“What was that, Seth?”

“It was a morning I’m not forgetting until I’m past remembering anything.  We all knew you were coming, and we were looking every day to hear the news.  When we did hear it, it was only part of the story, and the other part was most our concern for a while.  The mistress was like to die, they said.  I remember there was wailing among the plantation hands, and Gadman the overseer had to use his whip to keep ’em quiet.  We others were just dumb and waited.  Then came the morning I speak of.  The mistress was out before the house again for the first time.  I chanced to be by, and she called me.  You were lying asleep in her lap.  ‘Seth,’ she said, ’this is the young master; isn’t he beautiful?  You must do your best to see that he comes to no harm as he grows up.’  Well, that’s all I’ve done, and it’s what I’m bound to go on doing just as long as ever I can.  That was the first time I saw you, Master Richard.”

Barrington did not answer.  His companion’s words had brought a picture to his mind of his home in Virginia, which he had never loved quite so well perhaps as at this moment when he was far away from it, and was conscious that he might never see it again.  Only a few months ago, when he had sat on the hummock, falling into much the same position as he had so often done as a boy, he had even wondered whether he wanted to return to it.  Broadmead could never be the same place to him again.  His father had died five years since, and that had been a terrible and sincere grief to him, but he had his mother, and had to fill his father’s place as well as he could.  The work on the estate gave him much to do, and if the news from France which found its way to Broadmead set him dreaming afresh at times, he cast such visions away.  He had no inclination to leave his mother now she was alone, and he settled down to peaceful, happy days, hardly desiring that anything should be different, perhaps forgetting that some day it must be different.  Not a year had passed since the change had come.  A few days’ illness and his mother was suddenly dead.

He was alone in the world.  How could Broadmead ever be the same to him again?

“Seth, did my mother ever say anything more to you about me?” he asked suddenly.

“She thanked me for saving you from the bull, though I wanted no thanks.”

“Nothing more?”

“Only once,” Seth returned, “and then she said almost the same words as she did when I first saw you lying on her knee.  ’See that he comes to no harm, Seth.’  She sent for me the night before she died, Master Richard.  That’s why I’m here.  I didn’t want to leave Virginia particularly.”

Barrington might have expressed some regret for bringing his companion to France had not his horse suddenly demanded his attention.  They had traversed the long stretch of straight road, and were passing by a thin wood of young trees.  Long grass bordered the road on either side, and Barrington’s horse suddenly shied and became restive.