Already I find him
writing in the plural of 'these impending deaths'; already I find
him in quest of consolation. 'There is little pain in store for
these wayfarers,' he wrote, 'and we have hope - more than hope,
trust.'
On May 19, 1884, Mr. Austin was taken. He was seventy-eight years
of age, suffered sharply with all his old firmness, and died happy
in the knowledge that he had left his wife well cared for. This
had always been a bosom concern; for the Barrons were long-lived
and he believed that she would long survive him. But their union
had been so full and quiet that Mrs. Austin languished under the
separation. In their last years, they would sit all evening in
their own drawing-room hand in hand: two old people who, for all
their fundamental differences, had yet grown together and become
all the world in each other's eyes and hearts; and it was felt to
be a kind release, when eight months after, on January 14, 1885,
Eliza Barron followed Alfred Austin. 'I wish I could save you from
all pain,' wrote Fleeming six days later to his sorrowing wife, 'I
would if I could - but my way is not God's way; and of this be
assured, - God's way is best.
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