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Extending jQuery Keith Wood Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Keith Wood
ISBN(s): 9781617291036, 161729103X
Edition: Pap/Psc
File Details: PDF, 16.71 MB
Year: 2013
Language: english
Keith Wood
FOREWORD BY Dave Methvin

MANNING
Extending jQuery
ii
Extending jQuery
KEITH WOOD

MANNING
SHELTER ISLAND
For online information and ordering of this and other Manning books, please visit
www.manning.com. The publisher offers discounts on this book when ordered in quantity.
For more information, please contact
Special Sales Department
Manning Publications Co.
20 Baldwin Road
PO Box 261
Shelter Island, NY 11964
Email: orders@manning.com

©2013 by Manning Publications Co. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in

any form or by means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior written
permission of the publisher.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are
claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in the book, and Manning
Publications was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial caps
or all caps.

Recognizing the importance of preserving what has been written, it is Manning’s policy to have
the books we publish printed on acid-free paper, and we exert our best efforts to that end.
Recognizing also our responsibility to conserve the resources of our planet, Manning books are
printed on paper that is at least 15 percent recycled and processed without elemental chlorine.

Manning Publications Co. Development editor: Cynthia Kane

20 Baldwin Road Copyeditor: Benjamin Berg
PO Box 261 Technical proofreaders: Renso Hollhumer, Michiel Trimpe
Shelter Island, NY 11964 Proofreader: Andy Carroll
Typesetter: Marija Tudor
Cover designer: Marija Tudor

ISBN: 9781617291036
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 – MAL – 18 17 16 15 14 13
 brief contents
PART 1 SIMPLE EXTENSIONS .................................................... 1
1 ■
jQuery extensions 3
2 ■
A first plugin 17
3 ■ Selectors and filters 30

PART 2 PLUGINS AND FUNCTIONS .......................................... 51

4 ■ Plugin principles 53
5 ■
Collection plugins 70
6 ■
Function plugins 97
7 ■ Test, package, and document your plugin 107

PART 3 EXTENDING JQUERY UI . .......................................... 129

8 ■
jQuery UI widgets 131
9 ■
jQuery UI mouse interactions 159
10 ■ jQuery UI effects 182

v
vi BRIEF CONTENTS

PART 4 OTHER EXTENSIONS ................................................ 201

11 ■
Animating properties 203
12 ■ Extending Ajax 216
13 ■
Extending events 233
14 ■
Creating validation rules 250
 contents
foreword xiv
preface xvi
acknowledgments xviii
about this book xix
about the cover illustration xxiii

PART 1 SIMPLE EXTENSIONS . ....................................... 1

1 jQuery extensions 3
1.1 jQuery background 4
Origins 4 ■
Growth 5 ■
Today 7
1.2 Extending jQuery 8
What can you extend? 8
1.3 Extension examples 11
jQuery UI 11 Validation
■
12 Graphical slider 13
■

Google Maps integration 14 ■

Cookies 14 Color animation 15
■

1.4 Summary 15

vii
viii CONTENTS

2 A first plugin 17
2.1 jQuery architecture 18
jQuery extension points 19 Selectors 20 Collection
■ ■

plugins 21 Utility functions 21 jQuery UI widgets 21

■ ■

jQuery UI effects 22 Animating properties 22 Ajax

■ ■

processing 22 Events handling 23 Validation rules 24

■ ■

2.2 A simple plugin 24

Placeholder text 24 ■ Watermark plugin code 25 Clearing ■

the watermarks 26 ■ Using the Watermark plugin 27

2.3 Summary 29

3 Selectors and filters 30

3.1 What are selectors and filters?
Why add new selectors? 31 ■
31
Basic selectors 32
Pseudo-class selectors 33
3.2 Adding a pseudo-class selector 37
The structure of a pseudo-class selector 37 Adding an exact ■

content selector 39 Adding a pattern matching content

■

selector 41 Adding element type selectors 43 Adding a

■ ■

foreign language selector 43 Selectors from the Validation

■

plugin 45
3.3 Adding a set filter 45
The structure of a set selector 46 Adding a middle elements set
■

selector 47 Enhancing the equals selector 48

■

3.4 Summary 50

PART 2 PLUGINS AND FUNCTIONS .............................. 51

4 Plugin principles 53
4.1 Plugin design 54
Plugin benefits 54 Planning the design
■
54
Modularize the plugin 56
4.2 Guiding principles 56
Provide progressive enhancements 56 Only claim a single ■

name and use that for everything 57 Place everything under ■

the jQuery object 57 Don’t rely on $ being the same as

■

jQuery 58 Hide the implementation details by using

■

scope 58 Invoke methods for additional functionality 59

■

Return the jQuery object for chaining whenever possible 60

 CONTENTS ix

Use the data function to store instance details 60

Anticipate customizations 61 Use sensible defaults 62 ■

Allow for localisation/localization 63 Style your plugin with ■

CSS 64 Test on the major browsers 66 Create a

■ ■

repeatable test case suite 66 Provide demonstrations and

■

documentation 67
4.3 Summary 69

5 Collection plugins 70
5.1 What are collection plugins? 71
5.2 A plugin framework 71
The MaxLength plugin 71 ■
MaxLength plugin operation 72
5.3 Defining your plugin 74
Claiming a namespace 74 ■
Encapsulation 74 ■
Using a
singleton 75
5.4 Attaching to an element 76
Basic attachment 77 Plugin initialization
■
78 ■
Invoking
methods 79 Getter methods 80
■

5.5 Setting options 82

Plugin defaults 82 Localisations/localizations 83
■

Reacting to option changes 85 Implementing MaxLength ■

options 86 Enabling and disabling the widget 88

■

5.6 Adding event handlers 89

Registering an event handler 89 ■
Triggering an event
handler 90
5.7 Adding methods 90
Getting the current length 90
5.8 Removing the plugin 91
The destroy method 91
5.9 Finishing touches 92
The plugin body 92 ■
Styling the plugin 94
5.10 The complete plugin 95
5.11 Summary 96

6 Function plugins 97
6.1 Defining your plugin
Localization plugin 98
98
■
Framework code 99 ■
Loading
localizations 100
x CONTENTS

6.2 jQuery Cookie plugin 103

Cookie interactions 103 ■ Reading and writing cookies 104
6.3 Summary 106

7 Test, package, and document your plugin 107

7.1 Testing your plugin
■
108
What to test? 108 Using QUnit 109 Testing the ■

MaxLength plugin 111 Testing option setting and

■

retrieval 113 Simulating user actions 114 Testing

■ ■

event callbacks 116

7.2 Packaging your plugin 117
Collating all the files 117 Minimizing your plugin 118
■

Providing a basic example 121

7.3 Documenting your plugin 123
Documenting options 123 Documenting methods and utility
■

functions 124 Demonstrating your plugin’s abilities 125

■

7.4 Summary 127

PART 3 EXTENDING JQUERY UI ............................... 129

8 jQuery UI widgets 131

8.1 The widget framework 132
jQuery UI modules 132 The Widget module 134
■

The MaxLength plugin 135 MaxLength plugin ■

operation 136
8.2 Defining your widget 137
Claiming a name 137 Encapsulating the plugin 137
■

Declaring the widget 138

8.3 Attaching the plugin to an element 139
Basic attachment and initialization 139
8.4 Handling plugin options 141
Widget defaults 141 Reacting to option changes 142
■

Implementing MaxLength options 144 Enabling and ■

disabling the widget 147

8.5 Adding event handlers 147
Registering an event handler 148 ■ Triggering an event
handler 148
 CONTENTS xi

8.6 Adding methods 150

Getting the current length 150
8.7 Removing the widget 151
The _destroy method 151
8.8 Finishing touches 152
The widget body 152 ■ Styling the widget 154
8.9 The complete plugin 155
8.10 Summary 158

9 jQuery UI mouse interactions 159

9.1 The jQuery UI Mouse module
Mouse-drag actions 160 ■
160
Mouse options 161
9.2 Defining your widget 161
Signature functionality 161 Signature plugin■

operation 163 Declaring the widget 164

■

9.3 Attaching the plugin to an element 165

Framework initialization 165 ■ Custom initialization 166
9.4 Handling plugin options 167
Widget defaults 167 Setting options 169 Implementing
■ ■

Signature options 170 Enabling and disabling the

■

widget 171
9.5 Adding event handlers 171
Registering an event handler 171 ■ Triggering an event
handler 172
9.6 Interacting with the mouse 173
Can a drag start? 173 Starting a drag
■ 174 ■ Tracking a
drag 174 Ending a drag 175
■

9.7 Adding methods 176

Clearing the signature 176 Converting to JSON 177
■

Redrawing the signature 178 Checking signature ■

presence 179
9.8 Removing the widget 179
The _destroy method 180
9.9 The complete plugin 180
9.10 Summary 181
xii CONTENTS

10 jQuery UI effects 182

10.1 The jQuery UI effects framework 183
The Effects Core module 183 ■ Common effects functions 184
Existing effects 186
10.2 Adding a new effect 188
Imploding an element 188 Initializing the effect 189
■

Implementing the effect 191 Implementing an effect prior to

■

jQuery UI 1.9 192 The complete effect 193

■

10.3 Animation easings 194

What’s an easing? 194 Existing easings 195
■

Adding a new easing 197

10.4 Summary 199

PART 4 OTHER EXTENSIONS .................................... 201

11 Animating properties 203

11.1 The animation framework 204
Animation capabilities 204 ■
Stepping an animation 206
11.2 Adding a custom property animation 208
Animating background-position 209 Declaring and ■

retrieving the property value 210 Updating the property

■

value 212 Animating background-position in

■

jQuery 1.7 213 The complete plugin 215

■

11.3 Summary 215

12 Extending Ajax
12.1
216
The Ajax framework 217
Prefilters 218 ■
Transports 218 ■
Converters 219
12.2 Adding an Ajax prefilter 220
Changing the data type 220 ■
Disabling Ajax processing 220
12.3 Adding an Ajax transport 221
Loading image data 221 ■
Simulating HTML data for
testing 223
12.4 Adding an Ajax converter 226
Comma-separated values format 227 Converting text to ■

CSV 227 Converting CSV to a table 230

■
 CONTENTS xiii

12.5 Ajax plugins 231

12.6 Summary 232

13 Extending events 233

13.1 The special event framework 234
Binding event handlers 234 ■
Triggering events 235
13.2 Adding a special event 236
Adding a right-click event 236 Disabling right-click
■

events 238 Multiple right-click events 239

■

Collection functions for events 242

13.3 Enhancing an existing event 243
Adding right-click handling to the click event 244
13.4 Other event functionality 245
Default actions for events 245 Pre- and post-dispatch
■

callbacks 246 Prevent event bubbling 247

■

Automatic binding and delegation 247

13.5 Summary 249

14 Creating validation rules 250

14.1 The Validation plugin 251
Assigning validation rules 252
14.2 Adding a validation rule 253
Adding a pattern-matching rule 254 ■
Generating pattern-
matching rules 256
14.3 Adding a multiple-field validation rule 258
Grouping validations 258 ■
Defining a multiple-field
rule 259
14.4 Summary 261

appendix Regular expressions 263

glossary 273
index 277
 foreword
Since jQuery’s debut in 2006, it has grown into the most popular JavaScript library for
managing and enhancing HTML documents. jQuery’s cross-browser design allows
developers to focus on building websites instead of puzzling out browser peculiarities.
In 2013, more than one-half of the top million websites (measured by visitor traffic)
use jQuery. Similarly, the jQuery UI library, which builds on jQuery, is the most popu-
lar source of UI widgets.
With that popularity comes the temptation for the jQuery team to add features so
that nearly any problem encountered by a developer can be solved with the incanta-
tion of a jQuery method. Yet every feature added to the core code of jQuery means
more bytes of JavaScript for website visitors to download, whether or not a feature is
used in that site’s development. Such a large monolithic library would degrade perfor-
mance just for the convenience of web development, which isn’t a good trade-off.
To combat the scourge of code bloat, jQuery’s philosophy is to put only the most
common functionality in the library and provide a foundation developers can extend.
An incredible ecosystem of jQuery plugins has grown over the years, driven by each
developer’s need to scratch a particular itch and their generosity in sharing code with
the wider jQuery community. Much of jQuery’s success can be attributed to this ethos
and the team fosters it through sites like plugins.jquery.com.
Keith Wood is well suited to be your guide through Extending jQuery. He’s been a
regular fixture in the jQuery Forum and a top contributor for several years, providing
high-quality answers to the real-life problems developers encounter. He’s also earned
his street cred by developing several popular jQuery plugins. As a result, Keith has a

xiv
 FOREWORD xv

practitioner’s understanding of jQuery extensions combined with an instructor’s intu-

ition about which jQuery topics deserve a deep explanation rather than a passing
mention.
This book delves into just about every facet of extending jQuery’s functionality,
whether for personal needs or professional profit. The best-known type of extension is
the basic jQuery plugin that extends jQuery Core methods, but the book gives equal
time to jQuery UI widget-based plugins that are often a better foundation for visually
oriented extensions. Detailed documentation on the jQuery UI widget factory is
scarce, which makes these chapters all the more valuable.
I’m especially pleased that Keith dedicates some time to the topics of unit tests.
Having a set of thorough unit tests seems like needless extra work, right up until the
point a few months later where an innocuous change to a plugin causes the entire web
team hours of debugging on a live site while user complaints flood in. Unit tests can’t
find all bugs, but they act as a sanity check and prevent obvious regressions that man-
ual testing by an impatient developer tends to miss.
Whatever your reason for learning about jQuery extensions, please consider con-
tributing your work back to the community as open source if it seems that others
might benefit from it. This is a natural fit with jQuery’s own philosophy. Sharing your
knowledge with others not only helps them, but it comes back to you in professional
recognition.

DAVE METHVIN
PRESIDENT, JQUERY FOUNDATION
 preface
I first encountered jQuery in early 2007 and immediately found it intuitive and simple
to use. I was quickly selecting elements and showing and hiding them. Next I tried to
use some of the third-party plugins on offer, but found that they varied widely in use-
fulness and usability.
I was fortunate to start my plugin writing with what was to become a major plugin
in the jQuery community. I came across Marc Grabanski’s Clean Calendar plugin,
which he had converted into a jQuery plugin, and liked the interface it provided for
entering a date. I started playing with it to add more features as a way to explore
jQuery’s capabilities and eventually offered these back to Marc. So started a collabora-
tion on this plugin over the next couple of years.
At that point the Calendar plugin had been renamed Datepicker and had been
chosen by the jQuery UI team as the basis for its date-picker offering.
Since that start I’ve been developing other plugins as the need or interest arose.
Some of my most popular ones are an alternative Datepicker that also allows for pick-
ing date ranges or multiple individual dates, a Calendars plugin that provides support
for non-Gregorian calendars, a Countdown plugin to show the time remaining until a
given date and time, and an SVG Integration plugin that allows you to interact with
SVG elements on the web page. During this time I’ve learned a lot about JavaScript
and jQuery and how to write plugins for the latter.
Creating plugins is an ideal way to capture functionality in a reusable format, mak-
ing it simple to incorporate into other web pages. It lets you more thoroughly test the
code and ensures consistent behavior wherever it is used.

xvi
 PREFACE xvii

jQuery has grown significantly in size and functionality over the intervening years,
but it has remained true to its purpose of making the developer’s life easier. The thriv-
ing plugin community is a testament to the foresight of the jQuery team in providing
a platform that can be easily extended. I hope that the insights presented in this book
allow you to make the most of jQuery in your own projects.
 acknowledgments
I’ll begin by thanking John Resig and the jQuery team for providing such a useful tool
for web developers throughout the world.
Thanks also to Marc Grabanski for allowing me to contribute to the Calendar/
Datepicker plugin and for launching me into plugin development.
Writing a book is always a group effort, and I would like to acknowledge the edito-
rial team at Manning: Bert Bates, Frank Pohlmann, and Cynthia Kane; the technical
proofreaders Renso Hollhumer and Michiel Trimpe; and the entire production team
for their support and guidance. Special thanks to Christina Rudloff for the initial
approach from Manning regarding a jQuery UI book.
My thanks to all the developers who have contacted me over the years with com-
ments, suggestions, bugs, and localizations for my plugins, with special thanks to those
who have contributed something to my efforts—I’m enjoying the music and dancing!
I am grateful to the reviewers of the early versions of the manuscript, for providing
insights that improved the final product: Amandeep Jaswal, Anne Epstein, Brady
Kelly, Bruno Figueiredo, Daniele Midi, David Walker, Ecil Teodoro, Geraint Williams,
Giuseppe De Marco, PhD, Jorge Ezequiel Bo, Lisa Z. Morgan, Mike Ma, Pim Van Heu-
ven, and Stephen Rice.
Special thanks to Dave Methvin, president of the jQuery Foundation, for contrib-
uting the foreword and for endorsing my book.
And last, but not least, sincere thanks to my partner, Trecialee, for accepting the
time spent away from her on this project (even though she doesn’t understand the
subject matter).

xviii
 about this book
jQuery is the most widely used JavaScript library on the web, offering many abilities
that make web development much easier. But it concentrates on providing features
that are widely applicable and widely used, and can’t do everything that you might
want. You could code your extra requirements inline for each web page, but if you
find yourself repeating code across several pages it may be time to create a plugin for
jQuery instead.
A plugin lets you package your code in a single reusable module that can then be
easily applied to any number of web pages. You benefit by having a single code base,
with reduced testing and maintenance costs, and a consistent appearance and behav-
ior throughout your website.
jQuery has been designed to accommodate these plugins, allowing them to
become first-class members of the jQuery environment and to be used alongside the
built-in functionality. This book explains how you can use best practice principles to
produce a jQuery plugin that integrates with jQuery without interfering with other
plugins and that provides a flexible and robust solution.

Who should read this book?

This is a book about extending jQuery to create reusable plugins. Readers may be
technical leads wanting to know what can be extended within jQuery to enable the
production of reusable modules within their projects. Or they may be web developers
with a desire to know the details behind writing robust code for jQuery. Or perhaps
they’re third-party plugin developers who want to build a best practice plugin for gen-
eral release to the jQuery community.

xix
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
 I do not think I have been able to tell the world anything new about the
poet or his surroundings. But the man 'who hedn't a bit of fish in him, and
was no mountaineer,' seems to have been in the eyes of the people always at
his studies; 'and that because he couldn't help it, because it was his hobby,'
for sheer love, and not for money. This astonished the industrious money-
loving folk, who could not understand the doing work for 'nowt,' and
perhaps held the poet's occupation in somewhat lighter esteem, just because
it did not bring in 'a deal o' brass to the pocket.' I think it is very interesting,
however, to notice how the woman part of the Rydal Mount family seemed
to the simple neighbourhood to have the talent and mental ability; and there
must have been, both about Dorothy Wordsworth and the poet's daughter
Dora, a quite remarkable power of inspiring the minds of the poor with
whom they came in contact, with a belief in their intellectual faculties and
brightness and cleverness. If Hartley Coleridge was held by some to be
Wordsworth's helper, it was to Dorothy he was supposed by all to turn if
'ivver he was puzzelt.' The women had 'the wits, or best part of 'em,'—this
was proverbial among the peasantry, and, as having been an article of rural
faith, it has been established out of the mouths of all the witnesses it has
been my lot to call.

WITH THE BLACK-HEADED GULLS IN

CUMBERLAND.

There is no part of the Cumberland coast so full of witchery and romance

as the point where Muncaster Fell comes down to the sea. The rivers of Irt,
Mite and Esk, with their memories of the pearl-fisheries of olden time, swirl
down toward the ancient harbour of the mythic 'King Aveling's Town.' One
cannot look across the pool at full tide without thought of how the Vikings
pushed their ships ashore here, when they came from Mona's Isle to harry
Cumberland.

But the sound of earlier civilisations is in our ears as one gazes across the
Ravenglass sand-dunes; for here beside us is the great cavern of ancient
oaken-logs and earth, wherein the Cymri buried their dead in prehistoric
time, and there within a stone's throw still upstands the seaside residence of
some great Roman general, who was determined apparently to enjoy a well-
heated house, and to do honour to the genius loci. No one who visits 'Walls'
Castle, as it is called, but must be struck with the remains of the 'tepidarium,'
and the little niche that held the statue of the tutelary god, or a bust of the
presiding Cæsar, within the ample hall.

Away at our back rises the Muncaster Fell with its grey beacon-tower, its
herd of deer, its wind-blown oaks, its primrose and bluebell haunted woods,
that slope towards the Vale of Esk. Further inland, sheltered by its
magnificent wall of forestry, stands rose-red one of the most interesting of
our northern castles, with its long terrace-lawn of quite unequalled grace and
loveliness. There in sheltered combe the rhododendrons bloom from earliest
spring, and the air will to-day be honeysweet from laurel-flower far and
wide.

But I was bent on seeing an older people than Cymri, Roman, Viking, or
Castle-Lord, albeit the line of Pennington reached far into the past, and
suited well his ancient castle hold. I had come in the last week of April, by
courteous invitation, to renew acquaintance with that fast-growing colony of
black-headed gulls that make the dunes of Ravenglass famous.

A boat was called, and leaving the pebbly beach that 'Stott of Oldham' so
delights to paint, we rowed across the flooding tide of the Ravenglass
harbour to the sand-dunes of happy quietude, where the oyster-catchers were
sunning themselves, and where the sheldrake in her nesting season loves to
hide. As one went forward over the dunes one felt back in the great desert of
the Badiet-Tih, and expected to see Bedouins start from the ground, and
camels come in single file with solemn sway round the sedge-tufted, wind-
blown hillocks and hummocks of glaring sand.

Then suddenly the silence of the waste was broken by a marvellous

sound, and a huge cloud of palpitating wings, that changed from black to
white and hovered and trembled against the grey sea or the blue inland hills,
swept by over-head. The black-headed gulls had heard of our approach, and
mightily disapproved of our trespass upon their sand-blown solitude.
 We sat down and the clamour died: the gulls had settled. Creeping warily
to the crest of a great billow of sand, we peeped beyond. Below us lay a
natural amphitheatre of grey-green grass that looked as if it were starred with
white flowers innumerable. We showed our heads and the flowers all took
wing, and the air was filled again with sound and intricate maze of
innumerable wings.

We approached, and walking with care found the ground cup-marked

with little baskets or basket-bottoms roughly woven of tussock grass or sea-
bent. Each casket contained from two to three magnificent jewels. These
were the eggs we had come so far to see. There they lay—deep brown
blotched with purple, light bronze marked with brown, pale green dashed
with umber, white shading into blue. All colours and all sizes; some as small
as a pigeon's, others as large as a bantam's. Three seemed to be the general
complement. In one nest I found four. The nests were so close to one another
that I counted twenty-six within a radius of ten yards; and what struck one
most was the way in which, instead of seeking shelter, the birds had
evidently planned to nest on every bit of rising ground from which swift
outlook over the gull-nursery could be obtained.

Who shall describe the uproar and anger with which one was greeted as
one stood in the midst of the nests? The black-headed gull swept at one with
open beak, and one found oneself involuntarily shading one's face and
protecting one's eyes as the savage little sooty-brown heads swooped round
one's head. But we were not the only foes they had had to battle with. The
carrion crow had evidently been an intruder and a thief; and many an egg
which was beginning to be hard set on, had been prey to the black robber's
beak. One was being robbed as I stood there in the midst of the hubbub.

Away, for what seemed the best part of a mile, the 'gullery' stretched to
the north in the direction of Seascale; and one felt that, thanks to the public-
spirited owner of the seaboard, and the County Council of Cumberland, the
black-headed gull was not likely to diminish in this generation.

Back to the boat we went with a feeling that we owed large apologies to
the whole sea-gull race for giving this colony such alarm, and causing such
apparent disquietude of heart, and large thanks to the lord of Muncaster for
his ceaseless care of the wild sea-people whom each year he entertains upon
his golden dunes.

That evening I went back in memory to the marvellous sight in the

Gullery at Ravenglass. My thoughts took sonnet form as follows:

THE HOPE OF LIFE.

Sudden the lilies of each lonely mound

Sprang into voice and palpitating wing;
I seemed a guilty and unwelcome thing;
Ten thousand shadows round me and around
Perplexed the air and danced along the ground;
Each sooty head, in passion, dared to fling
A world's defiance—and I felt the sting
And arrows of that deprecating sound.

Then gazing downward at my feet I saw

The silent cause of all these sorrowful cries,
—Large jewels, blotched and brown and green and blue,
In simple caskets wove from rushy straw;
I thanked high Heaven for hearts so good and true,
And shared their hope for life that never dies.

They are a far-wandering nation these black-headed gulls. I had seen

separate members of the tribe on the banks of the Neva, and later, on the
banks of the Nile; for they are an adventurous race, and may be found as far
north as Archangel and as far south as Nubia, but the next time that I saw
them in any number they had changed not only their appearance but their
manners. The black or, more properly speaking, brown head of the gull had
become grey. It seems they only wear their black helmets or bonnets in
summer time. Now it was winter, and they were as mild as doves—tamer
birds could hardly be seen, and the history of their taming, as indeed of their
presence so far inland as the Keswick valley, was very simple. There had
been a very cruel wholesale poisoning of the fish in the river Greta—the
black-headed gulls had heard of it, and came up the Derwent in great
numbers to the feast. It cannot have been all pleasure, and to judge by the
looks of some of the greedier of the class colic abounded. Whether it was the
abundance of the feast or the after pain, that made an impression on the gull,
I know not, but from that day to this the black-headed gentry of the seaboard
have had such affection for our vale that any storm at sea or any scarcity of
food brings them in great numbers to our valley pastures.

We had a hard winter three years ago, and wherever the rooks were seen
upon the ground, the black flock was dappled with the white sea gull, and
the dolorous voice of the crow was drowned in the laughter of the black-
headed gull.

Very grateful were we in those sad and sombre winter mornings to hear
the gulls laughing round our house-roofs, and not the least enjoyable thought
as we went to our breakfast-table was the knowledge that these wild sea-
people had come to trust us, and were willing to be our almoners.

There was one house in the valley, set upon a grassy hill overlooking the
lake, which seemed especially to have charm for the bird visitors. Swift of
ear, as of eye, the black-headed gulls noticed that the family went to
breakfast at the sound of a gong. No sooner did that gong echo across the
lawn, than the heaven became white with wings—a click at the gate was
heard, and a maid with a large pancheon of food specially prepared—hot and
tasty—was seen to come on to the grass and toss out the meal, in splotches,
round about her. Then what had been a silent grey undulating cloud of wings
broke up into a tangled mass of down-sweeping pink legs and up-sweeping
white wings, and with the noise of laughter and talk unimaginable, the happy
people fell to feeding.

I do not think that anything more dainty can be imagined than that swift
balance of up-tilted wing and down-reaching rosy feet, unless it be the
consummate care and nicety with which, before the black-headed gull put
beak to food, it tucked those long sweeping slender wings close to its side.

Now and again as they fed, the whole flock would rise momentarily into
air and float up as though blown from the earth by some invisible breath, and
then, as silently and simultaneously, sink to earth again.
 At times one noticed how, rising up, they seemed to move in exactly one
position, moving their yellow rosy-stained beaks and grey heads from right
to left as though they feared an enemy. Yet they had no need to fear, for it
was quite clear that the rooks had been specially engaged by them to be their
sentinels. There they sat each in solitary sable-hood, on the trees all round
the lawn,—policemen on guard, and of such good manners, that until the
visitors from the sea had eaten and were full, they did not think of claiming
their share of the broken victual.

What astonished one most as these black-headed gulls came morning

after morning to the sound of the gong, was their apparent determination to
lose no time about their food. They sat down to table and rose up as one bird,
but they were not more than ten minutes about their meal, and there was
some reason for this. There were other breakfast tables spread for them on
other lawns; the gong at Derwent Hill was after all but summons to a first
course.

How mild, how gentle, with what dove-like tenderness did these grey-
headed people of the sea appear as with merry laughter they sailed about my
head, their feet tucked up like coral pink jewels against their breast; how
unlike those fierce black-headed guardians of their nests and young, who had
dashed at one, with open beak and scolding voice and angry wing, upon the
spring-tide dunes of Ravenglass.

AT THE GRASMERE PLAY.

What a wonderful people these Westmoreland folk are; we see them on

the Wrestling Ground at Pavement end, and we think we never saw such
'playing.' We enter a Westmoreland dale farm, and we feel, if ever men and
women were born to make two ends meet by the care of sheep or cattle,
these are the people. We take lodgings in a Westmoreland village for a
holiday season, and though it may be quite true that the landlady doesn't rave
about the scenery, and is rather of the type of the good woman-body who
had lived at Rydal Mount before she became lodging-house keeper, and who
said to my friend, 'Yes, yes, I am a tidy good cook and a decentish
housekeeper, but I don't know nowt about sunsets or sic like, and I don't
need, they've never been in my line,' it is at the same time true that, for
looking after one's creature wants and entering into the doings of every day
and making one feel part and parcel of the household, a Westmorland
housekeeper is bad to beat.

But though I thought I knew the capacity of Westmoreland folk pretty

well, a new surprise was in store for me as I took my seat in the temporary
play-house at Grasmere and learned that Westmoreland folk can not only
play in the Grasmere wrestling ring, but can play on the boards and before
the footlights also. It is quite true that the Grasmere people have had nearly a
generation of training in the dramatic art. A late rector, who was much
interested in looking after the recreations of the village, had translated for
them many a simple pastoral play from the French, and hardly a Christmas
came round, but he and his family, one of whom was herself a talented writer
of country plays, trained the villagers to give their neighbours a play, and the
children in the Bands of Hope to act charades. Since his time another family
who are much honoured at Grasmere, and who have the same kind of
enthusiasm for the dramatic capacity of the village, had carried on the work,
with the result that at a moment's notice, for any simple play the daughter of
the house might write or adapt, she could count on having as her players
seventeen or eighteen of the villagers who would seem born for the parts she
entrusted to them. There was no rivalry, no 'fratching' from house to house
because this person or that person was not selected for this or that particular
part; on the contrary, the village had such confidence in the conductor of the
village troupe that if Miss S. thought that So-and-so was to take this part and
So-and-so the other, that was enough, and not another word was to be said.
Meanwhile the village had come to look upon the village play as part of its
very life and soul. Grasmere in winter time would not be recognised by the
average tourist. It is a village of peace absolute and tranquillity beyond
words.

From the earliest times 'Cursmas' has been looked upon as a time when
everybody in the dale should enjoy himself. In the old days, when the
fiddlers went round from farm to farm between Christmas-day and New
Year's Day, and when the Merry Night (or Murry Neet) was held from place
to place, the Grasmere folk knew that, however hard they worked for the rest
of the year, at least they would 'laike' until the Twelfth Night, and precious
little work would go forward in the dales for the first fortnight of each glad
new year. The desire for some simple and rational form of amusement with
the beginning of every year has never died out of their blood, so that a
village play seems to fill a need which is part of their very nature. 'Why, we
could not live without it,' said a Grasmere body to me; 'it's the brightest spot
in our lives.' 'I can't tell you how dramatic it makes me feel,' said another. 'I
am going thro' my dialogue at all times o' day.' My husband said, 'You've had
company to-day then.' 'Ay, ay,' I replied, 'rare company. I was taking two or
three parts in second Act, you see, and changing voices, that was all.'

'But where do you get your theatrical properties?' I said. 'Who manages
the scene-shifting and all the rest of it?' 'Oh, as for scene-shifting, that is all
managed by that great hairy-faced man that you saw going down the road
just now; he is a grand stage manager and has been at it for twenty years or
more.' I did not see him again until after the close of the performance, when
I noticed him with his pocket-handkerchief in an unconventional way
fanning out the footlights, and then going up on a ladder to puff out the oil
lamps above the stage. 'And as for properties,' the good dame replied, 'if you
mean by that the things we have on the stage, well everything is lent—there
is crockery from one house and chairs from another, and the dresses, why
they are the old originals that were worn by our grandmothers, and great-
grandmothers. We all know to what farm or to what house we must go for
this or that particular dress, and it is lent very willingly.' 'And do you have
large audiences?' I said. 'Large audiences, well, if th' room would hold
double the number we could fill it, because folk of all maks and sizes come
together. This year we are giving a special afternoon performance for the
quality, but I am told that all reserved seats have been booked for weeks.'

It was growing dark as I stood by the cottage door. The omnibus, as it

drove down from the Raise gap with folk from Keswick coming to see the
play, was sending sparks out behind from its 'slipper,' as though it were
making fireworks. And soon I saw the lamp-lighter lighting up the oil lamps
in the quaintly intricate lanes of the village beside the Mere. Knots of people
were gathered already at their door-ways talking of the play, and already folk
were drawing towards the village hall near the Red Lion. I soon joined them,
and passed up a break-neck stairway to a big barn-like room, the back part of
which was filled with rough boards knocked up into temporary benches, and
the forepart had wooden cottage chairs for reserved seats. The drop-scene
was down—the lake and island with Helm Crag and Dunmail Raise, as seen
from Loughrigg, on a summer evening.

A big moon shone in a solid sort of way in mid-heaven, and was

repeated at intervals right down through the picture, as though the scene-
painters would say: 'This is the moon, it is rising now, and there it is fully
risen.' But I was assured that this was the result of some accident by fire that
had taken place years ago in the said drop-scene, and that these moons were,
after all, only the patches that repaired the beautiful picture. Three fiddlers
and a piano were making lively music when the bell tinkled and the curtain
went up. It was a very simple scene—the village carpenter sitting in his shop
working away at a stool, but it was to the life; and the Jacob who was
working there, with his red handkerchief round his throat, spoke and acted to
the life, and well he might—he was a village carpenter. A tourist came upon
the scene, and got very little change out of Jacob, and less still out of Jacob's
mother, Mrs. Rawlinson, who (after a very amusing dialogue with the
tourist) determined to allow him to be her lodger. She made him pay double
the usual price because he asked for 'sec a new faddlement as a seven o'clock
dinner.' Dolly, the maid, comes in with a handkerchief bound over her head,
as is the fashion of the North-country maids when they are dusting or
brushing up. They fall to talk:

Mrs. Rawlinson: 'I'se goin' to have mair nor sebben shillings a room this
time, but I was forced to ask a good price, for he'll be wanting late dinners,
and a' maks o' cooking and faddlements. What does ta think wawmlets'll be,
Dolly?'

Dolly: 'Nay, I never heard tell o' sec a thing.'

Mrs. Rawlinson: 'And grilled bones to his breakfast; but I kna' what
them'll be, just a marra bone served up hot in a napkin. I can mannish that
finely. Then he talked about a dish o' curry; that'll certainly be some mak o' a
French stew, made rare and hot wid pepper and an onion or two.'

Dolly: 'What, thou's goin' to be sadly tewed.'

 Mrs. Rawlinson: 'Nay. I was nobbut a bit put about at first, but I mean to
ask Betty Braithwaite to lend me her beuk as larns yan to mak hundreds and
hundreds of things 'at I never heard of, nor naebody else, I wud think.'

As long as I live I shall remember the delightful get-up of this said Mrs.
Rawlinson, with her high black cap and flower in it, and her old-fashioned
criss-cross shawl, and her spotless white 'brat'; and the way in which she
pronounced the word 'omelette' as 'waumlett' convulsed the house.

The second scene in that first act was one that went home to the hearts of
all, for if the Westmoreland folk love one thing more dearly than another it is
'a sale.' The sale is really the excitement of the winter time. I believe that if
nobody was changing farms they would compel someone in the
neighbourhood to pretend that he was, that a sale might be held. It is not the
fierce excitement of bidding one against the other that causes the great
gathering at the sale, but 'everybody's tied to go,' as they say—bound to go
to the sale, just as everybody is bound to go when they are bid to a funeral. It
would not be friendly not to do so, and high, low, rich and poor, one with
another, meet at the sales, as De Quincey has reminded us, to see one
another and to hear how the world is stirring.

The Grasmere Players in this sale scene were all of the manner born, and
a young mason played the part of 'Tom Mashiter' (auctioneer) with great
delight to himself and to his audience.

'Here's t' fadther and muther and t' dowter he cried, as he put three
teapots together. 2s. 6d. for the lot just to get us into the bidding! Here's a
pair of copper scales; see how true they hang! Now I durst bet there's not
above half a dozen among us as honest as them is. There's not, howiver; and
I know who's yan o' the half-dozen; ye can settle the other five amang you.
Three an' six. Three an nine. Come, be quick. Nay, I'll not wait. I'll tak some
on ye in, ye'll see, if ye don't bid quicker——'

And the scales were knocked down 'mid roars of laughter.

'Here's another good jar, yan o' t' auld fashion, wid a pair o' good lugs to
hod by. A penny for it I have bid; who'll say tuppence? Tuppence for you,
Sarah. It's a real good un, yan o' t' rare auld-fashioned mak, like me an you,
Sarah. I think there's nobbut us two left o' the auld lang-eared breed.'

Then there were quilts sold with a deal of very amusing talk to make
them go off. One was in rags and tatters, but the auctioneer suggested that it
might do for a sick horse or a sick cow. I was listening with great
amusement, and I heard an old fellow beside me say, 'Well, but things is
goin' ower cheap,' and in another moment jerked out, 'A penny—here,' and
was not a little astonished that his bid was not taken. I only mention this to
show you how to the life the whole thing was done, and with what deep
interest the spectators gazed upon the play.

In the second act the plot thickens, and the interest centres in the two
chief actors of the little play—Aaron Hartley, with his apparently rejected
addresses to the statesman's daughter up at Hardcragg Farm, and Betty
Braithwaite. Aaron comes into his mother's kitchen, and, as far as any
Westmoreland man dare let himself go, allows her to see that things are all
up between himself and Betty. He must go off to 'Lunnon,' for he cannot face
living on in the dale now, and all the hay grass but one meadow has been got
in.

'I think I must be going away, muther, for a bit. I don't see but that you'll
mannish finely without me. We've gitten a' the hay in but t' midder, and
that'll not take so lang. It's nobbut a light crop, and then it'll be verra slack
till bracken time, and what, Jonty's match to make a good start with that if I
sudn't be back.'

Just then the farm servant Jonty enters. I believe that he was a coachman
in the village, but he was a consummate actor, and his quaint, silent ways
and the lifting up of his hand and scratching his head behind his ear when
talking were quite admirable. He has had, from youth up, the wish to have
something from London, and he tells Aaron that he's 'wonderin' whether he
could mannish to bring him a "spead" fra Lunnon' when he comes back; 'but
maybe the railway folk wad charge ower dear for carryin' on it.' Aaron chaffs
him out of the idea that a 'spead' made in London is better than one made in
Kendal, and suggests a nice silk handkerchief. 'I never thowt o' that,' says
Jonty; 'that wad be as like as aught.' Libby, the pretty farm servant breaks in
here, and says: 'I wish tha would think on it, and not be so ready with thy
jacket sleeve.'

'Ye'll not can tell me (says honest Jonty) how much t' silk handkercher'll
be until ye've bought it, I doubt; but if ye'll send word I can just send ye the
brass in a letter.'

And, saying, 'Well, I mun see all's reet afore goin' to bed,' the faithful
farm servant leaves the cottage to go round the byre.

But the actress of the piece throughout is Aaron's mother, Mrs. Hartley.
She sits there at her knitting, with her pretty crossover on her shoulders, sair
troubled at heart by her son Aaron's love affair; she drops her stitches, for
her eyes can hardly keep back the tears, but she seems to know intuitively
how much and how little comfort she may give her son, and how far she may
insist upon his confidences. The attempt on her part to make it appear as if it
did not matter at all and that everything will come right in the end is very
bravely done. Fewest words are best.

'Good night, mother,' says Aaron. 'You'll not mind a' I've said.'

'Nay, lad, not I. Good night.'

And so the curtain falls. The second scene in the second act brings Jonty
and Mattha Newby (the village tailor) together. Mattha, as I heard, was the
son of a village tailor. To-day, evidently from his boyhood's remembrances,
he is able to play the tailor's part well. Jonty has been 'wrestling with a dyke'
and torn his jerkin, and Mattha volunteers to mend it. A song was introduced
into this scene which I had written for the occasion. It ran as follows:

Come! sweet April, whom all men praise,

Bring your daffodils up to the Raise,
Bid the delicate warbler trill,
Come with the cuckoo over the hill
Sprinkle the birch with sprays of green,
Purple the copses all between;
Bend the rainbow, and swell the brooks,
Fill the air with the sound of rooks,
Rubies lend, for the larch to wear,
The lambs are bleating, and May is near.

August comes, and the speckled thrush

Sings no more in the lilac bush,
Lambs in the meadow cease to bleat,
The hills are dim with the noontide heat,
From all her hedges the rose is fled,
And only the harebell lifts her head;
But green are the new-mown vales with grass
As if the Spring were again to pass,
And children bring from the far-off fell
The rose-red heather—the bee loves well,

Comes October with breath more cold,

She breathes, and the bracken turns to gold,
The cherry blushes as red as blood,
The rowan flames in the painted wood,
The larch-tree tresses are amber bright,
The birch is yellowing up on the height,
{82}
And over the valley and over the hill
A deep hush broods and the sheep are still,
But rainbow gossamers fill the air,
Tho' the old earth rests, the world is fair.

Now are the mountains winter-white,

Helvellyn shines in the clear moonlight;
The carollers sing, and the Christmas bells
Send sweet messages up the fells;
The old folk meet for their Christmas cheer,
The young folk skate on the frozen mere;
But Spring is coming, the shy buds peep,
The snow-drop moves in her long, long sleep,
The lemon-light shines on the leafless larch,
And the wood grows purple to welcome March.
 Fair, how fair, are the changing days
That keep us happy beneath the Raise,
We who, in honour of Oswald the King,
Our 'bearings' still to the Old Church bring,
We who here in the silent time
Act our part and carol our rhyme.
Seasons change, and our hair grows grey,
But merrily goes the Grasmere play,
And two things stay with us all the year—
Love of our valley, and heart of cheer.

It had been prettily set to music by a Grasmere lady, and the two bass
voices chimed in with the two last lines in each verse, and Mattha the tailor
and Jonty the farm servant gave great effect to the song by the sudden
addition of their manly notes. Before the curtain falls on this scene, we learn
that the tourist (to whom we were introduced in the first scene), Mr.
Augustus Mallister, who has heard that she is an heiress, is determined, if
possible, to win the heart of Betty Braithwaite. He knows that Aaron's
absence has made her heart grow fonder. He determines to write a letter,
which shall be posted in London, purporting to come from Aaron, in which
the absent lover declares that he has become engaged to an American girl;
and so the curtain falls.

In the last act, and the first scene, there is a pretty passage, although it is
a pathetic one, between Mrs. Hartley and the girl Betty Braithwaite, to
whom Mrs. Hartley has given Aaron's letters to read—one of them the fatal
letter. In the last scene Norman Braithwaite and his wife, an excellent make-
up, come in to talk matters over, and the letter from London amongst other
things. Jonty remembers how that, on a certain day in August, the tourist
chap, 'the fine gentleman' as he called him, had been spouting out a letter
about an Aaron getting wed to an American, and they at once seemed to see
light and to feel that the letter Mrs. Hartley had received was a forgery. Just
at that time Aaron and Betty enter, and one can tell by a glance at them that
it doesn't matter how many forged letters have been written in London; they
have quite made up their minds to make a match of it. As for Mallister, 'the
fine gentleman,' Jonty breaks in:
 'Is it Mallister you're talkin' on? We weant see any more o' yon ne'er-do-
weel here. I met t' p'liceman going off wid him to Kendal.'

Norman: 'T' p'liceman! What for?'

Jonty: 'It seems he's been wanted for some time. He's been up to some
forgery or summat o' that mak.'

Poor Mrs. Rawlinson, 'the fine gentleman's' landlady, enters greatly

distressed that the good name of her house has been compromised by letting
lodgings to a forger. 'Why,' says she, 'I thought he was a gentleman, wi' his
wawmlets to his breakfast, and his late dinners and siclike.' And so with the
assertion that there is nothing to wait for and the wedding shall take place at
Martinmas, the curtain goes down, and all's well that ends well.

During the acting it was quite plain that the actors themselves were as
much interested as those who witnessed the play. 'I was fairly shamed of
myself,' I heard one saying, 'to meet with ye when I came off the last time,
for the tears on my face, but if you had given me a five pound note I could
not have helped it.' Ah, thought I, that was the secret of your acting so well.
Now and again an actor in undress would pass down the room to have a look
at the others as they performed their parts, and to report. They would come
back with much encouragement to their fellow-players with such words as
these: 'Eh, but it's a grand company now, and walls is beginning to stream
now'; and in truth the heat of the room and the consequent vapour bath was a
thing not to be easily forgotten. But if it had been twice as hot, and the hall
had been twice as crammed, and the play had been twice as long, one could
still have sat with real pleasure to see such perfect acting done with such
simplicity and reality to the life. One wished that Will Shakspere could have
come along; how he would have blessed these village folk for their truth and
their simplicity. And how good a thing, thought I, it is, that there should be a
dull time at the English Lakes, so that, without any temptations to
extravagance in scenery or setting of the plays—that would inevitably come
with a wider public,—these natural dale-folk can delight their fellow-
villagers, by dramatic talent as real as it is remarkable.
 JAMES CROPPER OF ELLERGREEN.

The pattern life of a public-spirited country gentleman closed, when

James Cropper of Ellergreen, with eye undimmed and natural force
unabated, entered rest.

Come of an old Viking stock,—for his name is found in the Landnama

Bok of Iceland,—he had inherited the best traditions of true philanthropy
from his grandfather, who, with Zachary Macaulay, had worked for the
emancipation of the slave. In him, too, ran something of the spirit of good
old Quaker blood. Whole-hearted Churchman as he was, he loved as the
Friends love, simplicity in form and directness in religious expression. In
earliest days he had cared for social and industrial problems, and the sorrows
of the labouring poor entered into his heart. It was his good fortune to be
able, by becoming an employer of labour, in his paper mills at Burneside, to
face these problems and to become, as he always wished to become, the
father rather than the master of his workmen.

He lived to see Burneside become, under his fostering care, a model

village. He lived to see some of his endeavours, notably his idea of Co-
operative Stores for the people, find acceptance far and wide. The
guardianship of the poor was a sacred trust to him. As Chairman of the
Board of Guardians at Kendal for twenty-five years, and as Vice-President of
the Northern Poor Law Congress, he both learned and taught wisdom.
Almost the last thing he talked with me about was a scheme for caring for
that most helpless class of our poorer friends, the pauper imbeciles of
Cumberland and Westmoreland.

He was in early days a keen politician, and represented his neighbouring

town of Kendal for five years in Parliament. Latterly he had felt that he
could not be a partisan, or rather that partisanship dulled sympathies, and
though it was a grief to him at the time to leave the House at the
redistribution of seats, he found so much more of home politics to hand for
him to do, that he ceased to regret it.
 When the County Council in Westmoreland met for its first time in 1888,
they unanimously elected James Cropper to be their chairman, and to the day
of his death his heart was in the work.

The Queen Anne's Bounty Board gave him the chance of helping the
church of his love. The late Bishop of Carlisle, Harvey Goodwin, had no
truer friend; and the present Bishop Bardsley testified to the constant help to
church work in the diocese that this most earnest layman was always willing
to bestow.

But it was the cause of education—elementary, secondary, public school,

or university—that was nearest to his heart. As one of the Governors of
Sedbergh, and Heversham and Kendal Grammar Schools, his counsel was
constantly sought. As a believer in women's education, he founded a
scholarship at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and a bursary at the Edinburgh
Medical School for the training of native Indian women as doctors.
 JAMES CROPPER OF ELLERGREEN.

He was Chairman of a Kendal Education Society which anticipated

much of the present endeavour of the Code to secure better instruction for
elementary teachers. He was never so happy as when he could gather the
teachers on the lawn at Ellergreen, and hold counsel with them as to their
future aims and their present progress. The idea of a pupil-teachers' centre at
Kendal was his, and as Chairman of the County Council he was able to lend
it substantial aid. When the Voluntary School Association came into being,
he took up the idea warmly, and personally visited every school within his
area, and made its wants and its difficulties his own.

There was not a day that this public benefactor did not do something to
help his time. And if one asked oneself why it was he had the power to be a
pillar of good in his generation, a kind of beacon and standard for higher and
happier life in all classes of society round about him, the answer seemed to
be that he had a heart which was for ever young, in a body that seemed as if
age could not touch it—that his sympathies were not with the past, but with
the present and the future; that his enthusiasm for the better time coming
never failed him; that he believed that all things work together for good to
them that fear God and keep His commandments.

The grace of this abundant hopefulness flowed out in all he did and said.
'Age could not stale his infinite variety,' because he never grew old. To see
him with young men or little children was to see him at his best. To know
him in his home life was a privilege for which to be thankful.

But deeper than all his spring of hope and sympathy with the young and
the new lay the fountain of poetry at his heart. He did not, I think, write
poetry, but the love of it was a continual presence. He had the poet's heart,
and entered into the poet's mind. For him, the practical public county
magistrate and councillor, the spirit of the innermost was the joy of the
imagination. This was the secret of his swift sympathy with nature and with
man.

We met by appointment in the Tapestry Room of the Spanish Palace at

the Paris Exhibition on October 12th, 1900. He was as cheery as ever.

'I have had a delightful week,' he said, 'I wish all my friends could have
seen this wonderful exhibition. Yesterday I was at Chartres Cathedral. I
never knew what stained glass was before; pray visit Chartres. It is a
revelation to one.' Then he turned to the Spanish tapestries and went with
deepest pleasure through the historic scenes that the needles of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have left on deathless record. He seemed
as young-hearted as a boy, and as fresh in his enthusiasm as if this Paris
Exhibition was the first he had ever seen, but he was seventy-seven and had
seen more than falls to most of us to see, of all this world can show. I did not
know as I shook hands and parted that Death already had shaken him by the
hand.

That night the sharp pain of pneumonia was upon him. I saw him once
again, at the bedside celebration of his last Holy Communion, and then I saw
him dead. His beautiful lace without a wrinkle in it with all the look of
youthfulness come back—but, alas, without the bloom, beneath that ample
crown of snow-white hair which for years past had added such dignity to his
refined and kindly presence. As I gazed, the one thought that came to me
was this, did ever man pass so little weary, so full of keen interest and
unabated enthusiasm after so long a pilgrimage, right up to the doors of that
other world where, as we trust, all his fullest powers shall find full play, or
enter these gates of life with so little pain?

He died in France and his body was borne across the sea and laid to rest
in the valley he held most dear. It seemed as if all Westmoreland and
Cumberland had come to Burneside to do him honour at the homegoing.

The coffin, covered with wreaths, was laid upon a simple wheeled bier in
front of the doors of Ellergreen, and so taken by hand from the house to the
church. It was his wish that no hearse should be used, and that this simpler
method of carrying the body to its rest should be employed. Before the
procession moved, many of those present came up to the coffin to see the
beautiful photograph taken after death; and side by side of it the picture of
his bride taken on her honeymoon. Beneath these two pictures were written
the words from Christina Rossetti's poem:

'Think of our joy in Paradise

When we're together there,'

and beneath this a little note stating that these were the words which he had
begged might be inscribed upon his tombstone.

Those who knew how ideal had been their wedded life, knew also how
through all the long years of widowerhood and the grief of separation that
lent its pathos to his fine face, there had been one sweet music to which he
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