And later he made a treaty with the Spanish King acknowledging him sole Lord of Spain, including Shadow Valley, saving that certain right should pertain to the foresters and should be theirs for ever.  And these rights are written on parchment and sealed with the seal of Spain; and none may harm the forest without the bowmen’s leave.

Rodriguez was made Duke of Shadow Valley and a Magnifico of the first degree; though little he went with other hidalgos to Court, but lived with his family in Shadow Valley, travelling seldom beyond the splendour of the forest farther than Lowlight.

Thus he saw the glory of autumn turning the woods to fairyland:  and when the stags were roaring and winter coming on he would take a boar-spear down from the wall and go hunting through the forest, whose twigs were black and slender and still against the bright menace of winter.  Spring found him viewing the fields that his men had sown, along the forest’s edge, and finding in the chaunt of the myriad birds a stirring of memories, a beckoning towards past days.  In summer he would see his boys and girls at play, running through shafts of sunlight that made leaves and grass like pale emeralds.  He gave his days to the forest and the four seasons.  Thus he dwelt amidst splendours such as History has never seen in any visit of hers to the courts of men.

Of him and Serafina it has been written and sung that they lived happily ever after; and though they are now so many centuries dead, may they have in the memories of such of my readers as will let them linger there, that afterglow of life that remembrance gives, which is all that there is on earth for those that walked it once and that walk the paths of their old haunts no more.