o not suppose there was such another going
on in England at the same time." After breakfast we went with a
carpenter to finish some bridges at the far end of the park. The work
was completed, and we were proceeding homewards when, in crossing a small
bridge, a bramble caught the Squire's foot, and he fell heavily upon a
log. He was greatly shaken, and said he thought he was dying. He
walked, notwithstanding, a little way, and was then compelled to lie
down. He would not permit his sufferings to distract his mind, and he
pointed out to the carpenter some trees which were to be felled. He
presently continued his route, and managed to reach the spot where the
boat was moored. Hitherto he had refused all assistance, but he could
not step from the bank into the boat, and he said, "I am afraid I must
ask you to help me in." He walked from the landing-place into the house,
changed his clothes, and came and sat in the large room below. The pain
increasing, he rose from his seat after he had seen his doctor, and
though he had been bent double with anguish, he persisted in walking
up-stairs without help, and would have gone to his own room in the top
storey, if, for the sake of saving trouble to others, he had not been
induced to stop half-way in Miss Edmonstone's sitting-room. Here he lay
down upon the sofa, and was attended by his sisters-in-law. The pain
abated, and the next day he seemed better. In the afternoon he talked to
me a good deal, chiefly about natural history. But he was well aware of
his perilous condition, for he remarked to me, "This is a bad business,"
and later on he felt his pulse often, and said, "It is a bad case." He
was more than self-possessed. A benignant cheerfulness beamed from his
mind, and in the fits of pain he frequently looked up with a gentle
smile, and made some little joke. Towards midnight he grew worse. The
priest, the Reverend R. Browne, was summoned, and Waterton got ready to
die. He pulled himself upright without help, sat in the middle of the
sofa, and gave his blessing in turn to his grandson, Charlie, to his
granddaughter, Mary, to each of his sisters-in-law, to his niece, and to
myself, and left a message for his son, who was hastening back from Rome.
He then received the last sacraments, repeated all the responses, Saint
Bernard's hymn in English, and the first two verses of the _Dies Irae_.
The end was now at hand, and he died at twenty-seven minutes past two in
the