In Newfoundland he worked on a fishery, at times indulging his sporting propensities, which an abundance of game was at hand to gratify. On his return to England, arriving at Teignmouth, he found that the enemy he dreaded had died in a fit, owing to some further poaching, which had thrown him into such a rage as to have induced apoplexy. His heir, a young man of effeminate habits, passed the whole of his time in London, leaving his estates to be poached by any one who liked, a piece of news which filled Jenkins' heart with joy. The latter, after enquiries, also found that he was quite safe from arrest, and so, returning to his native village, he began to renew his sporting excursions with increased ardour; and, probably because his past deeds and tried prowess had intimidated the keepers of the various properties, he poached with more boldness than ever, and though committing havoc and destruction, never after experienced the least interruption. Woodcock shooting was his favourite amusement, from the twofold consideration of the value of the birds and the pleasure they afforded in the pursuit of them; and in truth, never in the annals of sporting did they ever meet with a more formidable enemy. It was a rare thing for him to miss a tolerable shot. Whenever a snowstorm proceeded from the north, or north-west, the south of Dorset and Devon, and particularly the coast part, found him full employment in pursuit of woodcocks; and should the sleety tempest come from any eastern point, instantly he set off to the house of a relation on the north coast of

Devon, whence he seldom returned without ample remuneration for his trouble. Strict economy being a prominent feature in the character of Jenkins, he purchased, chiefly by gains as a shot, a small estate of twenty-five pounds per annum in the neighbourhood of Sidmouth.

After a few years he fell in love with a farmer's daughter, whom he married, but the death of the poor girl within the same year entirely altered the poacher's character. He could not bear to remain on the spot of his lost happiness; he set sail again for Newfoundland.

There, in the deepest solitude, and remote from all society except that of one merchant, at whose store he exchanged his gettings and procured supplies, he resided many years alone, in a cottage covered with inverted squares of turf, so much the humorist, and so original in character, as to render him an interesting object to the sporting part of the community.

A regular Robinson Crusoe in his retreat, the old poacher employed his time in various ingenious contrivances, mostly connected with sport.

One of these, of which he was inordinately proud, was a contrivance for killing the foxes which strayed into his garden.

From an upper window of his cottage a line was stretched to the ground, whilst an enormous duck gun pointed in a similar direction. The line was fastened to a peg stuck in the earth, to which some dead birds were fixed as a bait, so arranged that bells at the top of the peg would jingle when any foxes were attracted to devour the birds. Every night,

when Jenkins went to bed, he cocked the duck gun, immovably fixed pointing at the birds. A string connected the trigger with his bed, which he pulled whenever he was aroused by the jingling of the bells, and then at one shot he often killed two or three black, white, or silver foxes.

His abode was a cottage in a part of the country then known as the "Hunting Ground." Shooting and fishing occupied his time, and he was his own caterer and cook, carpenter, builder, shoemaker, and tobacconist, dependent only on the factory for such articles as it was impossible for him to provide. The "factory," it should be added, was the local name of the depot or store. When strangers came to see him he never failed to point to an old fowling-piece, telling them that a small estate he possessed in England had been gained by it. From this he drew a modest income, which was increased by the furs and skins he sold to the "factory."

Jenkins, it should be added, lived to a very great age in his Newfoundland retreat.

A curious sporting character, whose fate it was to pass most of his life in a town, was John Underwood, who died in 1825. For forty years he was doorkeeper and bill-sticker to the Theatre Royal, Bristol. His qualifications, indeed, entitle him to a niche amongst the departed worthies of his day in the sporting world. He commenced his career as gamekeeper to Mr. Wyndham, of Dunraven Castle; he thence passed into the service of General Rooke, who wanted him to accompany him to Goree, on the

coast of Africa. John, however, understanding from a friend that there were very few trout streams in that neighbourhood, and very little shooting, except now and then with a musket at "black game," excused himself. His master had given him a most handsome letter of credentials, and so he determined to lay by the shot-belt and see the world. With this intent he offered himself to the celebrated Collins, the actor. John had so excellent a memory that he was soon master of every word, and acted as prompter to his master, giving him his cue whenever he made a halt, or bolted out of the course. John could also, when needful, play the fiddle and sing a good song—both valuable acquisitions in the Bohemian life he chose. Later on he again became keeper in the Forest of Dean; and there 125 couple of cocks fell before his single barrel in the course of the season, besides other game-a fine record for the days of muzzle-loaders. After this he came to Bristol; but Bristol is a bad sporting country, and our hero longed to have his finger upon the trigger, and so, for lack of other sport, he used to bring down the swifts upon Brandon Hill, or, when these birds were lacking, would practise upon a flung-up ha'penny, which he seldom failed to mark with the lead. Now and then he won a bag of shot by a bet that he hit a dozen times following. His great secret was to let drive at the standstill moment, when the piece of money, like the cannonball of Hudibras and the coffin of Mahomet, was in doubt whether to mount or to descend. But he might have shot swifts and have defaced the King's

coin to eternity, without having any serious claim to sporting immortality, if he had not been a "brother of the angle," and the Izaak Walton of his day. The Bath River, Blagdon, Redhill, and Congresbury all exercised his skill, both with the fly and the ground bait; and many a young fisherman went home with a full bag by attending to his instructions. In fact, he was altogether a clever sportsman; and had not a somewhat "truant disposition" coupled him to a paste-kettle, his name would have long ago figured in the annals of sports, by the side of the first anglers and the first shots in England.