HIS DEATH 25 



lines must have been present in his mind " Better to 

 break by the running stream than to lie on the dusty 

 shelf." And so the end met him ; the restless eager 

 spirit impelled his frame to the last, and one November 

 day he came home to die. A brief interval of acute 

 inflammation of the lungs, and then on the 23rd the 

 bright, enthusiastic nature passed away. How happy 

 for him that the wife he loved so tenderly should have 

 been there to hold his hand to the last. 



His death evoked the deepest regret and sympathy 

 at Pau ; no foreign resident had made it so completely 

 his home, or done so much for the attractions of the 

 place. At the Memorial Service held before the 

 removal of his remains to Ireland, the church was filled 

 with those who had known him, and the municipality 

 of the town was largely represented. All that was 

 beautiful in that country of flowers was laid in tender 

 recollection upon his coffin, and amid the mass of 

 sombre surroundings the scarlet of the officials of the 

 Pau hunt stood out in marked distinctness, meet and 

 appropriate representatives of all the gallant sports he 

 loved so well. 



The funeral took place at Colebrooke, and over two 

 thousand people attended it. None of the bitter feelings 

 of the land question had ever touched his property, and 

 though his tenantry had largely passed from under his 

 sway and become masters of their holdings, yet the 

 old affection for their landlord survived. From the 

 thickly-populated lowlands to the far-off grouse moun- 

 tains, they came with one accord to do him reverence. 

 Large numbers were there, too, who had no connection 

 with the property, including a prominent land league 

 Member of Parliament. Some years before Victor 

 Brooke had made a new family burying-place adjoining 

 the churchyard ; his brother Basil, who had carried out 



