He closed his eyes, and his face grew so still that, notwithstanding the labour of his breathing, he would have seemed asleep, but that his lips moved a little now and then, giving a flutter of shape to the eternal prayer within him.

Again he opened his eyes, and saw sir Toby, who had re-entered silent as a ghost, and said, feebly holding out his hand, ’I am dying, sir Toby:  where will this swollen hulk of mine be hid?’

‘That, my lord,’ returned sir Toby, ’hath been already spoken of in parliament, and it hath been wrung from them, heretics and fanatics as they are, that your lordship’s mortal remains shall lie in Windsor castle, by the side of earl William, the first of the earls of Worcester.’

‘God bless us all!’ cried the marquis, almost merrily, for he was pleased, and with the pleasure the old humour came back for a moment:  ’they will give me a better castle when I am dead than they took from me when I was alive!’

’Yet is it a small matter to him who inherits such a house as awaiteth my lord—­domum non manufactam, in caelis aeternam,’ said sir Toby.

’I thank thee, sir Toby, for recalling me.  Truly for a moment I was uplifted somewhat.  That I should still play the fool, and the old fool, in the very face of Death!  But, thank God, at thy word the world hath again dwindled, and my heavenly house drawn the nearer.  Domine, nunc dimittis.  Let me, so soon as you judge fit, sir Toby, have the consolations of the dying.’

When the last rites, wherein the church yields all hold save that of prayer, had been administered, and his daughters with Dorothy and lord Charles stood around his bed,

‘Now have I taken my staff to be gone,’ he said cheerfully, ’like a peasant who hath visited his friends, and will now return, and they will see him as far upon the road as they may.  I tremble a little, but I bethink me of him that made me and died for me, and now calleth me, and my heart revives within me.’

Then he seemed to fall half asleep, and his soul went wandering in dreams that were not all of sleep—­just as it had been with little Molly when her end drew near.

’How sweet is the grass for me to lie in, and for thee to eat!  Eat, eat, old Ploughman.’

It was a favourite horse of which he dreamed—­one which in old days he had named after Piers Ploughman, the Vision concerning whom, notwithstanding its severity on catholic abuses, he had at one time read much.

After a pause he went on—­

’Alack, they have shot off his head!  What shall I do without my Ploughman—­my body groweth so large and heavy!—­Hark, I hear Molly!  “Spout, horse,” she crieth.  See, it is his life-blood he spouteth!  O Lord, what shall I do, for I am heavy, and my body keepeth down my soul.  Hark!  Who calleth me?  It is Molly!  No, no! it is the Master.  Lord, I cannot rise and come to thee.  Here have I lain for ages, and my spirit groaneth.  Reach forth thy hand, Lord, and raise me.  Thanks, Lord, thanks!’