It was late in the afternoon that we reached a broad meadow hemmed in
by noble cedars. I knew without telling that we were come to the scene
of the tragedy, and with one accord we fell silent. The place had been
well looked after, for a road had been made through the woods, and had
been carried over marshy places on a platform of cedar piles. Presently
we came to a log fence with a gate, which hung idly open. Within was a
paddock, and beyond another fence, and beyond that a great pile of
blackened timber. The place was so smiling and homelike under the
westering sun that one looked to see a trim steading with the smoke of
hearth fires ascending, and to hear the cheerful sounds of labour and
of children's voices. Instead there was this grim, charred heap, with
the light winds swirling the ashes.
Every man of us uncovered his head as he rode towards the melancholy
place. I noticed a little rosary, which had been carefully tended, but
horses had ridden through it, and the blossoms were trailing crushed on
the ground. There was a flower garden too, much trampled, and in one
corner a little stream of water had been led into a pool fringed with
forget-me-nots. A tiny water-wheel was turning in the fall, a
children's toy, and the wheel still turned, though its owners had gone.
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