It was an unmistakable fact that he himself enjoyed these parties immensely, and wished in his heart that all present should do so too. He had a large house and a princely income, and he delighted, at this festive season, to have his house full and to dispense with unsparing generosity the hand of bounty as regards the festivities of Christmas. Even his servants were allowed to have their merry-making, and a right jovial one it seemed, as the Hall rang with merriment and goodnature that prevailed "below stairs." It was Christmas in good earnest, kept as Christmas in olden times, when, as we heard among the many good songs that were sung during our visit to the Squire : "The misletoe hung in the castle hall,

The holly branch shone on the old oak wall,

And the Squire's retainers were blithe and gay,
Aud keeping their Christmas holiday."

But lest we should weary our readers with the rôle of festivities at the Old Sportsman's Hall at Christmas time, we will take warning from the length to which our story has already run, and in taking le ave of Christmas in 1864, welcome with becoming hope the New Year of 1865, and wish with all our hearts that our readers, one and all, may spend many such a Christmas as that which we had the happiness to enjoy with the good old sportsman, who gave us the welcome above recorded.

"A HARE AND A BRACE OF BIRDS."
A PRACTICAL JOKE.

BY "QUIZ,"

On the 3rd of September last I sent my father's keeper, Dick Preece, to a snug little house on the Boarswood and Starpont high-road, with a hare and a brace and a-half of birds for my uncle, Frank Willan, a retired clergyman, whom that curse of the profession, a parson's throat, had incapacitated from regular duty.

A fine stalwart fellow is Dick Preece, a rare specimen of the English gamekeeper, 5 feet 11 inches in his stockings, broad-shouldered, curly-haired, and straight-limbed; poachers stand in awe of him, and farmer's wives and spruce servant-maids ogle and idolize him, and many a one of the latter would be only too glad of a chance to change her name to Mrs. Preece. Dick is a single man, and lives with his sister, Ann Preece, in the keeper's-cottage at the back of our home farm.

Although Ann has passed the sunny side of forty, she still retains much of her good looks and fresh complexion, and many marvel that she also has never found occasion to change her name; but Ann's is a true heart, that could love but once, and when I see her on a Sunday afternoon linger under the south aisle of our old church by a plain headstone, "erected to the memory of William Rayner, late sergeant in theth, who fell at Ferozeshah," I no longer wonder that she has preferred to live and die Ann Preece.

Dick might be any age to look at, and I can remember him a grown man all my life (I am not a young woman, so I won't coquette about my years I came of age in March, 1862), and this would make Dick nothing short of five-and-forty.

:

I had been shooting for two or three hours in the morning, but had engaged to drill my troop of yeomanry at 2 pm. The colliers had just begun their turn-out, and we were under orders to be ready at any moment in case of riots.

Accordingly, at 2 30, Dick having swallowed his dinner, and dismissed the under-keeper with some birds to distribute to the tenants, set off for the Grove.

It was a bright gleamy afternoon, with a light breeze from the W.N.W. Most of the harvest was already cleared, and as he strode across the fields and contemplated the close-shorn stubbles, Dick anathematized the present system of "bagging" wheat with the broad hook, lamenting the extinction of the glorious knee-deep stubbles, so common when he was a boy, and in which our fathers used to make their greatest morning bags.

Now, unless you can drive your birds into turnips or clover, or occasionally a field of standing beans, you have but little prospect of sport; and for the present season, when the drought has destroyed the root crops, and the clover is gone before its time, for fodder, you may think yourself lucky if you can get within range of a covey at all.

Revenons à nos moutons. Dick sat down upon a stile to make a note of fields ready for bushing on the morrow; the ground rose behind to the west, and sheltered him from the breeze; the sun smote heavily on his back, and it certainly struck him as being rather warm; he'd go round by Dan Weaver's, of the Swan, and get a drop of beer.

It was not a hundred yards out of his way, and he struck across the next field into the high road, exactly opposite the Swan.

"Mornin', Mr. Preece," says Dan, a burly, red-faced publican, with a cunning twinkle in his grey eye.

"Warmish work in the

"Good afternoon, to you, Dan," says Dick. sun;" wiping his forehead and bringing himself to an anchor inside the bar.

"'Deed, it is; I had a job of it yesterday, a brewin'; made the gravy come, it did. What may I get you, Mr. Preece?"

"Well! let's say pot o' mild ale, Mr. Weaver, if you please," answers Dick, filling his pipe.

Step into the parlour, Mr. Preece," says Dan as soon as he had drawn the liquor. "Ye'll find it cooler there nor here. There," he continued, setting down a jug of ale, "you'll find that a beautiful tap, mild as milk, and just look at the colour on it," filling a glass and holding it up to the light.

Having shaken hands with Mrs. Weaver, and sconced himself in an arm-chair, Dick supped and puffed away in silence. He had left his game-bag in the bar.

"How's birds this season?" says Dan after a pause, mixing himself a glass of cold gin-and-water.

"Well! there's a goodish few on 'em, but there's no lyin'; can't get anear 'em."

"Lots o' hares, too, beant there?"

"Yes, there's a tidy few hares on the hills. I've got a nice un in the bag," indicating the bar with a jog of his elbow, "and a brace and a 'arf o' birds for Muster Willan."

"Muster Waver!" hailed a voice from the bar.

"See what ar want's, will 'ee, 'Lizabuth?" says Dan.

"Four gallon more of mixed, for Mr. Cooke, in the ten-acre; and there's the lad a waitin," says the wife, returning.

Dan got up to attend to his customer.

"Nice warm stockings is them," says Dick, volunteering an observation at last.

"Yes," says the dame, looking complacently at her knitting; "they're for Dan'l. He complained of the rhumatics very bad last winter, so I'm making him some flannel-waistcoats and stockings against the cold weather."

"Weskits is the thing, but you shouldn't let 'un sleep in 'em. Nor don't 'ee wash 'em more nor you can help. Hang 'em out to dry of a night, and they'll keep sweet for a month or more.

"Seein as you ain't a married man, you knows a deal about housekeepin'," says Mrs. Weaver.

"Well, 'twere the parson as told Ann, as told me, last winter. How's Dan goin' on now a days? Sups pretty stiff, don't he?"

"Stiff! not he," says the wife, ready to shield her husband's infirmities. "Just a drop of something short at night is all the sperrits he takes of a day."

Dick looked at Dan's empty glass, but the latter's re-appearance at this moment put a stop to the conversation. Dick, having finished his ale, paid his reckoning and departed.

Twenty minutes' brisk walking brought him to the Grove. Entering by the way back he came across the Reverend, whip in hand, returning from the stables.

"What have you there, Preece?" says the Parson.

"Muster Charles's compliments to you, sir, and he has sent a hare and a brace-and-a-half of birds. Sorry there's not more of them just yet, sir; but they're so wild we can't get anigh 'em."

"Much obliged to Mr. Charles," says his reverence. "If you will bring them into the kitchen Mrs. Walker will get you a glass of beer. Here's something for you, Mrs. Walker," entering the domain; and then slipping half-a-crown into Dick's hand, he passed on to the other part of the house.

He had hardly closed the passage-door before a scream and peal of laughter on the part of the maids, followed by a loud guffaw from John the footman, arrested him. Again and again the laughter broke forth, and it was evident that the domestics were enjoying some joke immensely.

Though the last man in the world to interfere with his servants, or to employ espionage, he thought himself justified for the nonce in ascertaining the cause of all this merriment.

Returning to the kitchen-door, he beheld a picture worthy of the pencil of Leech. Mrs. Walker sat back in a window-seat, holding her sides and gasping for breath; two of the maids were almost in hysterics, while John, though partially subsided, was evidently intensely amused at something; in the middle of the room stood Dick Preece scratching

his head, and looking sheepishly from one to the other of the company.

The game-bag and its contents lay upon the dresser; there were a brace of nice, young, well-fed birds, and one old one; and by the side of them lay a brownish-coloured animal-a very handsome, dark tortoise-shell cat!

The servants began to resume their equanimity on perceiving the presence of their master; and Dick began to blurt out a sort of apology or explanation of the occurrence.

"It was all right when I started, sir; leastways, Ann-that's my sister, sir-wouldn't have done me such a turn, knowing as how they was for you, sir; and its a beautiful cat, too, sir," he soliloquized, feeling its fur." Most like a lamb, sir," contemplating it and holding it out to my uncle, and hardly knowing in his confusion what he was say ing or doing.

"It's a very nice cat certainly, Dick," said my uncle; "but I thought you told me you had got a hare for me, not a cat."

"A hare, sir!" says Dick, examining the cat carefully. "A hare," he repeated slowly, as a new light seemed to dawn upon him. "I knows all about him now, sir," he exclaimed. "Look here, sir," holding out the fore-paw of the cat. "I knows 'un now; I trapped 'un

last July, I knows 'un by the marks," said he with a grin.

There were the marks of a gin clear enough on the paw (Dick was of a friendly disposition, and generally gave a neighbour's cat grace for the first offence).

"I know where the cat comes from, and I know where the hare's gone to, sir. I am sure I am sorry such a thing should have happened, sir, and I'll be bound I bring you the hare back again afore evening. I'll take my davy o' that, sir."

"Come here, and tell me how it happened, Dick," said my uncle kindly, beckoning him away from the kitchen into the yard.

"It's along of Dan Weaver, sir-Old Dan of the Swan, you knows him, sir?"

My uncle nodded assent.

"I just stepped in for a glass of mild ale, and he thought he'd try a swop. Darn him," he muttered. "I'll spile his swoppin for him."

for

"Are you sure of your man, Dick?" said my uncle.

"I be sure of the cat, sir. I never stopped on the road barrin the Swan; and I knows the cat, as I said afore, sir."

"Has he a spite against you?"

"Not as I knows on, sir; it's only his play. I did not kill the cat neither; I spared 'un when I trapped 'un. Can't say what she died of; she's stiff enough, sir; she must have been dead some time afore I went in. Howsomedever, sir, I'll warrant I bring you the hare afore six o'clock to-night."

"Well, Preece, I hope you may," said my uncle smiling, and he turned and went into his study.

Dick followed into the kitchen, and without paying any attention, beyond a good-tempered grin, to the gibes of the domestics, shouldered his bag, cat and all, and stalked off.

Back along the high-road for half-a-mile, and then three-quarters

more of field and fence brought him to a six-acre pasture, at the end of which stood the brew-house, kitchen, and back premises of mine host of the Swan.

Unperceived, Dick crossed the field and slipped through the brewhouse to the kitchen door; the room was empty, but a pot was boiling on the fire, and the savoury smell that issued from it told tales. In a twinkling the lid was off, Dick whipped out the hare with his knife, slipped puss in as a hostage, and skedaddled.

In three-quarters of an hour from the time of his leaving the Grove the hare was in Mrs. Walker's hands-partially boiled, it is true, but none the worse for "jugging.'

At 6.30 p.m. Dan's wife began to lay the cloth for an early supper. Her husband had walked down to Houndsditch, distant a mile, to seek an appetite and a mate for the repast.

At this moment he enters the house, and proclaiming himself ready for his victuals, proceeded to help his wife to dish up their dainty. "Bless my soul," says the dame; “ why the pot's full of hair." "Ye sawney," says Dan; "it's only the rice and onions." "No onions, as I'm a sinner," says 'Lizabeth; "it's wool." "Wool, be d-d; why ye baggage, ye hain't skinned the beast." "Let's look again," says the dame, beginning to feel suspicious. Somehow practical jokers are always fearing a like turn for them

selves.

She raked away with the spoon: more and more hair came to the surface. Dan's own wool began to stand on end.

"Lend us the fork," says the wife; and the next moment puss was impaled.

"Darned if it ain't old Tib."

"Oh! my; that's all along o' you, Dan'l."

Their exclamations of horror brought their guest into the kitchen, and from his mouth I learnt this sequel to the story.

Of course, the rice and onions were ruined, but it was fortunate that Dick Precce had not time to skin the cat before putting it into the pot, as he told me afterwards he had intended; else had puss been devoured undetected: what had begun in play might have ended in sad earnest, and a necessity for a "crowner's quest."

Draper, the farmer opposite, had laid Battel's vermin-killer in his malt-house, for the benefit of the rats, and Tib partaking of the spoil, had come to an untimely end.

Dan had found her dead in the brew-house that morning, and suspecting, most unjustifiably, that Dick had been laying poison in the fields, devised this impromptu plan of revenging and remunerating

himself.

All's well that ends well, and when the joke had been well canvassed both parties became as good friends as ever: Dan is exonerated from suspicion of deliberate theft, and Dick of the suicidal charge of laying poison to destroy vermin,