I remember showing this jokingly to my son, and his characteristic comment was, “That’s jolly good; but I say, dad, is it playing the game?”
Old Horse Amulets. Group 2.
Plate XLIV.
Sheffield Plate and Old Silver.
Plate XLV.
In the spring of 1914 my son took me in his side-car for a tour which lasted one happy week, one day of which now comes forcibly to my mind. That we started back from Henley-on-Thames in pouring rain made no difference to his equable temper, and before we reached Oxford the sun was as bright as his disposition. When we turned at Whitney and passed over the Cotswolds en route for the Wye Valley, we came across the scenery in which he revelled, and here he and I found a few old amulets in a saddler’s shop while waiting for the wayside lunch. In peace and quietness his true bent lay, and only his regard for duty impelled him to join the Army when volunteers were appealed for. His commission was dated on his twenty-first birthday, and it was the irony of fate that the last two years of his clean life should have been spent in the grime and stress and turmoil of war. Thus I lost my lovable companion, who for nearly ten years had played such a charming part in assisting to make my collecting a pastime.