ected simple savoury recipes for household use. He was by far the
quickest eater I have ever seen. He was a great smoker of cheap
cigarettes. They were a natural sedative for his highly strung
temperament. I do not, think he realised how much he smoked, and he
undoubtedly smoked too much for several years.

He was always quick, prompt, and decisive. He had an extraordinary
presence of mind in the face of danger. My sister remembers how he was
once strolling with her, in his cassock, in a lane near Tremans, when a
motor came down the road at a great pace, and Roddy, the collie, trotted
out in front of it, with his back turned to the car, unconscious of
danger. Hugh took a leap, ran up hill, snatched Roddy up just in front
of the wheels, and fell with him against the hedge on the opposite side
of the road.

He liked a degree of comfort, and took great pleasure in having
beautiful things about him. "I do not believe that lovely things should
be stamped upon," he once wrote to a friend who was urging the dangers
of a strong sense of beauty; adding, "should they not rather be led in
chains?" Yet his taste was not at all severe, and he valued things for
their associations and interest as much as he did for their beauty. He
had a great accumulation of curious, pretty, and interesting things at
Hare Street, and took a real pleasure in possession. At the same time he
was not in the least dependent on such things, and could be perfectly
happy in bare and ugly rooms. There was no touch of luxuriousness about
him, and the adornment of his house was one of the games that he played.
One of his latest amusements was to equip and catalogue his library. He
was never very much of a reader, except for a specific purpose. He read
the books that came in his way, but he had no technical knowledge of
English literature. There were many English classics which he never
looked into, and he made no attempt to follow modern developments. But
he read books so quickly that he was acquainted more or less with a wide
range of authors. At the same time he never wasted any time in reading
books which did not interest him, and he knew by a sort of intuition the
kind of books he cared about.

He was of late years one of the liveliest and most refreshing of
talkers. As a boy and a young man he was rather silent than otherwise in
the family circle, but latterly it was just the opposite. He talked
about anything that was in his mind, but at the same time h