His work is o'er, his toil is done,
And therefore at the set of sun,
To wait the wages of the dead,
We lay our hireling in his bed."
Those lines were written for the tillers of the earth; but George Carew's thoughts of himself were as humble as if he had been the lowest of day labourers. Indeed, in those closing hours of life, when the record of a man's existence is suddenly spread out before him like the scroll which the prophet laid before the king, there is much in that comprehensive survey to humiliate the proudest of God's servants, much which makes him who has laboured strenuously despair at the insufficiency of the result, the unprofitableness of his labour. How, then, could such a man as George Carew fail to perceive his unworthiness?—a man who had let life go by him, who had done nothing, save by a careless automatic beneficence, to help or better his fellow-men, to whom duty had been an empty word, and the Christian religion a lifeless formula.
The Squire of Fendyke was laid to rest in the pale twilight of early March, the winter birds sounding their melancholy evensong as the coffin was lowered into the grave. The widow and her son stood side by side, with those humbler neighbours and dependents clustering round them. No one had been bidden to the funeral, no hour had been named, and the gentry of the district, whose houses lay somewhat wide apart, knew nothing of the arrangements till afterwards. There were no empty carriages to testify to the decent grief which stays at home, while liveried servants offer the tribute of solemn faces and black gloves. Side by side, Lady Emily and her son walked through the grounds of Fendyke to the churchyard adjoining. The wintry darkness had fallen gently on those humble graves when the last "Amen" had been spoken, and mother and son turned slowly and sadly towards the desolate home.
Allan stayed in his mother's sitting-room till after midnight, talking of their dead. Lady Emily found a sad pleasure in talking of the husband she had lost, in dwelling fondly upon his virtues, his calm and studious life, his non-interference with her household arrangements, his perfect contentment with the things that satisfied her.
"There never was a better husband, Allan," she said, with a tearful sigh, "and yet I know I was not his first love."