Page:The English Peasant.djvu/304

 when he was free and " happy as a sandboy on a Surrey common."

It was only on Sunday, however, that he could get this relaxation, and even then he often spent the time in writing.

It is clear he grew more earnest and more bitter as the tim! approached that he must give up his work. How near it was he had no conception. In 1834 he stood again for Oldham, and was once more returned.

In the spring of the next year there was a debate in the House upon a motion for a repeal of the malt tax. Cobbett was present during the whole of the debate, and would have made a speech but for a sudden attack of the throat. On the 25th of May he spoke in favour of the motion for an inquiry into the causes of Agricultural distress. He went home exhausted, and got down immediately into the country. His disorder increased, and on the nth of July he was alarmingly ill. On Monday, the 15th, he was so much better that he was able to talk about political affairs, and said that he wished for four days' rain for the "Cobbett corn"—the Indian corn he cultivated on his farm, and wished to introduce into England. But a dread instinct told him that he] was approaching the spot

"Where sat the shadow feared of man."

He tried to throw the impression off. He would prove to himself, and every one else, that he was not going to die. So he had himself carried round the farm by four men in a sort of sedan-chair, made by tying two poles to the legs of a large arm-chair. It was a desperate effort, and when he returned to his bed it was evident that it was his last. But his indomitable spirit would not give in without a struggle. He fought his last enemy inch by inch. I won't die," he exclaimed to his attendant. But in that war there is no discharge, the most determined is soon overcome; and long before the morning light broke, long before all those joyous sounds began which he had a thousand times welcomed, his great heart ceased to beat, and the artisans of the north, and the labourers of the south, soon learnt to their dismay that William Cobbett, their champion and their friend, was no more.

His corpse was taken to his birthplace, and there, followed by