hangings, and carvings in walnut and oak, which the one candle he carried barely lit but only set queer shadows scampering.  And here he left Rodriguez, who was soon in bed, with the great red hangings round him.  And awhile he wondered at the huge silence of the house all round him, with never a murmur, never an echo, never a sigh; for he missed the passing of winds, branches waving, the stirring of small beasts, birds of prey calling, and the hundred sounds of the night; but soon through the silence came sleep.

He did not need to dream, for here in the home of Serafina he had come to his dreams’ end.

Another day shone on another scene; for the sunlight that went in a narrow stream of gold and silver between the huge red curtains had sent away the shadows that had stalked overnight through the room, and had scattered the eeriness that had lurked on the far side of furniture, and all the dimness was gone that the long red room had harboured.  And for a while Rodriguez did not know where he was; and for a while, when he remembered, he could not believe it true.  He dressed with care, almost with fear, and preened his small moustachios, which at last had grown again just when he would have despaired.  Then he descended, and found that he had slept late, though the three of that ancient house were seated yet at the table, and Serafina all dressed in white seemed to Rodriguez to be shining in rivalry with the morning.  Ah dreams and fancies of youth!

THE ELEVENTH CHRONICLE

HOW HE TURNED TO GARDENING AND HIS SWORD RESTED

These were the days that Rodriguez always remembered; and, side by side with them, there lodged in his memory, and went down with them into his latter years, the days and nights when he went through the Pyrenees and walked when he would have slept but had to walk or freeze:  and by some queer rule that guides us he treasured them both in his memory, these happy days in this garden and the frozen nights on the peaks.

For Serafina showed Rodriguez the garden that behind the house ran narrow and long to the wild.  There were rocks with heliotrope pouring over them and flowers peeping behind them, and great azaleas all in triumphant bloom, and ropes of flowering creepers coming down from trees, and oleanders, and a plant named popularly Joy of the South, and small paths went along it edged with shells brought from the far sea.

There was only one street in the village, and you did not go far among the great azaleas before you lost sight of the gables; and you did not go far before the small paths ended with their shells from the distant sea, and there was the mistress of all gardeners facing you, Mother Nature nursing her children, the things of the wild.  She too had azaleas and oleanders, but they stood more solitary in their greater garden than those that grew in the garden of Dona Mirana; and she too had little paths, only they were without