A Farmer’s Life 
young moor-chicks that had been hatched and 
were swimming about in that secluded spot. 
His delight in them illustrated a side of his 
character yet to be noticed. ~ 
He was indeed no naturalist. Darwin’s 
theories, if he ever heard of them, had left no 
mark on his orthodox faith. ‘The only sign he 
ever gave of a suspicion that men and apes might 
be somehow related was a strong dislike, almost 
a horror, he harboured for monkeys in any shape 
or form. This dislike he carried so far asyee 
disapprove of ‘‘ Monkey-brand”’ soap because 
of the advertisements of that useful commodity. 
From something he once said I conceived the 
idea that monkeys were revolting to his sense of 
man’s worth—they were too painfully human. 
However that may be, in this one objection he 
sufficiently exhibited a prejudice that would have 
armed him against modern natural history. 
But this did not prevent his indulgence of a sort 
of eighteenth-century enjoyment of “ nature.” 
Theories he neither knew nor cared for. On the 
other hand, he was as interested as a boy in the 
bird life and animal life to be seen about his 
fields, in the course of his daily work. 
How pleased he was (more than once he told 
of it in my hearing) to recall his holding up of a 
neighbour on the road one day. ‘Don’t ye 
see the road’s stopped? ”’ he had exclaimed, and 
had pointed to a weasel that was convoying a litter 
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