An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 79 method of disengaging himself from the fierce grip of a wild cat by inserting its tail in the hinged side of a door and then shutting it struck me as a very fine example of presence of mind. No cat could stand two feet of simul– taneous pressure, it was like the idea of a camelopard with many feet of sore throat. On the 25th of February I saw Micky Slater for the last time at Roehampton. This year I saw a good deal of Dr. Furnivall who was working at Chaucer and was greatly interested in my researches about him. He was extremely popular with my wife and children ; for he was one of the heartiest and friendly men I ever knew, and a perfect demon for work. Any information you wanted from him invariably came back by return post. He was a life long teetotaller, but by the irony of fate had a very red nose, and I remember hearing an irreverent rough on the towpath at Putney referring to him in his sculling boat as that old man working off his Saturday's booze(!). I don't know any man whose loss I felt more when he died. In the Easter of this year I first saw Selborne (Gilbert White's Selborne), where my doctor (Grun) had moved when he left Putney. I was so very much struck with the beauty of the place and especially of a stone cottage called "Dortons," in the Lower Lyth, that I did not rest till I bought the cottage and have since used it as a week end cottage. See plate opposite. In April I had a bad attack of influenza which kept me at home for some time, and in May took to riding the new safety bicycle, but I never took kindly to it after the high bike and the tricycle, to which latter I eventually reverted. I had another journey to Ord and Berwick-on-Tweed on 1st July, r893, where I shot rabbits fairly, but was troubled with g'out this month. Business took me to Exeter later in the same month and then on to Tavistock, where I remember the "Bedford" as a very good and comfortable inn. August this year was intensely hot and on the 18th, when I came down to Norwich by the 5 p.m., there were quite 20 people at Ipswich in their shirt sleeves on the platform.