ithin a day or two he fancied
that he could write again, but on taking the pen into his hand, his
fingers could not clasp it, and he sank back with tears rolling down his
cheek. Later, when Laidlaw said in his hearing that Sir Walter had had a
little repose, he replied, "No, Willie; no repose for Sir Walter but in
the grave." As the tears rushed from his eyes, his old pride revived.
"Friends," he said, "don't let me expose myself--get me to bed,--that is
the only place."

After this Sir Walter never left his room. Occasionally he dropped off
into delirium, and the old painful memory,--that cry of "Burk Sir
Walter,"--might be again heard on his lips. He lingered, however, till
the 21st September,--more than two months from the day of his reaching
home, and a year from the day of Wordsworth's arrival at Abbotsford
before his departure for the Mediterranean, with only one clear
interval of consciousness, on Monday, the 17th September. On that day
Mr. Lockhart was called to Sir Walter's bedside with the news that he
had awakened in a state of composure and consciousness, and wished to
see him. "'Lockhart,' he said, 'I may have but a minute to speak to
you. My dear, be a good man,--be virtuous,--be religious,--be a good
man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie
here.' He paused, and I said, 'Shall I send for Sophia and Anne?'
'No,' said he, 'don't disturb them. Poor souls! I know they were up
all night. God bless you all!'" With this he sank into a very tranquil
sleep, and, indeed, he scarcely afterwards gave any sign of
consciousness except for an instant on the arrival of his sons. And so
four days afterwards, on the day of the autumnal equinox in 1832, at
half-past one in the afternoon, on a glorious autumn day, with every
window wide open, and the ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles
distinctly audible in his room, he passed away, and "his eldest son
kissed and closed his eyes." He died a month after completing his
sixty-first year. Nearly seven years earlier, on the 7th December,
1825, he had in his diary taken a survey of his own health in relation
to the age reached by his father and other members of his family, and
had stated as the result of his considerations, "Square the odds and
good night, Sir Walter, about sixty. I care not if I leave my name
unstained and my family property settled. _Sat est vixisse._" Thus he
lived just a year--but a year of gradual death--beyond his own
calculation.