ss the sea.

So soon as they had galloped away I called together the grooms and other
serving men and told them what had chanced. Then we went with lanterns,
for by now it was dark, and came to the thick brushwood where lay the
body of my mother. I drew near the first, for the men were afraid, and
so indeed was I, though why I should fear her lying dead who living had
loved me tenderly, I do not know. Yet I know this, that when I came to
the spot and saw two eyes glowering at me and heard the crash of bushes
as something broke them, I could almost have fallen with fear, although
I knew well that it was but a fox or wandering hound haunting the place
of death.

Still I went on, calling the others to follow, and the end of it was
that we laid my mother's body upon a door which had been lifted from
its hinges, and bore her home for the last time. And to me that path is
still a haunted place. It is seventy years and more since my mother died
by the hand of Juan de Garcia her cousin, yet old as I am and hardened
to such sad scenes, I do not love to walk that path alone at night.

Doubtless it was fancy which plays us strange tricks, still but a year
ago, having gone to set a springe for a woodcock, I chanced to pass by
yonder big oak upon a November eve, and I could have sworn that I saw
it all again. I saw myself a lad, my wounded arm still bound with Lily's
kerchief, climbing slowly down the hill-side, while behind me, groaning
beneath their burden, were the forms of the four serving men. I heard
the murmur of the river and the wind that seventy years ago whispered
in the reeds. I saw the clouded sky flawed here and there with blue,
and the broken light that gleamed on the white burden stretched upon the
door, and the red stain at its breast. Ay, I heard myself talk as I
went forward with the lantern, bidding the men pass to the right of some
steep and rotten ground, and it was strange to me to listen to my own
voice as it had been in youth. Well, well, it was but a dream, yet such
slaves are we to the fears of fancy, that because of the dead, I, who am
almost of their number, do not love to pass that path at night.

At length we came home with our burden, and the women took it weeping
and set about their task with it. And now I must not only fight my own
sorrows but must strive to soothe those of my sister Mary, who as I
feared would go mad with grief and horror. At last she sobbed herself
into a torpor, and I went and