the enemy. Steel traps, and stone traps, commonly called the Norfolk traps, are in every drain and run and tunnel; there is not a lone tree or high hedge in the lordship but is reconnoitred for carrion-crow and magpie, nor a spinning covert or wood where hawk or kite may rear his fell brood unmolested. Witness the goodly show of stoat, weazle, polecat, fulmote, and marten-cat, gibbeted along the stable side, with a like array of kite, buzzard, hawk, magpie, jay, and carrion-crow, on the gable of the wood-house and the surrounding trees. But turn we from the scene of slaughter and death, "a universe of death," to the range of pens and coops, where the "tame birds" are hatching and rearing in the home close. Here the mistress's care is seen, and accounts for the cost bestowed by the master on the little garden

"Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid."

The keeper on his rounds has secured every nest of eggs deserted or destroyed, and brought them to the lodge with all despatch; but another's care has reared the foster-brood of pheasants and par tridges; and shall ere long supply the neighbouring copse and stubble with many a brood. Time flies, and if we mean to secure a few days' fishing, ere we hasten again to meet the morning sun in the barley and stubbles, with Fan and Carlo and Lily, in September, we must get on to the lodge for our tackle. And here it is-the boathouse is hard by, and our faithful friend the keeper has weaned himself from the land to join us for a long day in "the miller's reach." How neatly has he arranged the tackle in the boat! There is the casting net-how clean and dry, and free from weed and dirt! The lines and rollers are in; the trimmers in a box, with the wires straight as an arrow; the bait fish, two dozen, ready to begin in case the small fry should be difficult of capture at early dawn; with weedhook, bait-kettle, landing-net, and all ready for the fray. We come, my brothers and myself, a jovial, merry party, and are met with the smiling civility of the lodge. The first two dozen are soon put in, and we return to breakfast at the lodge. Let us pause a minute, and survey the interior: it will repay perusal. The furniture is of oak, grown on the estate, and fashioned to show something peculiar in it; the family arms are carved upon the arm-chairs, and the crest upon the others. The walls are decorated with many a trophy: antlers and rare birds, sporting-prints, guns, rifles, pistols, angling-rods, and otter spears, with here and there a likeness of some member of "the family," renowned dog, or favourite pony. Books there are, but these are few in number; the owner has read more in nature's book than in printed volumes, and except his Bible, " Daniel's Rural Sports," "Colonel Hawker and Blane's Dictionary," there are few to speak of his literary achievements. But there is the silver-cup, the gift of "the Squire," and the two drinking-horns, which "Mr. Charles brought down from London," the tea-service that my lady gave the mistress on her wedding-day-when the village bells were rung from morning until night-the table-spoons and tea-spoons which were bought a few weeks before that auspicious event, gracing

66

once more upon

the beaufet in the corner. A dozen long, old, ale glasses crown the show, in which the brown October has smiled at merry Christmas for the last 20 years. The breakfast waits, and our appetites are quite ready to do it justice. The venison-pasty, and marmalade from the hall, the customary viands at the lodge on these occasions, with broiled ham and fresh laid eggs, disappear with a rapidity that shows hunger to be the best of cooks. We are shortly the waters." The day's fishing is a splendid one it is always so when we have a day at the lodge, for the Miller's Reach is a secret place, and never fished save when the governor is there in person, or the keeper himself gives us his annual trimmering. We hold it good policy to keep this mile and a half of water in a manner untouched, as it serves to supply the whole water of the manor, as from a source. It is as useless to expect sport where there is an incessant drain upon the fish, as to look for a good breed of birds unless there is a preserve from whence they may be renewed.

It is night; let us return. The scenery round the lodge on a summer's evening is perfect fairy-land. The noble oaks, and graceful elms, tall limes, and courtly cedars have formed an umbrageous canopy, through which even at mid-day the sun's burning rays have not penetrated. And now when sober evening comes, and

"The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums,
Hath rung night's yawning peal,"

it is the very elysium of shade; all seems peace within its bounds. The merry rabbits skip amid the bushes-the timid leveret hops from spot to spot, cropping the wild flowers as it goes-the stately pheasant walks over the sward, and the partridge leads forth her young. Noiseless, and shrinking from the human eye are these; but there is a melody of birds which amply repays the silence of the game. Blackbird, and thrush, and nightingale, are sweetly singing from every bough; myriads of insects, whose life began and will end with the closing day, are merry as the grasshopper that chirps on every side, while the odours of a thousand flowers, "born to blush unseen," are offering up their incense to heaven.

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but nature more,

From these our interviews in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal."
CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

The summer is gone-the golden grain which waved from many a hill is harvested-and the fields, which but a few days ago were rich in the gifts of nature, and thronging with the busy villagers, the creaking wains, and "swinish multitude," are swept and desertedall is barren. Not so the keeper's lodge. There is an air of bustle and life about that, which neither spring nor summer bestowed. The

season is coming, par excellence, "the season!" Whips and whistles, couples, muzzles, puzzle-pegs, and ground lines, give" awful note of preparation," and break in upon us on every side. The keeper is out early and late; he has three brace of pointers and setters to break this year, and two couple of spaniels to form to hunt to hand. These are not tasks to sleep over, and those who know John Lawton know he is no sluggard. Honest John has much upon his mind this autumn. Dogs will not last for ever. Old Fan is done, and Flush and Rover have grown the worse for wear; Flirt, too, from long indulgence has become headstrong and wild, while Carlo and Lily are wanted for the moors, and Quorn and Doll alone hardly to be depended upon. It is an anxious time with a good servant when old dogs are getting past work, and the young ones are not quite steady. One is too apt to fancy they will last for ever, and loath to go out with young ones while old ones can go at all. Nor is this all with our friend John this season. There has been a covey of birds missed from Parker's barley-stubbles in the top field, and he shrewdly suspects that they have been netted, not that there are poachers infesting the lordship of Willowdale. They were hunted down years ago, but one of those abominations of modern times-a railway-is forming within three miles or so of the top of the manor, and Lawton fears that the excavators have paid him a visit. Hence we see one of the helpers with a load of thorns, on his way to the barley-stubs, and, from the gloom upon the brow of the mistress of the lodge, it is more than doubtful that her good man is restless and uneasy, and evident that she shares in his concern; she knows the cool determination of her husband, and that sooner or later he will be engaged, it may be, in deadly conflict with these depredators— man to man, and perhaps life for life. There is something of sorrow about the lodge to-day, and a proof how "coming events cast their shadows before." We call, in our walk, and are made fully acquainted with all this, and partake the feeling of the faithful and true-hearted domestics, whose sense of duty, and hate of wrong, thus stirs them in the dangerous path of a keeper's life. We know they will resist all inroads on our possessions and property in the lawless gang of ruffians from whom the outrage comes. Our possessions are those of our family for ages; our days are passed among them; our wealth expended where it arises; "happy, and giving happiness," and shewing, by religious and moral example throughout the village those practical lessons of what is right, which the exemplary life and habits of the quiet country gentleman and magistrate spread around him. It is with some surprise that we find such speeches as the following in the mouths of gentlemen in our courts of justice, unrebuked by the judges of the land; and we fear for faithful servants and the rights of property thus openly assailed. The speech to which I allude was made in the trial of James Elsley, at Kingston, for the murder of Lord Grantley's gamekeeper:-"Mr. Charnock," I quote from The Times, "then addressed the jury for the prisoner, and he commenced by shewing that he felt deeply the responsibility that was thrown upon him in

having to defend the prisoner upon such a dreadful charge as the one now made against him. The learned counsel then proceeded to comment upon the circumstances of the case, and said that it was a melancholy thing that, in order to enable persons in the position of Lord Grantley to enjoy their pleasures and preserve their game, the lives of the poorer classes were to be sacrificed; and he expressed his opinion that it would be much better if there were no game, and that such lordly pleasures should be altogether abolished rather than that such dreadful cases as the present, and similar ones all over the country during the present assizes, should have taken place."

What wretched sophistry is this! To feel the full force of the injustice and falsehood of such arguments, I will briefly advert to the prisoner's own statement. The ruffian stated-"I had my supper; and after my son had gone to bed I said to my wife, 'Oh, how hard it is for us to be in such distress, we have neither butter nor cheese nor sugar,' and whether she had any tea I am not certain, for when we were at supper we had but a piece of bread each of us, with a little tea without sugar or milk; and, as I had spent twopence for the beer, we were quite destitute. It hurt my feelings (!), so I said to my wife, 'I will go and get a bird or two if I possibly can, for I cannot bear to see us in such distress;' and I took the gun and shot a brace of birds, and thought if I could get a sale for them it would get a little tea and sugar.'

He sallied forth-killed the pheasants-was met by the keeperresisted his lawful apprehension-and knocked out the poor man's brains! Here is a wretch putting forth a plea of poverty as his excuse for murder. He wanted tea and sugar. He, forsooth! who had a gun, powder, and shot at hand: and Lord Grantley ought to give up his "lordly pleasures" rather than such a scoundrel should come to harm. He took "the gun." What business has a poor man with a gun, except to knock a faithful servant's brains out, as was the case here; or to shoot him dead upon the spot, as was the case at Marlborough? And, for similar doings "all over the country," it is meet, in Mr. Charnock's eye, that the game should be "abolished." The Globe will probably treat us to its annual tirade against the game laws; and upon these "dreadful cases" by and by.

What is it that men would have of the country gentlemen and their pastimes? They are blamed because they protect themselves against the incipient sheep-stealer, hen-roost plunderer, and eventual horse-stealer (for such is every poacher in the end); and held up as oppressors and tyrants because the refuse and scum of society are punished for their evil habits and practices by their means. Pity that these gentlemen are not equally taken with the fruit in our gardens; the wine in our cellars; the plate on our sideboards; the books in our libraries; and the horses in our stables; for in such cases, with equal justice, would hireling orators and venal writers rise up in their defence. Enough of this;

See, "Winter comes to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train-
Vapours and clouds and storms."

K K

The lodge which smiled in the spring, and in summer stood cool and shaded in its canopy of leaves and spreading boughs, while the gentle brook flowed murmuring by its side, is a scene for a picture in the frost and snow. There is nothing more grand and imposing than forest scenery in a hoar frost. A thousand images rise around, “as from a stroke of the enchanter's wand;" the trees form themselves into a castle, and the vistas seem as the long passages through which may issue the castellan and his warriors. Imprisoned within its walls, our fancy delineates suffering beauty, and stern, unflinching virtue; soon troop after troop of warriors hasten to the rescue. It needs but the sound of trumpet and pealing volley to fill up the imaginary scene, and the regular siege and sally, the storm and fall of the castle follow. But let us descend from our altitudes;

-“For waking Reason deems

Such over-weening phantasies unsound,

And other voices speak and other sights surround."

Honest Lawton is on the look-out for wild-fowl to-day; he has gone through the hazards of the midnight fray, and the railway heroes are safe in the county jail till the spring assizes. If there is no better water than the Miller's Reach for fish, there is none better for wildfowl. The stream is serpentine and the banks of the river intersected with pools and reed beds; a finer place for duck and widgeon was never seen. And they are so quiet there, unscared by guns and human footsteps, in the very heart of the preserve, it were strange, indeed, if we had not a perfect decoy along the reach. Some of the various tribes stay and breed with us, and many is the flapper I have brought down in summer mornings who had evidently first essayed his flight before me. Two or three shots for the hall is the limit of Lawton's doings at home. The strings of teal and ducks which rise up in all directions upon the first bang! bang! in the reach, show plainly enough that a splendid day's sport awaits us at a distance down the river. And it is so; four or five couple of ducks, as many or more of teal and snipes, with widgeon, pochard, and half-bird, crown the labours of the day. The morrow is a day indeed; it is the pheasant-day at the keeper's lodge. Those who have shared such, know well enough what it is: it is the crowning day of all. When we had such a day I once shot so true, with heart so light, and every nerve in tune, that I look to it as one of the halcyon days of my existence. Forty-two pheasants did I bag at forty-five shots, nineteen hares out of twenty shots; I seemed as if I could miss nothing. I had a new single gun-Smith's, of Prince's-street, Leicester-squareand the keeper's retriever, Ben, was not a whit behind. It is over! the grand day at the lodge! generally the last of the season.

May, 1844.