POLLACK AND PILCHARDS 95 



by his neighbours. That one who stood intellect- 

 ually head and shoulders above the rest should 

 have had his enemies was only to be expected. 

 He was not always perhaps as tolerant of his 

 more ovine neighbours as he might have been ; 

 though eminently just, he may have been a hard 

 man of business ; indeed, he had to be in the in- 

 terest of his employers. Yet he was much given to 

 acts of charity when later prosperity put the luxury 

 of almsgiving within his reach, and it is quite 

 certain that many who cordially disliked him in 

 life came to a juster appreciation of the man after 

 he died. You might without difficulty have heard 

 two opinions about him in the vi]]age ten years 

 ago ; of his memory, you would hear but one. In 

 his speech he never affected any but the simple 

 dialect of the fishermen. : ' Master, you'm want- 

 ing to see the little turbots." Do step along now ; 

 you'm very welcome." And we crossed the 

 threshold of the comfortable house on Polkirt 

 and were shown new treasures, which perchance 

 he had gathered in his hand-net before we were out 

 of bed that morning, for almost to the last illness 

 he was a man of a very active habit. He would 

 display baby turbot from the chalk water off Pente- 

 wan, a mackerel of abnormal characters, some new 

 larval crustacean that he had discovered in the pil- 

 chards out of last night's catch. There was always 

 some marine curiosity worth the visit, yet less worth 



