The actual wages of a first-class gamekeeper may be no more than a
pound a week. A system has sprung up by which he receives, in addition
to wages, many recompenses in kind, while his slender pay is fortified
by the tips of the sportsman to whom he ministers. This system has bred
in him a kind of obsequiousness--he is dependent to a great extent on
charity. With a liberal employer he may be well off, and all manner of
good things may come his way; but with a mean employer the perquisites
of his position may be few and far between.
At the best, he may live in a comfortable cottage, rent free. His coal
is supplied to him without cost, and wood from the estate. Milk is
drawn freely from the farm--or he may have free pasturage for a cow
of his own. A new suit of clothes is presented to him each year. He
may keep pigs for his own use, usually at his own expense, but this
is a small item, and even here he may be helped out by a surplus of
pig-food from the kitchen of the house or from the farms. He has a
fair chance to make money by dog-breeding and exhibiting. Then there
is vermin and rabbit money which he earns as extra pay, and useful
sums may flow into his pocket from the hunt funds. He may keep fowls
at his employer's expense, and if not solely for his own use, he has
the privilege of a proportion of the eggs, and a reasonable number of
the chickens may be roasted or boiled for his own table. The estate
gardeners aid him with his gardening operations, and many surplus
plants and seeds find their way into his plot. To rabbits he may help
himself freely, also to rooks and pigeons. After each shooting party
his employer--if a generous master--invites him to take home a brace of
pheasants and a hare; and there may be other ways in which game comes
to his larder. Commissions and fees of various indeterminate sorts may
swell his coffers. All kinds of supplies he secures, if not freely,
at reduced prices. And always there is the harvest of tips. Clearly
there is every chance for a gamekeeper to receive charity of some form
or another, if it is not always offered; and this must tend to weaken
that independence which is found by the man who is paid for his labour
fairly and squarely in cash.
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