his absence, poor fellow—­poor, poor fellow!—­Lassie came home, with my handkerchief tied round her neck.  They knew and understood, and the whole strength of the farm was turned out to follow her, with wraps, and blankets, and brandy, and every thing that could be thought of.  I lay in chilly sleep, but still alive, beneath the rock that Lassie guided them to.  I was covered over with my brother’s plaid, and his thick shepherd’s coat was carefully wrapped round my feet.  He was in his shirt-sleeves—­his arm thrown over me—­a quiet smile (he had hardly ever smiled in life) upon his still, cold face.

My father’s last words were, “God forgive me my hardness of heart towards the fatherless child!”

And what marked the depth of his feeling of repentance, perhaps more than all, considering the passionate love he bore my mother, was this:  we found a paper of directions after his death, in which he desired that he might lie at the foot of the grave, in which, by his desire, poor Gregory had been laid with our mother.

***End of the project gutenberg EBOOK the half-brothers***

******* This file should be named 2532.txt or 2532.zip *******

This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:  http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/3/2532

Updated editions will replace the previous one—­the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the project gutenberg-tm concept and trademark.  Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research.  They may be modified and printed and given away—­you may do practically anything with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

*** Start:  Full license ***

The full project gutenberg license
please read this before you distribute or use this work

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at http://gutenberg.net/license).