CLOSING TEARS. 439 



On Friday, he is to be interred in the adjacent cemetery. His 

 wife had come from Bowness. 



" I think of going to Billholm on Saturday for ten days. Per- 

 haps you will write to me there on getting this, and tell me how 

 you are going on. Your letter to Jane was most acceptable to all 

 of us. 



" I will write to you from Billholm on receiving a letter from 

 you. All well. Jane Aytoun and GoUy left for Billholm yesterday. 

 Kind regards to all friends at Kirkebost, and believe me ever, your 

 most affectionate father, J. AY." 



Of Billy a few more words may be said. The last time my fa- 

 ther visited Westmoreland was in the year 1848. Whether his old 

 boatman fancied, from being no longer young, that he would soon 

 be separated from his master forever I cannot say, but soon after 

 he took a lonoino; to visit Scotland. The railwav from Kendal to 

 Edinburgh had been open some short time, but Billy was a stern 

 Conservative, and could not suffer the idea of modern reform in any 

 shape ; he considered railways generally not only destructive to the 

 country at large, but to individual life in particular — a species of 

 infernal machine for the purpose of promoting sudden death.* 

 With these feelings, perfectly orthodox in the breast of such a 

 primitive son of creation, it is natural to suppose that he would 

 shun the locomotive. So one fine day he bade farewell to " pretty 

 Bowness," and trudged manfully on foot all the way into Eskdale 

 Muir, arriving, weary and worn out, after a couple of days' walk- 

 ing, at the hospitable door of Billholm. There he was received, 

 and he tarried for some months ; but kind though the young master 

 was, he longed for the old. After a time he left the " house that 

 shines well where it stands," and made his way to Edinburgh. 

 True devotion like that met with the reward due to it, and Billy 

 was re-established in his master's service, dressed after the fashion 

 of his early days, in sailor guise, with pleasant work to do, and a 

 glass of ale daily to cheer his old soul. 



I never knew of any love to mortal so true as that of Billy for 

 my father. It was like that of David for Jonathan, " passing the 



* Billy's horror at railways appears to have been shared by others who ought to have known 

 better. Witness Wordsworth's lines on the projected Kendal and Windermere Railway, com- 

 mencing — 



" Is there no nook of English ground secure from rash assault?" 



