divers ills. By
this knowledge many "tips" are gained, and occasionally he makes a good
thing by selling a pup at a high price. He may even be seen, with his
velveteen jacket carefully brushed, his ground-ash stick under his arm,
and hat in hand, treading daintily for fear of soiling the carpet with
his shoe, in the anteroom, gravely prescribing for the ailing pug in
which the ladies are interested.
At the farmhouses he is invited to sit down and take a glass, being
welcome for his gossip of the great house, and because, having in the
course of years been thrown into the society of all classes, he has
gradually acquired a certain tact and power of accommodating himself to
his listener. For the keeper, when he fulfils his duty in a quiet way
as a man of experience does, is by no means an unpopular character. It
is the too officious man who creates a feeling among the tenants against
himself and the whole question of game. But the quiet experienced hand,
with a shrewd knowledge of men as well as the technicalities of his
profession, grows to be liked by the tenantry, and becomes a local
authority on animal life.
Proud, and not without reason, of his vigour and strength, he will tell
you that though between fifty and sixty he can still step briskly
through a heavy field-day, despite the weight of reserve ammunition he
carries. He can keep on his feet without fatigue from morn till eve,
and goes his rounds without abating one inch of the distance. In one
thing alone he feels his years--i.e. in pace; and when "young master,"
who is a disciple of the modern athletic school, comes out, it is about
as much as ever he can do to keep up with him over the stubble. Never
once for the last thirty years has he tossed on a bed of sickness; never
once has he failed to rise from his slumber refreshed and ready for his
labour. His secret is--but let him tell it in his own words:
"It's indoors, sir, as kills half the people; being indoors three parts
of the day, and next to that taking too much drink and vittals.
Eating's as bad as drinking; and there ain't nothing like fresh air and
the smell of the woods. You should come out here in the spring, when
the oak timber is throwed (because, you see, the sap be rising, and the
bark strips then), and just sit down on a stick fresh peeled--I means a
trunk, you know--and sniff up the scent of that there oak bark. It goes
right down your throat, and preserves your lungs as the tan do leather.
And I've heard say as folk who work in the tan-yards never have no
illness. There's always a smell from trees, dead or living--I could
tell what wood a log was in the dark by my nose; and the air is better
where the woods be. The ladies up in the great house sometimes goes out
into the fir plantations--the turpentine scents strong, you see--and
they say it's good for the chest; but, bless you, you must live in it.
People go abroad, I'm told, to live in the pine forests to cure 'em: I
say these here oaks have got every bit as much good in that way. I
never eat but two meals a day--breakfast and supper: what you would call
dinner--and maybe in the middle of the day a hunch of dry bread and an
apple. I take a deal for breakfast, and I'm rather lear [hungry] at
supper; but you may lay your oath that's why I'm what I am in the way of
health. People stuffs theirselves, and by consequence it breaks out,
you see. It's the same with cattle; they're overfed, tied up in stalls
and stuffed, and never no exercise, and mostly oily food too. It stands
to reason they must get bad; and that's the real cause of these here
rinderpests and pleuro-pneumonia and what-nots. At least that's my
notion. I'm in the woods all day, and never comes home till
supper--'cept, of course, in breeding-time, to fetch the meal and stuff
for the birds--so I gets the fresh air, you see; and the fresh air is
the life, sir. There's the smell of the earth, too--'specially just as
the plough turns it up--which is a fine thing; and the hedges and the
grass are as sweet as sugar after a shower. Anything with a green leaf
is the thing, depend upon it, if you want to live healthy. I never
signed no pledge; and if a man asks me to take a glass of ale, I never
says him no. But I ain't got no barrel at home; and all the time I've
been in this here place, I've never been to a public. Gentlemen give me
tips--of course they does; and much obliged I be; but I takes it to my
missus. Many's the time they've axed me to have a glass of champagne or
brandy when we've had lunch under the hedge; but I says no, and would
like a glass of beer best, which I gets, of course. No; when I drinks,
I drinks ale: but most in general I drinks no strong liquor. Great
coat!--cold weather! I never put no great coat on this thirty year.
These here woods be as good as a topcoat in cold weather. Come off the
open field with the east wind cutting into you, and get inside they firs
and you'll feel warm in a minute. If you goes into the ash wood you
must go in farther, because the wind comes more between the poles."
Fresh air, exercise, frugal food and drink, the odour of the earth and
the trees--these have given him, as he nears his sixtieth year, the
strength and vitality of early manhood.
He has his faults: notably, a hastiness of temper towards his undermen,
and towards labourers and wood-cutters who transgress his rules. He is
apt to use his ground-ash stick rather freely without thought of
consequences, and has got into trouble more than once in that way. When
he takes a dislike or suspicion of a man, nothing will remove it; he is
stubbornly inimical and unforgiving, totally incapable of comprehending
the idea of loving an enemy. He hates cordially in the true pagan
fashion of old. He is full of prejudices, and has some ideas which
almost amount to superstitions; and, though he fears nothing, has a
vague feeling that sometimes there is "summat" inexplicable in the dark
and desolate places. Such is this modern man of the woods.
The impressions of youth are always strongest with us, and so it is that
recollecting the scenes in which he passed his earlier days he looks
with some contempt upon the style of agriculture followed in the
locality; for he was born in the north, where the farms are sometimes of
a great area, though perhaps not so rich in soil, and he cannot forgive
the tenants here because they have not got herds of three or four
hundred horned cattle. Before he settled down in the south he had many
changes of situation, and was thus brought in contact with a wonderful
number of gentlemen, titled or otherwise distinguished, whose
peculiarities of speech or appearance he loves to dwell upon. If the
valet sees the hero or the statesman too closely, so sometimes does the
gamekeeper. A great man must have moments when it is a relief to fling
off the constant posturing necessary before the world; and there is
freshness in the gamekeeper's unstudied conversation. The keeper thinks
that nothing reveals a gentleman's character so much as his "tips."
"Gentlemen is very curious in tips," he says, "and there ain't nothing
so difficult as to know what's coming. Most in general them as be the
biggest guns, and what you would think would come out handsome, chucks
you a crown and no more; and them as you knows ain't much go in the way
of money slips a sovereign into your fist. There's a deal in the way of
giving it too, as perhaps you wouldn't think. Some gents does it as
much as to say they're much obliged to you for kindly taking it. Some
does it as if they were chucking a bone to a dog. One place where I
was, the governor were the haughtiest man as ever you see. When the
shooting was done--after a great party, you never knowed whether he were
pleased or not--he never took no more notice of you than if you were a
tree. But I found him out arter a time or two. You had to walk close
behind him, as if you were a spaniel; and by-and-by he would slip his
hand round behind his back--without a word, mind--and you had to take
what was in it, and never touch your hat or so much as `Thank you, sir.'
It were always a five-pound note if the shooting had been good; but it
never seemed to come so sweet as if he'd done it to your face."
The keeper gets a goodly number of tips in the course of the year, from
visitors at the great house, from naturalists who come now and then,
from the sportsmen, and regularly from the masters of three packs of
hounds; not to mention odd moneys at intervals in various ways, as when
he goes round to deliver presents of game to the chief tenants on the
estate or to the owner's private friends. Gentlemen who take an
interest in such things come out every spring to see the young broods of
pheasants--which, indeed, are a pretty sight--and they always leave
something behind them. In the summer a few picnic parties come from the
town or the country round about, having permission to enter the grounds.
In the winter half a dozen young gentlemen have a turn at the
ferreting; a great burrow is chosen, three or four ferrets put in at
once without any nets, so that the rabbits may bolt freely, and then the
shooting is like volleys of musketry fire. For sport like this the
young gentlemen tip freely. After the rook-shooting party in the spring
from the great house, with their rook-rifles and sometimes crossbows,
have had the pick of the young birds, some few of the tenants are
admitted to shoot the remainder--a task that spreads perhaps over two or
even three days, and there is a good deal of liquor and silver going
about. Then gentlemen come to fish in the mere, having got the
necessary permission, and they want bait and some attention, which the
keeper's lad, being an adept himself, can render better than any one
else; and so he too gets his share. Besides which, being swift of foot,
and with a shrewd idea which way the fox will run when the hunt is up,
he is to the fore when a lady or some timid gentleman wants a gate
opened--a service not performed in vain. For breaking-in dogs also the
keeper is often paid well; and, in short, he is one of those fortunate
individuals whom all the world tips.