s one thing more than another that drives that sturdy set of
men, the Englebourn yeomen, into a frenzy, it is talk of the game
in the Grange covers. Not that they dislike sport; they like it
too well, and, moreover, have been used to their fair share of
it. For the late squire left the game entirely in their hands.
"You know best how much game your land will carry without serious
damage to the crops," he used to say. "I like to show my friends
a fair day's sport when they are with me, and have enough game to
supply the house and make a few presents. Beyond that, it is no
affair of mine. You can course whenever you like; and let me know
when you want a day's shooting, and you shall have it." Under
this system the yeomen became keen sportsmen; they and all their
labourers took a keen interest in preserving, and the whole
district would have risen on a poacher. The keeper's place became
a sinecure, and the squire had as much game as he wanted without
expense, and was, moreover, the most popular man in the county.
Even after the new man came, and all was changed, the mere
revocation of their sporting liberties, and the increase of game,
unpopular as these things were, would not alone have made the
farmers so bitter, and have raised that sense of outraged justice
in them. But with these changes came in a custom new in the
country--the custom of selling the game. At first the report was
not believed; but soon it became notorious that no head of game
from the Grange estates was ever given away, that not only did
the tenants never get a brace of birds or a hare, or the
labourers a rabbit, but not one of the gentlemen who helped to
kill the game ever found any of the bag in his dog-cart after the
day's shooting. Nay, so shameless had the system become, and so
highly was the art of turning the game to account cultivated at
the Grange, that the keepers sold powder and shot to any of the
guests who had emptied their own belts or flasks at something
over the market retail price. The light cart drove to the
market-town twice a week in the season, loaded heavily with game,
but more heavily with the hatred and scorn of the farmers; and,
if deep and bitter curses could break patent axles or necks, the
new squire and his game-cart would not long have vexed the
countryside. As it was, not a man but his own tenants would
salute him in the market-place; and these repaid themselves for
the unwilling courtesy by bitter reflections on a squir