The cellar was a mere dent in the
sloping ground; it had been filled in by the growing grass and slow
processes of summer and winter weather. But just at the pilgrim's
right were some thorny twigs of an old rosebush. A sudden brightening
of memory brought to mind the love that his mother--dead since his
fifteenth year--had kept for this sweetbrier. How often she had wished
that she had brought it to her new home! So much had changed in the
world, so many had gone into the world of light, and here the faithful
blooming thing was yet alive! There was one slender branch where green
buds were starting, and getting ready to flower in the new year.
The afternoon wore late, and still the gray-haired man lingered. He
might have laughed at some one else who gave himself up to sad
thoughts, and found fault with himself, with no defendant to plead his
cause at the bar of conscience. It was an altogether lonely hour. He
had dreamed all his life, in a sentimental, self-satisfied fashion, of
this return to Winby. It had always appeared to be a grand affair, but
so far he was himself the only interested spectator at his poor
occasion. There was even a dismal consciousness that he had been
undignified, perhaps even a little consequential and silly, in the old
school-house. The picture of himself on the war-path, in Johnny
Spencer's arithmetic, was the only tribute that this longed-for day
had held, but he laughed aloud delightedly at the remembrance and
really liked that solemn little boy who sat at his own old desk.
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