NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



about rights connected with his land, and for years 

 never spoke to a near neighbour with whom he was 

 at feud concerning the cleaning of a boundary ditch. 

 He was a trifle hot of temper until past middle life ; 

 stern with wrongdoers, and much in awe with delin- 

 quent crow-boys. In later life this severity of tempera- 

 ment became greatly relaxed. But, take him for all in 

 all, few kindlier or better-hearted men ever breathed. 

 He had to the end of life a perhaps exaggerated respect 

 — a relic of the previous century — for his landlord and 

 other titled magnates of the shire. I believe he never 

 could quite bring himself to realise the absolute secrecy 

 of the ballot. Whether for that reason, or from a 

 quaint sense of loyalty to his landlord, a nobleman 

 of strong Liberal tendencies, John Weston, although 

 himself a Tory and Protectionist, never until the last 

 few years of his life recorded his vote at the poll. He 

 enjoyed the cheery sound of the horn, the stirring 

 sight of hounds in full cry, until his seventy-seventh 

 year. He had never failed in the most crushing of 

 hard times to pay his heavy rent at the half-yearly 

 audit dinner, and in his long life of solid, steady en- 

 deavour I do not think John Weston had ever done 

 a mean or dishonest action. His good white head and 

 bright, cheerful countenance will long be remembered 

 by his fellow-sportsmen. And in the village, where 

 a strange blank remains since the disappearance of his 

 well-known figure, the shining example of that good 

 and clean and well-spent life will not, you may be sure, 

 for many a year be forgotten. 



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