those country musters where his knowledge and good nature had the full wide scope which they at once merited and deserved. In person he was thin and spare, presenting a great contrast to the tall and patriarchal figure of Crozier, partaking, however, so far as we had opportunities of judging, of all his amiable, unsophisticated qualities. [Illustration] Footnotes [21: While such is the original and proper sense of the word, the application, as in the case of Wessenden Clough (p. 150), naturally passed on to similar defiles destitute of trees. Not fewer probably than a third of the cloughs mentioned in the present volume are of the latter character.] [22: Mrs. Taylor, we are very sorry to say, died, though apparently of supreme vigour, in the spring of 1877, and the cottage is now occupied by a totally different family. Mere Clough, too, is not what it was. Though spared the desecrations of Boggart-hole, the grove of fine trees that once filled the bottom has disappeared. The best of the wild-flowers have also disappeared, or nearly so; and the brook is less often limpid than impure. Similar changes have overtaken everything public in the neighbourhood.] [23: On account of their correspondence with others, geologically the same, very extensively present in the portion of Central and Eastern Russia called Perm.] [Illustration] CHAPTER XV. HORSEFIELD'S PREDECESSORS AND COMPANIONS.[24] Though I be hoar, I fare as doth a tree That blosmeth ere the fruit y-woxen be; The blosmy tree is neither drie ne ded; I feel me nowhere hoar but on my hed; Mine harte and all my limmès ben as green As laurel through the year is for to seen. CHAUCER.