BOBBIE DAWSON. 87 



first love with a tenacity and faithfulness which he might 

 not have shown to his "weean," as he would have called her. 

 To return, however, to his house. It is well depicted in the 

 sketch given. There is but one entrance to it, through a door 

 which opens into what was the old man's turf house. In the 

 sketch of this entrance may be seen the boiler where Bobbie 

 prepared the food for his hounds. This receptacle was let into 

 the wall of his house just where his turf fire burned. In this 

 turf house many a hound was tied to a staple, which is still 

 to be seen. Another door leads into the picturesque kitchen. 

 Here by the light which issues through a little latticed 

 window may be seen the wide chimney up which for long the 

 smoke — wreeak, they call it in Bilsdale — from Bobbie's turf 

 fire ascended. This chimney abuts over a yard in a 

 semi-circle in one of the two little bedrooms. Before this 

 fire the veteran whip was wont to sit on a stool, whilst he 

 meditated over the sport he had enjoyed and the days which 

 were passed. The old man could look back upon ninety 

 years, during which times and manners, and methods had 

 changed, during which a new generation had peopled the 

 dale, during which — in a sentence — nearly everything had 

 altered with the whirl of time. Not so Robert ; the same 

 he was to-day, yesterday, and to the end. Just the queer 

 little striking personage who knew more about fox-hunting 

 than most men. There are veterans in various walks of life — 

 in the Army, the Navy, the agricultural world — who become 

 unbearably conceited, who assert their own knowledge at 

 every turn, and thrust their experience before the world. 

 Not so with " Bobbie " Dawson. Though he could speak, 

 and speak with authority, it was a difficult matter to " draw 

 him out." 



To return to his house. Here and there was a pair of 

 old hunting boots, a number of old hunting breeches, and 

 that is all that remained of old " Bobbie's " belongings, 

 when I entered it after his death, for there were many 

 sportsmen anxious to have something which belonged to the 

 old man. Leading from the kitchen was a pantry and a 

 scullery, from which the upstairs regions were reached. 



