A Farmer’s Life 
had been once the mainstay of his family. 
Earlier in the day (they told me) he had called 
to his other dead sister, Ann; and once he had 
cried ‘‘ Father.” No doubt his dying memory 
had worked back to his childhood at Farn- 
borough. . 
Afterwards, along the road and between the 
fields where I had known him strong and able 
of course it seemed a loss that I should never 
again have that joy, and that the country of which 
he had seemed so integral a part should see him 
no more. Yet it was strongly borne in on me 
that death—his coming death—was not to be 
deplored, because it was in the natural sequence 
of good life. In my uncle’s case the other stages 
had been good—the childhood and growing-up, 
the mature efficiency, the peaceful pe y 
now the end was quite in the appointed order. . 
This sort of thought, most soothing, accom- 
panied me along the towing-path of the canal 
through the summer evening; and the summer 
sights, so tranquil too, admitted my view of 
death into their company not at all as if death 
were opposed to them, but as if it were a com- 
pletion of them. I have rarely seen so har- 
monious an evening. Sunny, warm, clear it was. 
High-coloured thundery clouds across the even- 
ing blue were reflected in the canal amidst the 
vivid green of the rushes. From the banks, 
164 
