Tapanui.

Clutha Leader, Volume II, Issue 68, 28 October 1875, Page 5

Tapanui.

(From our own eorrespon-drtft ) So " Wattle" is dead they Bay. Gon« f--~ amongst us ! So soon ! So sudden ! Cai. really be ? Will we not moet him ngai_ v his wonted cheerful greeting our old fumi' ' 4 Wattie ?' Ah,no J The tale is hut too tr n WH will not meet our friend here a-^aiu ; we . must cross that same dark valley, before auo<Buch greeting can be exchanged with our •'*■ departed friend ! His earthly cares, hw hn.<and his joys are all o'er; and now he sice*.- . his peaceful bed by tho foot of the mount- '•■ that but a few weeks ago he trod in nil the v of manhood's prime, with hoped as high ..*.. cares as keen as the youngest of ns. But su< life, and its uncertainties ; and death in '

seeming oapricousness ever delights to p]uo*r • * • ■ choicest flowers in their bloom, and to take rfrom us the pc iris we prize tho highest and "• •*■ can spare. It seems cruel and inexplicable t* • poor mortal, but wo must submit, and wa*'. the hope of one day being able io rejoice togein a happier region, and he able to see and W> that ; all was the rulling of a higher hand for *-•* good. Mr Walter Kskdale, one of our earl..-; aod most respected settlers in thU district, <• on Sunday last, the 17th inst., after a .■**'• illness. His sudden and unexpected death i-----spread a deep gloom over the diatrict. 'Au-. ten days before his death he was seized *v something like a sovore cold, bHt gradual)-" ****- flamation or some other virulent malady s***, ;.. and he <«ontinued to get worse Until Siu*. morning, when he breathed his last. On Mo: ■• the 18th, his remains were interred in the " paoui Cemetery, and the estemn and respnc ':. which he was held was duly shown by tbe v* cortege Which followed in honor of their dep"*v* ' friend, and not a few were seen to drop a sn-. <■ tear of sorrow on the bier of their old friend h countryman as it was lowered into ita nam cell. Mr Eakdale was about forty.fi ve v-q****- -■-* age, and was a native of Liddesdale. Sco'tlaxw' that far-famed source and scene of Scottish i.-*. riotism ahd valor. May it ever bo fertile of * peaceful patriots m the one we now mm*... eighteen thousand miles from its grassy w and silent glens. Mr Kskdale has beem* sixteen years in this colony, and has p*t • through all the vicissitudes of its early days «* ' \ honor and credit to himself, and he now leave -. *. fine family of ten, boys and girls, to d<** • honor and wrviee to the land of h ; s a-flop-M .". very deep sympathy is felt for Mrs Eskda ' •• her bereavement, and blbo from the peculiar y in which her sorrows have been mingled toge " in so short a spaoe of time—the last living t.->'* •■ of their love having only seen the light a days before it« father's death. Nay! Did f -■■ the last token of love—

No 1_ Heaven's immortal spring shall yet arrivi, And h.i majest'e beauty bloom again, * Bright through the eternal year of love'-*' triumphant reign.