188 WHIP AND SPUR. 



and join him, — ending a long day's tramp with 

 the slow and quiet gait that his age compelled. 

 There was the least shade of the uncanny in his 

 bearing, and his speech was timorous and gentle. 

 His threadbare and seedy look betokened a na- 

 tive unthrift, but there was an undercurrent of 

 refinement in his mien and in his manner, and 

 a trusting outlook from his large blue eyes that 

 made him the fittest of companions for a summer 

 evening's walk in a country filled with the min- 

 gled flavor of history and romance. 



He was a man of the intensest local training. 

 To him "the County of the City of Lichfield" 

 was of more consequence than all Staffordshire 

 besides, and far more than all England and all 

 that vague entity called the World. Even the 

 County of the City of Lichfield was large for 

 his concentrated attachment : he knew it as 

 one must know a small town in which he has 

 passed the whole of a long life ; but his heart 

 lay within the cathedral close, and the cathe- 

 dral close lay deep within his heart, — deep and 

 warm, with its history and its traditions, its ro- 



