96 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



to business. The business John Home took up 

 turned him into a sort of very uncommercial 

 commercial traveller, calling all over the country 

 where a farmhouse might be, and he took it as a 

 sort of unconsidered supplement to one unbroken 

 round of holiday-making in the open. He loved 

 walking for walking's sake, and covered in the 

 aggregate enormous distances per annum. More- 

 over, he loved best, loving most all things, both 

 great and small, being a sportsman who held a 

 gun straight, and could take fish cunningly ; a 

 fine rider, boxer, and runner ; but kind, always 

 soft-hearted. No one knew more, of birds and 

 beasties' haunts and runs, nests and lairs. Who 

 could, since he was always about with both eyes 

 open, eyes that knew where to look as he trudged, 

 and a most dependable memory ? Last autumn 

 I ran against the old gentleman, still upright as a 

 (straight) dart and the ''moral" of Jorrocks's 

 James Pigg in figure and get-up, only a Tom 

 Pinch in feature and expression. '' Eighty in 

 some months I am," said he, ''and never shot 

 better at rabbits than I did this week." 



Quite thankful I was to have Lucas on Home, 

 as it happened to be while I was fermenting 

 over that unpleasant side of sport which makes 

 me tired. Invaluable for disinfecting antiseptic 

 purposes is keeping a book like the " Sussex High- 

 ways and Byways " by you — also to recuperate, 

 clearing the cobwebs away, using it for guide to 

 take many a joint run with its writer. To tell 

 the whole truth, as I chanced to be in view of my 

 old crony's favourite country I half made up my 

 mind to cut work and let it slide while I took a 

 spell off, following some of his routes over the 

 Downs or in the Weald, where once he was 



