38 FISHING IN EDEN 



to peer up at the great glass eyes of the stuffed 

 owls, and " Bob," quick to notice our particular 

 interests, like the born teacher he was, would grasp 

 the situation and tell us wonderful stories of their 

 night habits and sleepy, blinking days. 



These were his ways, and we all knew that there 

 would never be to us another like him. 



When some few of us finally became wanderers 

 beyond the mountain-ringed hollow called home, and 

 every now and again felt the strong strings, which 

 " Bob " had woven, pulling us back again to the 

 old hoofing ground, we knew how hearty the greet- 

 ing would be when the familiar old thumb-sneck 

 of his door was lifted. He was entirely unselfish^ 

 and immediately he saw us the blue eyes, under the 

 beetling brows, would light up as of old, bringing 

 a fullness into our throats, and checking, for the 

 moment, responsive utterance. After the first 

 good day again on the well-known and beloved 

 stream, and the telling of it at night in the old 

 haunt, we always realised that our pleasure was his. 



It remains but to be said, of this association of 

 the young with the comparatively old, that the in- 

 fluence of such men as " Bob "-now that the distant 

 places of the earth have been made near reaches 

 out from the old-world villages of England into 

 the great throbbing towns, and to the far corners 



