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dark, short-haired, rough terrier, rather like a Dandie, with small 
ears, she thought.” 
But it was necessary to enquire in Patterdale, and, with a friend 
—that so out of the witness of two mouths whatever we heard of 
the truth might, be established—I set off early in November, 1890, 
to make enquiry there. 
Two witnesses shall be called, the first a little dark-eyed man 
whom we found sitting with his terrier dog in a tiny bedroom 
lumbered up with old curiosities, among which were the Latin and 
French and Greek books of his grandfather’s day, for his grand- 
father had been a village schoolmaster out Ouseby way, in the 
time when the Dale schools gave a really liberal education, and 
who, as old W. put it, hed t? makkin’ o’ a deal o’ priests, and yan 
on ’em a bishop.” 
He had “sarraed his time as a gardener,” and had mixed up 
politics with his plants. “Was bworn a Whig, and wad deea 
Whig an’ aw.” Had cared for the poets, too, as he had cared for 
plants and politics. Could remember “ald Wudsworth,” as he 
irreverently called him, and had “many a time cracked wi’ lile 
Coleridge.” “It was Hartley, ye kna, as writ that piece on t’ 
heeadstean in t’ churchyard.” I didn’t know it, but I kept the old 
man on this track of remembrance of the bard, and he went on: 
“Eh dear! but I can’ see him sitting now wi’ a pot o’ beer afoor 
him, makkin’ gham o’ a piece o’ potery as Wudsworth hed meead 
about a pet lamb.” 
He was a character! The old man had tired of the narrow world 
in which he lived as a gardener, and determined to tramp to 
London to see Westminster and the Tower; had gone, for love of 
the statesman, out of his way to see Sir Robert Peel’s house at 
Tamworth ; and stayed a week at Lichfield because of Dr. Johnson 
and his Dictionary. 
He could not tell us his age, but he remembered toddling to 
the inquest, held upon Gough’s body at Braysteads farm, where 
one Errol or Earle, he thought, lived in those days. 
The young man Gough, to the best of his knowledge, had called 
at Thomas Dobson’s—the inn was actually owned by one Lancelot 
