Griggs courier., 1895-09-20
THEMANF FROM CUMBRAE.
BY GRANT ALLEN.
[R THEoPoL1s

lis in hotel at Oban. Before we had
been talking ten minutes together he
observed to me, abruptly: "Of course
you come from North SOMERSET"
Now, fiatter myself l haven't
swered at once: well, am Cleve-
don man, if it comes to that, but how
on earth did you know it?"
''Oh, by the shape of your ears" he
land by the curve of your
eyebrows. Those eyebrows, l find. are
distinctive of North Somerset, east
ward of Bridgewater, but you've
Welsh blood as we'll; Glamorganshire,
I should fancy"
''This is wonderfulr' l exclaimed.
''My mother was a Swansea woman.
What made you guess that? What
Welsh trait do you detect in me?"
'Your lips and chin are South Wales"
Sir Theophilus replied, ''and the shape
of your skull shows Silurian affinities.
Your ancestors on that side, imagine,
must have come originally from the
Peninsula of Cover"
Well, this was a lucky guess, as it
happened, but I hardly thought it
more; so to test him asked: "What
do you make of my wife, then?"
He looked fxedly at her for mo-
ment. MRS. Wallis" he replied, lis a
little more difficult to place quite ac-
curately. She might be from Cumber-
land, but think it more probable that
she comes from Dumfrieshire.
"You are wizardv' my wife cried.
II was born in Dumfries, and my IA
ther belonged to the county by origin.
but my grandmother on my fathers
side came straight from Keswick."
After that everybody in the room
wanted Sir Theophilus to guess where
he or she came from. and he did it in
most cases with wonderful accuracy.
One old clergyman, he said. had an
Aberdeenshire head, and could get no
hat to fit him except in Aberdeen. And
this turned out to be SO, for it seems
some Aberdeenians have bigger skulls
than anyone else in Britain, and spe-
cial hats have to be made to fit them.
Another man he insta ntly detected as
q Gallowegiah and third as an East
Anglican. He was equally successful
with two young ladies from the Isle Of
Wight, though he failed over Devon
ian, and, not quite unjustifiably, took
an Orkney man for a Shetlander. It
appea rs there is some slight local diff
ference between these two types. for
the Orkney man is farmer who owns
q fishing boat. while the Shetlander is
q fisherman who owns a farm.
For the next week, as chance would
have it, we saw much of Sir Theophilus.
He went with us round Loeb Lomond
and stopped three nights at the same
hotel in Glasgow. So we got quite
friendly, and at the end of that time
we decided to go up to London to-
Rether.
When we stepped into our carriage
at st. Enoch Station we saw tall and
morose-looking man very comfortably
seated in the corner opposite us. He
was apparently absorbed in his local
paper, which he held before his face
somewhat obtrusively, as if he desired
to escape observation. But Sir The
ophilus, who has perfect mania for
observing faces and heads, determined
to get good look at him, and could
see him staring hard with all his eyes
at our neighbor whenever he moved
the paper on one side. This evidently
annoyed the stranger, but Sir
Theophilus was not to be balked.
After two or three good long stares he
turned round to me and murmured,
enigmatically: "Hexagonal!" Then I
knew that he was referring to the
shape of our neighbor's skull, for 1t
was word had heard him apply
more than once before to heads we
had met in the hotels or elsewhere.
At last Sir Theophilus could stand it
no longer. I could see he was positive
1y itching with desire to identify our
vis-a-vis from racial standpoint. He
leaned over towards him blandly and
observed, with his most engaging
smile-he is a polite old gentleman
Excuse me, but I think you come
from the Island of Cumbrae."
A most singular expression broke
suddenly over the strangers face. He
knitted his brows and looked extreme
1y angry. 1t seemed to me, too, that
he was alarmed or frightened 'You
are mistaken" he said, curtly, raising
the paper once more SO as to screen his
features. Il come from Stirling"
Sir Theophilus glanced at me, pursed
his lips and shook his head. The stran-
ger, behind his newspaper, could not
see this little pantomime. won't do,
the man of science murmured gently
in my ear. TRY again; must fathom
it. Excuse me once more. You may
come from Stirling, but your father
and mother must surely have been
Cumbrae people"
The man opposite replied, withoas
looking up from his paper: my moth
er and father were both Of them from
Perthshire. never in my life was
nearer Cumbrae than Glasgow"
Sir Theophilus was not to he beaten.
"sI should have thought myself" he
said, beaming through his spectacles,
".you csme from Great Cumbrae or
Little Cumbrae, and not, as the
saying goes, from the adjacent
islands Of Great Britain and Ire
land. But, of course, you know best,
though must say"-he spoke most de-
liberately-'you have all the marks OF
the Cumbrae physiognomy. The shape
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