MY OLD VILLAGE. 
‘JOHN BROWN is dead,’ said an aged friend and visitor 
in answer to my inquiry for the strong labourer. 
‘Is he really dead?’ I asked, for it seemed im- 
possible. 
‘He is. He came home from his work in the 
evening as usual, and seemed to catch his foot in the 
threshold and fell forward on the floor, When they 
picked him up he was dead.’ 
Iremember the doorway; a raised piece of wood 
ran across it, as is commonly the case in country 
cottages, such as one might easily catch one’s foot 
against if one did not notice it; but he knew that bit 
of wood well. The floor was of brick, hard to fall on 
and die. He must have come down over the crown of 
the hill, with his long slouching stride, as if his legs had 
been half pulled away from his body by his heavy boots 
in the furrows when a ploughboy. He must have 
turned up the steps in the bank to his cottage, and so, 
touching the threshold, ended. He is gone through the 
great doorway, and one pencil-mark is rubbed out, 
- There used to be a large hearth in that room, a larger 
room than in most cottages ; and when the fire was lit. 
and the light shone on the yellowish red brick beneath 
and the large rafters overhead, it was homely and 
pleasant. In summer the door was always wide open. 
a _ Close by on the high bank there was a spot where the 
