"My Poacher."

A testament to Buck, a recently deceased shoemaker/poacher known to Bates as a child. Buck exemplified the traits captured in Bates's novel The Poacher and mentioned as well in the autobiographical Vanished World: remarkable athletic abilities, a rich and spontaneous humor, and a tenderness with children. In The Countryman (London, April 1935, xi, 1, pp. 122-123).