sympathies which had come to him as a man. The same is true of _Tales of
the Ridings_, published for the first time in the following pages.

The last five years of his life (1914-1919) had, to him as to others,
been years of unusual stress. Disqualified for active service, he had
readily undertaken the extra work entailed by the departure of his
younger colleagues for the war. He had also discharged the semi-military
duties, such as acting on guard against enemy aircraft, which fell
within his powers; and, both on the outskirts of Leeds and round his
Lytton Dale cottage, he had devoted all the time he could spare to
allotment work, so as to take his share--it was, in truth, much more
than his share--in increasing the yield of the soil. All this, with a
host of miscellaneous duties which he voluntarily shouldered, had put an
undue strain upon his strength. Yet, with his usual buoyancy, he had
seemed to stand it all without flagging; and even when warned by the
army medical authorities that his heart showed some weakness, he had
paid little heed to the warning, had certainly in no way allowed it
either to interfere with his various undertakings or to prey upon his
spirits.

The Armistice naturally brought some relief. Among other things, it
opened the prospect of the return of his colleagues and a considerable
lightening both of his professional and of his manifold civic duties. He
was, moreover, much encouraged--as a man of his modest, almost
diffident, nature was bound to be--by the recognition which _Songs of
the Ridings_ had brought from every side: not least from the dalesmen,
for whom and under whose inspiration they were written. And all his
friends rejoiced to think that a new and brighter horizon seemed opening
before him. Those who saw him during these last months thought that he
had never been so buoyant. They felt that a new hope and a new