48 STALKS ABROAD 



I got to know him well afterwards, as one does, 

 sharing the same camp fire and the same meals. 

 At first I was sorry and amused alternately ; then 

 irritated, for the Incompetent One in search of game 

 was a sight for the gods. We had very little 

 whisky with us, and so were not troubled with the 

 vicissitudes of " poor young Marmion." Yet on our 

 return to Lillooet I saw him in his cups again, and 

 a pathetic figure he was. 



Tragedy was stamped in every line and curve 

 of his battered figure. Common, brutalised, and 

 debased, he yet had the education and instincts of 

 a gentleman. They peered at you unexpectedly 

 from hidden corners, and even in his silences, perhaps 

 more then than at any other time, made their pre- 

 sence felt. He was very fond of reading, especially 

 poetry, and knew long passages of Scott, Tennyson, and 

 even the Psalms by heart. He was a bit of a poet in 

 his own way, and addressed an ode to me before we left. 



When I read it and found references to "my 

 rosebud mouth," a comparison between " the tinted 

 splendours of the rose " and the blush on my modest 

 cheek, finishing with a veiled likening of my voice 

 to " the wood dove's coo," I realised that he had 

 also more than his share of poetic imagination ! 

 His father had worn the Queen's uniform, and had 

 fought in her battles. What it was that had 

 stranded the tattered remnants of a once good 

 family in that out-of-the-way corner of the world 

 I never really knew. I heard it discussed, and 



