TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

and his lone of voice have something in common with
the sheep \vh< > lift their mild munching faces to regard
him while he plays an approach shot in his cautious,
angular, and automatic style. He is one of those
shrewdly timorous men who are usually made a butt
of by their more confident associates. Falstaff would
have borrowed fifty pounds off him, though he has the
reputation of being close with his money. His
vocabulary is as limited as his habit of mind, and he
speaks with an old-fashioned word-clipping concise-
ness. Ills lips air pursed up as if in a perpetual
whistle. The links ~<m which he knows every tussock
and molehill intimately—are always "in awful good
condition'"; and "That's a hot Jun!" he exclaims
when 1 make a long drive, or "That's for Sussex!"
(a reference to the remote possibility that my ball may
have gone, over the river). But the best instance I can
give of his characteristic mode of expressing himself
is one which occurred when I once questioned him
about a group oflittle grey stones among the laurel
bushes outside his stable-yard. After whistling to his
retriever- he replied, "House-dog's bury in the
shrubbery: shooting-dogs bury in the park". . . .

Aunt Evelyn always enjoyed a game of croquet
with him at a garden party*

But in my spontaneous memories of Amblchurst I
am always playing by myself. The sun is in my eyes
as I drive oil* at the "long hole'9 down to the river,
and I usually slice my ball into a clump of may trees.
I am "trying to do a good score"—a purpose which
seldom survives the first nine holes-—but only half my
attention is concentrated on the game. 1 am wonder-
ing, perhaps, whether that parcel from the second-
hand bookshop at Reading will have arrived by the
afternoon post; or I am vaguely musing about my