XXV

DEATH OF CANON BUTLER

45

1886

into the room he had fought hard for life. He never knew me since I saw him early in December. Nor did he know anyone. Aet. 51 Once my cousin, Archdeacon Lloyd, began in a loud professional tone to repeat some prayers for the dying. On this my father, for a few seconds-not more-opened his eyes and obviously regained consciousness; but as he did so, there came an expression over his face as though he were saying to himself "Oh, no; it is not the Day of Judgement; it is only Tom Lloyd," and he became comatose again at once.

Butler used to say that it takes a lot of money to die in comfort, and, when he saw how carefully his father was nursed, how absolutely free he was from mental pain, and how in all ways quietly he was ending his life, he turned to Archdeacon Lloyd and said: "How gently do they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!"

He was asked to write a notice of his father for the local papers and did so. The Dr. Burd mentioned in the following note was the doctor at Shrewsbury who attended Canon Butler.

MY FATHER AND MYSELF

Dr. Burd, soon after my father died, was holding forth and suggesting things for me to mention in the obituary notice I had to write for the Shrewsbury papers. I said, to tease him: "You see, Dr. Burd, one of the greatest feathers in my father's cap was one that I cannot refer to.'

Dr. Burd was surprised and asked my meaning.

"I mean," said I, somewhat freezingly, "that he was my

father."

Dr. Burd did not like this and said he had not looked at the matter in that light hitherto. Whether or not he suspected that I was only wanting to tease him I neither know nor care,

CHAPTER XXVI

1887. 1888-PART I

EX VOTO

1887 CANON BUTLER by his will did as he had threatened and Aet. 51 tied up the greater part of what he left his son; but, except that this prevented Butler from dealing with the principal so tied up, it did not inflict on him any other injury and, as regards income, he found himself comfortably off once more. He repaid all the money he had borrowed during his financial difficulties of the preceding ten years, and was now able to continue the allowance to Pauli without feeling it anything of a drag. He also began to look round for some one to come and help in his

rooms.

His

Mrs. Doncaster, his laundress, had a friend, Mrs. Cathie, whose nephew, Alfred Emery Cathie, a young man just over twenty-two, was in want of a job. Butler took him on for a time to see how it worked. business was partly to replace Robert, and partly to act as clerk, valet, and general attendant; he was also, as a live young thing about the place, a cheerful addition to Clifford's Inn. They got on so well together that Alfred remained permanently.

I had returned to the office of Sir Thomas Paine and was working there as managing clerk. Butler proposed that I should give up trying to succeed as a solicitor, in which profession my relations and friends had frequently given me to understand that I was not doing remarkably well, and that I should devote myself to helping him with his music and his writing, he giving me the amount I was