What was he to do with himself? While he was asking this question and
waiting blankly for an answer which did not come, his aunt, old Mrs.
Massey, departed this life, leaving him heir to what she possessed,
which might be three hundred a year in all. This, added to his pension
and the little that he owned independently, put him beyond the
necessity of seeking further employment. So he had made up his mind to
come to reside at Molehill, and live the quiet, somewhat aimless, life
of a small country gentleman. His reading, for he was a great reader,
especially of scientific works, would, he thought, keep him employed.
Moreover, he was a thorough sportsman, and an ardent, though owing to
the smallness of his means, necessarily not a very extensive,
collector of curiosities, and more particularly of coins.

At first, after he had come to his decision, a feeling of infinite
rest and satisfaction had taken possession of him. The struggle of
life was over for him. No longer would he be obliged to think, and
contrive, and toil; henceforth his days would slope gently down
towards the inevitable end. Trouble lay in the past, now rest and rest
alone awaited him, rest that would gradually grow deeper and deeper as
the swift years rolled by, till it was swallowed up in that almighty
Peace to which, being a simple and religious man, he had looked
forward from childhood as the end and object of his life.

Foolish man and vain imagining! Here, while we draw breath, there is
no rest. We must go on continually, on from strength to strength, or
weakness to weakness; we must always be troubled about this or that,
and must ever have this desire or that to regret. It is an inevitable
law within whose attraction all must fall; yes, even the purest souls,
cradled in their hope of heaven; and the most swinish, wallowing in
the mud of their gratified desires.