The Hand of Time
The keeper looks his best in autumn. To many the sight of him then is most welcome, especially if the prospect of sport be fair, and the day of fine promise. People who go to shoot season after season on one estate are greeted year by year by the same friendly faces, nearly all of them a little the worse for time's passage. The host is seen to have aged between this October and last, with his butlers and his beaters and bailiffs. The foreheads of the familiar old horses seem to have sunk a little above the eyes. The dogs are remembered as playful puppies; the headstrong creatures now grow grey about the muzzles. Boys employed of old as "stops," when their height was less than the length of the hares they dangled proudly over their backs, have now qualified for the army of beaters; they have long since learnt the wisdom of not leaving their "stopping" places to forage for hazel-nuts. All these have grown older, and perhaps the visitor himself heaves a sigh as he looks down on his own once trim and slender figure.
