questions, which was not often, he spoke confidently of a
future existence. Of Christianity he said, "it is rugging
at my heart1Dr Ker, MS Notes.."

My father would say: "The first time I met
Robertson I felt that he expected something notable
from me because I knew that he admired my poems,
that he wished to pluck the heart from my mystery; so
for the life of me from pure nervousness I could talk of
nothing but beer."

Dr Ker says:

Sydney Dobell did not see much of your father in Chel-
tenham; but in Malvern, some years after your family left
this place, Dobell, as he afterwards told me, saw a good deal of
him. Dobell, as you know, was not a popular poet, and the
number of his readers does not increase as the years go on, but
that he was no commonplace poet your father heartily allowed.
Frederick Foxton could only be brought to speak on one subject,
Carlyle, whose companion and caretaker he had been during a
journey on the Continent. Rashdall and Dr Acworth were men
of cultivation and high social qualities whom your father met
occasionally and much liked.

One acquaintance would keep on assuring my father
that it was the greatest honour of his life to have met
him. My father's answer to such praise was, "Don't
talk d--d nonsense."

His chief companion, when in Cheltenham, for the
best part of two years, was Dr Ker's brother Alan.
Both were great walkers, and few near or distant places
in this beautiful neighbourhood were left unvisited by
them.

A year or two before, my father had lived some weeks
in a Hydropathic Establishment at the very primitive
village of Prestbury, and the village boys were in the
habit of following him and the other inmates whenever
they showed themselves on the roads and shouting,

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