One day among the hills I met the old man in presence of his charge, like a general reviewing his troops. As the flock passed on before us the professional reticence of Snarley was broken, and he began to talk of the animals before him, pointing to this and to that. Little by little his remarks began to remind me of something I had read in a book. On returning home, I looked the matter up. The book was a treatise on Mendelism, and, as I read on, the link was strengthened. Meeting Snarley Bob a few days afterwards, I did my best to communicate what I had learnt about Mendelism. He listened with profound attention, though, as I thought, with a trace of annoyance. He made some deprecatory remarks, quite in character, about "learned chaps as goes 'umbuggin' about things they don't understand." But in the end he was forced to confess some interest in what he had heard. "Them fellers," he said, "is on the right road; but they don't know where they're goin', and they don't go far enough." "How much further ought they to go?" I asked. For answer Snarley pointed to rows of notches on a five-barred gate and said, "It's all there." Whether it is "all there" or not I cannot tell; for the secret of those notches was never revealed to me, and the brain which held it lies under eight feet of clay in Deadborough churchyard. Perhaps Snarley is now discussing the matter with "the tall Shepherd"[1] in some nook of Elysium where the winds are less keen than they used to be on Quarry Hill. [Footnote 1: See _post_, "The Death of Snarley Bob."]