And what of that?
It is our common lot.
But when he goes the country side will lose a man of whom they will
not see the like again, for the breed is dead or dying; a man whose
very prejudices, inconsistencies, and occasional wrong-headed violence
will be held, when he is no longer here, to have been endearing
qualities. And for manliness, for downright English God-fearing
virtues, for love of Queen, country, family and home, they may search
in vain to find his equal among the cosmopolitan Englishmen of the
dawning twentieth century. His faults were many, and at one time he
went near to sacrificing his daughter to save his house, but he would
not have been the man he was without them.
And so to him, too, farewell. Perchance he will find himself better
placed in the Valhalla of his forefathers, surrounded by those stout
old de la Molles whose memory he regarded with so much affection, than
here in this thin-blooded Victorian era. For as has been said
elsewhere the old Squire would undoubtedly have looked better in a
chain shirt and bearing a battle axe than ever he did in a frock coat,
especially with his retainer George armed to the teeth behind him.
* * * * *
They kissed, and it was done.
Out from the church tower in the meadows broke with clash and clangour
a glad sound of Christmas bells.
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