"It is not likely that any other claim will come between me and thee, my lord; this is passing away, and I shall be wholly thine."
The Baron smiled; his proud heart was touched.
"Go, then, Osric," he said, "and return to-morrow."
And so they parted.
Osric rode rapidly through the woods, up the course of the brook; we described the road in our second chapter. He passed the Moor-towns, left the Roman camp of Blewburton on the left, and was soon in the thick maze of swamp and wood which then occupied the country about Blewbery.
As he drew near the old home, many recollections crowded upon him, and he felt, as he always did there, something more like an Englishman. It was for this very reason he so seldom came "home" to visit his grandfather.
He found his way across the streams: the undergrowth had all been renewed since the fire which the hunters kindled four years agone; the birds were singing sweetly, for it was the happy springtide for them, and they were little affected by the causes which brought misery to less favoured mankind; the foliage was thick, the sweet hawthorn exhaled its perfume, the bushes were bright with "May." Ah me, how lovely the woods are in spring! how happy even this world might be, had man never sinned.
But within the hut were the unequivocal signs of the rupture between man and his Maker—the tokens which have ever existed since by sin came death.
Upon the bed in the inner room lay old Sexwulf, in the last stage of senile decay. He was dying of no distinct disease, only of general breaking-up of the system. Man cannot live for ever; he wears out in time, even if he escape disease.