Box Hill was no longer deserted. When a great man dies--and this was one of the greatest since Shakespeare--the immortals await him at the top of the nearest hill. He looked up and saw his peers. They were all young, like himself. He waved the staff in greeting. One, a mere stripling, "slight unspeakably," detached himself from the others, crying gloriously as he recognized his master, "Here's the fellow I have been telling you about!" and ran down the hill to be the first to take his hand. In the meantime an empty coach was rolling on to Dorking. _G. M._ _1828-1909._ _Forty years back, when much had place That since has perished out of mind, I heard that voice and saw that face._ _He spoke as one afoot will wind A morning horn ere men awake; His note was trenchant, turning kind._ _He was of those whose wit can shake And riddle to the very core The counterfeits that Time will break...._ _Of late, when we two met once more, The luminous countenance and rare Shone just as forty years before._ _So that, when now all tongues declare His shape unseen by his green hill, I scarce believe he sits not there._ _No matter. Further and further still Through the world's vaporous vitiate air His words wing on--as live words will._ THOMAS HARDY. _May, 1909._ End of Project Gutenberg's Neither Dorking Nor The Abbey, by J. M. Barrie