He expressed a wish
that Lockhart, his son-in-law, should read to him, and when asked from
what book, he answered, "Need you ask? There is but one." He chose the
fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, and when it was ended, he said,
"Well, this is a great comfort: I have followed you distinctly, and I
feel as if I were yet to be myself again." In an interval of
consciousness he said, "Lockhart! 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."
A friend who was present at the death of Sir Walter wrote: "It was a
beautiful day--so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly
still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle
ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible--as we
kneeled around his bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes."
We could imagine the wish that would echo in more than one mind as Sir
Walter's soul departed, perhaps through one of the open windows, "Let me
die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there;
It is the loneliness in death
That parts not quite with parting breath,
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
The hue which haunts it to the tomb,
Expression's last receding ray;
A gilded halo hov'ring round decay.
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