in the winter of 1864-5, reaching home, as he himself put 

 it, ' in the snow of a February night, with fourpence in 

 his pocket, on the back of a Highland garron which 

 he bought for £'j, los. at Pomone in the Orkneys.' The 

 hardships and exposure which he underwent during 

 that long and trying journey, the results of which are 

 told in his ' Field and Fern,' proved fatal to him, for 

 they sowed the seeds of the pulmonary disease of which, 

 after a lingering and often agonising illness, borne with 

 heroic fortitude, he died in the spring of 1870. 



He had not completed his forty-eighth year when the 

 end came, but into that comparatively short space he had 

 crammed more hard work than most men have accom- 

 plished at three-score and ten. With him it was not 

 fame but duty that was 



'The spur that his clear spirit did raise / ''^^ 

 To scorn delights and live laborious days.' j^^^^>t4,3 



Much of his work, of course, was ephemeral, and, like that 

 of even the best journalists, is utterly forgotten, gone like 

 ' the snows of yester year.' But those who know him 

 only by his four famous sporting books can have no 

 idea of his versatility. He wrote on an infinite variety 

 of subjects, and wrote well on all, but, without doubt, 

 sport was the subject nearest his heart, and the one 

 which drew out all the enthusiasm and emotion that 

 was in him. And yet he was not an expert in any of 

 the sports which he so admirably chronicled. He never, 

 I believe, rode to hounds in his life, nor did he ever 

 handle either cricket bat or billiard cue, but his theoretical 

 knowledge of hunting, cricket, and billiards was pro- 

 found, aild enabled him to write upon them with a spirit 

 and accuracy which made his opinions valued and 



X 



