92 GAMEKEEPERS AND GILLIES 



He wasted no time in complaint, and only spoke of his 

 disease in reply to my inquiry, though it moved me 

 almost to tears when he said simply 'I am sorry, Sir 

 Herbert, when I think I shall never be on the river 

 with you again.' Then, although the swelling had almost 

 closed his mouth and it was evident that speaking caused 

 him much pain, he began to discuss the prospects of the 

 fishing season as keenly as if it were he, not I, that was 

 concerned in it. When I rose to leave, he asked a 

 question curiously characteristic of his active intelli- 

 gencea question which, until the present time, has 

 baffled all scientific research. ' I want to ask you,' said 

 he, ' you that understands these things, is this trouble of 

 mine caused by a bacillus or not ? ' 



There I left him in his lowly box-bed, my comrade in 

 many a wild day's sport, and thence they carried him, a 

 fortnight later, to lay him beside his people in the lonely 

 moorland cemetery. 



What a crowd of minor characters claim recognition as 

 one reviews the past. There was old Tofts, head-keeper 

 to the Earl of Galloway, presiding over the home beats 

 of his master's princely domain. In physique, his only 

 peculiarity was that his complexion seemed to be of 

 parchment : come foul or fair, or rain or shine, it never 

 lost its whitey-brown tint. Many a pretty day's sport 

 have I had with him along the well-clad shores of 

 Wigtown Bay, reminding one of the meeting of Mount 

 Edgcumbe woods with the waters of Plymouth Sound. 

 Tofts's reputation, luckily, did not rest upon the quality 

 of his dogs, which was indifferent ; but he had a quaint, 

 confidential way with them, which was sometimes amus- 

 ing. Somebody having fired at a hare and imagined it 



