; passed over it perhaps unrecognised for some change
in that terrible place, or rather in himself; wept then as never before
in his life; dragged himself on once more, till suddenly the whole
country seems to move under the rumour, the very thunder, of "the
crowning victory," as he is made to understand. Falling in with the
tide of its heroes returning to English shores, his vagrant footsteps
are at last directed homewards. He finds himself one afternoon at the
gate, turning out of the quiet Sussex road, through the fields for
whose safety he had fought with so much of undeniable gallantry and
approval.

On that July afternoon the gardens, the woods, mounted in flawless
sweetness all round him as he stood, to meet the circle of a flawless
sky. Not a cloud; not a motion on the grass! At the first he had
intended to return home no more; and it had been a proof of his great
dejection that he sent at last, as best he could, for money. They knew
his fate already [240] by report, and were touched naturally when that
had followed on the record of his honours. Had it been possible they
would have set forth at any risk to meet, to seek him; were waiting now
for the weary one to come to the gate, ready with their oil and wine,
to speak metaphorically, and from this time forth underwent his charm
to the utmost--the charm of an exquisite character, felt in some way to
be inseparable from his person, his characteristic movements, touched
also now with seemingly irreparable sorrow. For his part, drinking in
here the last sweets of the sensible world, it was as if he, the lover
of roses, had never before been aware of them at all. The original
softness of his temperament, against which the sense of greater things
thrust upon him had successfully reacted, asserted itself again now as
he lay at ease, the ease well merited by his deeds, his sorrows. That
he was going to die moved those about him to humour this mood, to
soften all things to his touch; and looking back he might have
pronounced those four last years of doom the happiest of his life. The
memory of the grave into which he had gazed so steadily on the
execution morning, into which, as he feels, one half of himself had
then descended, does not lessen his shrinking from the fate before him,
yet fortifies him to face it manfully, gives a sort of fraternal
familiarity to death; in a few weeks' time this battle too is fought
out; it is as if the thing were ended. [241] Th