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.
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