14 IDLEHURST : 



seems to impress on the mind as no other experience 

 can. Old Backshell departs, clear-minded almost to 

 the last, neither glad nor sorry, to all appearance 

 fearless even, unconcerned for the Beyond ; no pro- 

 testations of salvation, no solicitude for those he 

 leaves ; merely the quiet acceptance of a common 

 fact, a homely, even grotesque understanding of the 

 matter, which shuts out any touch of awe. The 

 Rector leaves the fruit-wall, and we saunter towards 

 the wicket into the churchyard. As a young man, 

 he tells me, he held theories that no one had a right 

 to come to threescore and ten : that any one who had 

 worked his utmost and suffered his possible would 

 earn his discharge effectually before then. " I ex- 

 cluded politicians," he says, " and ecclesiastical 

 persons, of course, and so on. But these old people 

 Backshell, and Tomsett, and Widow Roser have 

 upset the theory for me. Perhaps really honest head- 

 work might act as I fancied, with Tomsett's hours 

 and meals. Nothing to prevent you and me from 

 reaching a hundred, at any rate ! " 



As I mount the hill on my way home, the hard 

 way of my neighbours, in life and death, tugs at me 

 more than the gradient ; and not till I reach the 

 turning into my domain by the tall firs on the crest 

 of the ridge, does the mind sink back into the lower 



