H.E. Bates Companion

With a title matching an earlier piece in the same journal ("A Kentish Portrait"), this memoir has some of the style of an Uncle Silas tale (published in journals beginning in 1933). Bates describes a neighbor, Quintus, who is obsessed with a sow belonging to Bates's grandfather (George William Lucas ) and takes summer evening walks with his hens. Reprinted in slightly altered form in the chapter "The First River" in Down the River. In the New Statesman and Nation (July 7, 1934, viii, 176, New Series, 12-13).