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My interest was less with these sports than with the real business of the meet. Every ten minutes or so a shepherd would start off for his distant home with a few sheep, and I watched each out of sight. I engaged a few men in talk about their calling, but their words were not fluent, and little information could I glean. Then mine host, in a moment of slack business, presented me to a very old man, who, he averred, knew all there was to be known by humans of life on the fells. To this commendation the whole company assented. ‘Old Jimmy knows everything about t’ old times,’ they said.

After a few preliminary questions we got far into the past, and I was surprised to find the old gentleman, at the age of ninety-one, able to give lucid expression to memories of his very young days. He had known Wordsworth, and Professor Wilson of Elleray, and a score more of the great inhabitants of Lakeland. Mr. Ruskin (who at the time was still alive) had on two occasions stayed the night at his house, but of that noble character the old man understood but little.