to carry it far from Lowlight, through
places familiar with roses and places strange to them; but it remained
for him a thing of mystery until a day far from then.

Sadly he left the house in the sad rain, marching away alone to look
for his wars.

THE SEVENTH CHRONICLE

HOW HE CAME TO SHADOW VALLEY

Rodriguez still believed it to be the duty of any Christian man to kill
Morano. Yet, more than comfort, more than dryness, he missed Morano's
cheerful chatter, and his philosophy into which all occasions so easily
slipped. Upon his first day's journey all was new; the very anemones
kept him company; but now he made the discovery that lonely roads are
long.

When he had suggested food or rest Morano had fallen in with his
wishes; when he had suggested winning a castle in vague wars Morano had
agreed with him. Now he had dismissed Morano and had driven him away at
the rapier's point. There was no one now either to cook his food or to
believe in the schemes his ambition made. There was no one now to speak
of the wars as the natural end of the journey. Alone in the rain the
wars seemed far away and castles hard to come by. The unromantic rain
in which no dreams thrive fell on and on.

The village of Lowlight was some way behind him, as he went with
mournful thoughts through the drizzling rain, when he caught the smell
of bacon. He looked for a house but the plain was bare except for small
bushes. He looked up wind, which was blowing from the west, whence came
the unmistakable smell of bacon: and there was a small fire smoking
greyly against a bush; and the fat figure crouching beside it, although
the face was averted, was clearly none but Morano. And when Rodriguez
saw that he was tenderly holding the infamous frying-pan, the very
weapon that had done the accursed deed, then he almost felt righteous
anger; but that frying-pan held other memories too, and Rodriguez felt
less fury than what he thought he felt. As for killing Morano,
Rodriguez believed, or thought he believed, that he was too far from
the road for it to be possible to overtake him to mete out his just
punishment. As for the bacon, Rodriguez scorned it and marched on down
the road. Now one side of the frying-pan was very hot, for it was
tilted a little and the lard had run sideways. By tilting it back again
slowly Morano could make the fat run back bit by bit over the heated
metal, and whenever it did so it sizzled. He now picked up the
frying-pan a