EARLY CASTING PRACTICE 47 



memory in fishin'. Ivvery time ah touch mi rod, 

 it seems to tell me lots o 5 things ah'd hev forgitten 

 withoot it. There's oald Dick noo. He knows 

 mair aboot this beck and what hes to be dune than 

 anybody hereabouts, but he's verra cloase and 

 won't let on what he knows. Ye owt to watch him 

 sometimes and see hoo quietly he creeps up to t' 

 watter and hoo few fish he misses." 



All these sayings of " Bob " came out of him as 

 occasion demanded, and partook in no sense of 

 preaching. Like the sound teacher he was, he 

 always worked with us " from the known to the 

 unknown." There was in his voice and manner a 

 touch of the humorous a kind of bantering quite 

 foreign to ridicule in face even of the most stupid 

 blunders. It really pleased us to hear his pleasant 

 raillery, and the dialect he used had in its sound a 

 subtle charm which has grown stronger as the years 

 have rolled by. On every visit to the Eden we still 

 find the old tongue spoken in the smithy and the 

 shoe-maker's shop a sure and certain link with 

 the past and with " Bob." 



