They thought then that he was himself, and knew he was dying, but the next moment some words, evidently addressed to his child, showed them he was not in our world; and after that all the murmurs were about what had last taken up his mind—­the Bread of Heaven, the Fruit of Everlasting Life.

“To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Fruit of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”  That was what Mr. Yolland ventured now to say over him, and it woke the last respondent glance of his eyes.  He had tasted of that Feast of Life on the Sunday he was alone, and Ben Yolland would even then have given it to him, but before it could be arranged, he could no longer swallow, and the affection of the brain was fast blocking up the senses, so that blindness and deafness came on, and passed into that insensibility in which the last struggles of life are, as they tell us, rather agonising to the beholder than to the sufferer.  It was at sundown at last that the mightiest and gentlest spirit I ever knew was set free.

Those three durst not wait to mourn.  Their first duty was to hasten the burial, so as to prevent the spread of contagion, and they went at once their different ways to make the preparations.  No form of conventional respect could be used, but it was the three who so deeply loved him who laid him in the rough-made coffin, hastily put together the same evening, with the cross that had served him in his conflict on his breast, and three camellia buds from Viola’s tree.  Dermot had thought of her and ridden over to fetch them.  There had been no disfigurement.  If there had been he might have lived, but still it was a comfort to know that the dear face was last seen in more than its own calm majesty, as of one who lay asleep after a mighty conquest.  Over the coffin they placed the lion’s skin.  It had been left in the room during his illness, and must have been condemned, and it made his fit pall when they took it to be buried with him.  It was before daybreak that, with good old Richardson’s help, they carried him down to a large cart belonging to the potteries, drawn by the two big horses he used to pet, and driven by George Yolland himself.  They took him to our own family burial-place in Arghouse churchyard, where the grave had been dug at night.  They meant no one to be there, but behold! there was a multitude of heads gathered round, two or three hundred at least, and when the faithful four seemed to need aid in carrying that great weight the few steps from the gate, there was a rush forward, in spite of the peril, and disappointment when no help was accepted.

Ben Yolland read the service over the grave, and therewith there was the low voice of many, many weepers, as they closed it in, and left him there among his forefathers, under his lion’s skin; and even at that moment a great, golden, glorious sun broke out above the horizon, and bathed them all over with light, while going forth as a giant to run his course, conquering the night mists.