The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104,
January 21, 1893, by Various

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Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893

Author: Various

Editor: Francis Burnand

Release Date: February 27, 2007 [EBook #20704]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 104.

January 21, 1893.

CONVERSATIONAL HINTS FOR YOUNG SHOOTERS.

THE KEEPER.

(_With an Excursus on Beaters._)

Of the many varieties of keeper, I propose, at present, to consider only
the average sort of keeper, who looks after a shooting, comprising
partridges, pheasants, hares, and rabbits, in an English county. Now it is
to be observed that your ordinary keeper is not a conversational animal. He
has, as a rule, too much to do to waste time in unnecessary talk. To begin
with, he has to control his staff, the men and boys who walk in line with
you through the root-fields, or beat the coverts for pheasants. That might
seem at first sight to be an easy business, but it is actually one of the
most difficult in the world. For thorough perverse stupidity, you will not
easily match the autochthonous beater. Watch him as he trudges along, slow,
expressionless, clod-resembling, lethargic, and say how you would like to
be the chief of such an army. He is always getting out of line, pressing
forward unduly, or hanging back too much, and the loud voice of the keeper
makes the woods resound with remonstrance, entreaty, and blame, hurled at
his bovine head. After lunch, it is true, the beater wakes up for a little.
Then shall you hear WILLIAM exchanging confidences from one end of the line
to the other with JARGE, while the startled pheasant rises too soon and
goes back, to the despair of the keeper and the guns. Then, too, are heard
the shouts of laughter which greet the appearance of a rabbit, and the air
is thick with the sticks that the joyous, beery beaters fling at the
scurrying form of their hereditary foe. I