as comes fishin' in summer. 'Mr. Dellanow,' he sez to me one day, 'I take a great interest in yer.' 'That's a darned sight more'n I take in you,' I sez, for if there's one thing as puts my bristles up it's bein' told as folks takes a' interest in me. 'Well,' he sez, for he wasn't easy to offend, 'I want to 'ave a talk.' 'What about?' I sez. 'I want to talk about the stars and the space as they're floatin' in.' 'Has space ever knocked yer silly?' I sez. 'Yes,' he sez, 'in a manner o' speakin' it has.' 'No,' I sez, 'it hasn't, because if it had you wouldn't want to talk about it.' Well, there was no stoppin' 'im, and at last he gets it out that space is just a way we have o' lookin' at things. I know'd well enough what he meant, though I could see as he were puttin' it wrong way up. When he'd done I sez, 'That's all right. But suppose space wasn't a way folks have o' lookin' at things, but something else, what difference would that make?' 'I don't see what you mean,' he sez. 'That's because you don't see what you mean yerself,' I sez. 'You're just like the rest on 'em—talkin' about things you've never seen, but only heard other folks talkin' about. You're in the same box wi' Shoemaker Hankin and the parsons and all the lot on 'em. What's the good o' jawin' about space when you've never been there yourself? I have. I've seen more space in one minute than you've ever heard talk on since you were born. Don't tell me! If you could see what I've seen you'd never say another word about space as long as yer lived.'

"But you was askin' what bein' a medium has got to do wi' knowin' about the stars. More than some folks think. They're two roads leadin' to the same place. Both on 'em are ways o' gettin' to the right end of things. What's wrong wi' the mediums is that they haven't got line enough. They only manage to get just outside their own skins; but what's wanted is to get right on to the edge of the world and then look back. That's what the stars teaches you to do; and when you've done it—my word! it turns yer clean inside out!

"There's lots of nonsense in mediums; but there's no nonsense in the stars. And it's the stars that's goin' to knock the nonsense out o' the mediums, you mark my word! I found that out, for, as I was tellin' you, I used to be one myself, and am one now, for the matter o' that.

"Now you listen to what I'm goin' to tell you. There's lots o' spirits about: but they don't talk, at least not as a rule, and they don't want to talk; and when the mediums make 'em talk, they're liars! Spirits has better ways o' doin' things than talkin' on 'em. That's what you finds out when you gives yourself a long line and gets out to the edge o' the world. Then you looks back, and you sees that the whole thing's alive. It looks you straight in the face; and you can see it thinkin' and smilin' and frownin' and doin' things, just as I can see you at this minute. Do you think the stars can't understand one another? They can do it a sight better than you and me can. And they do it without speakin' a word. That, I tell you, is what you sees when you lets your line out to the edge!

"And when you've seen it you don't bother any more wi' makin' the spirits rap on tables and such like. What's the sense o' tryin' to find out whether you'll be a spirit after you're dead when you know there's nothing else anywhere? But it's no good talkin'. If you're not a bit of a medium yourself you'll never understand—no, not if I was to go on talkin' till both on us are frozen to death. And I reckon you're pretty cold already—you look it. Come down the hill wi' me, and I'll get my missis to make yer a cup o' hot tea."

"SNARLEYCHOLOGY"

I. THEORETICAL

Farmer Perryman was rich, and it was Snarley Bob who had made him so. Now Snarley was a cunning breeder of sheep. For three-and-forty years he had applied his intuitions and his patience to the task of producing rams and ewes such as the world had never seen. His system of "observation and experiment" was peculiarly his own; it is written down in no book, but stands recorded on barn-doors, on gate-posts, on hurdles, and on the walls of a wheeled box which was Snarley's main residence during the spring months of the year. It is a literature of notches and lines—cross, parallel, perpendicular, and horizontal—of which the chief merit in Snarley's eyes was that nobody could understand it save himself. But it was enough to give his faculties all the aid they required. By such simple means he succeeded long ago in laying the practical basis of a life's work, evolving a highly complicated system controlled by a single principle, and yet capable of manifold application. The Perryman flock, now famous among sheep-breeders all over the world, was the result.

Thirty years ago this flock was the admiration and the envy of the whole countryside. Young farmers with capital were confident that they were going to make money as soon as they began to breed from the Perryman strain. To have purchased a Perryman ram was to have invested your money in a gilt-edged, but rising, stock. The early "eighties" were times of severe depression in those parts; capital was scarce, farmers were discouraged, and the flocks deteriorated. At the present moment there is no more prosperous corner in agricultural England, and the basis of that prosperity is the life-work of Snarley Bob.

The fame of that work is now world-wide, though the author of it is unknown. The Perryman rams have been exported into almost every sheep-raising country on the globe. Hundreds of thousands of their descendants are now nibbling food, and converting it into fine mutton and long-stapled wool, in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Argentine. Only last summer I saw a large animal meditating procreation among the foot-hills of the Rockies, and was informed of the fabulous price of his purchase—fabulous but commercially sound, for the animal was a Perryman ram, and the owner was sublimely confident of being "up against a sure thing." Many fortunes have been made from that source; and there are perhaps millions of human beings now eating mutton or wearing cloth who, if they could trace the authorship of these good things, would stand up and bless the memory of Snarley Bob.

One day among the hills I met the old man in presence of his charge, like a general reviewing his troops. As the flock passed on before us the professional reticence of Snarley was broken, and he began to talk of the animals before him, pointing to this and to that. Little by little his remarks began to remind me of something I had read in a book. On returning home, I looked the matter up. The book was a treatise on Mendelism, and, as I read on, the link was strengthened. Meeting Snarley Bob a few days afterwards, I did my best to communicate what I had learnt about Mendelism. He listened with profound attention, though, as I thought, with a trace of annoyance. He made some deprecatory remarks, quite in character, about "learned chaps as goes 'umbuggin' about things they don't understand." But in the end he was forced to confess some interest in what he had heard. "Them fellers," he said, "is on the right road; but they don't know where they're goin', and they don't go far enough." "How much further ought they to go?" I asked. For answer Snarley pointed to rows of notches on a five-barred gate and said, "It's all there." Whether it is "all there" or not I cannot tell; for the secret of those notches was never revealed to me, and the brain which held it lies under eight feet of clay in Deadborough churchyard. Perhaps Snarley is now discussing the matter with "the tall Shepherd"[1] in some nook of Elysium where the winds are less keen than they used to be on Quarry Hill.

Had Snarley received a due share of the unearned increment which his own