“And he replied: ‘I left him in the Pipi Valley of the Rocky Mountains a year ago.’
“‘A year ago!’ said I, sadly.
“‘I’m ashamed that I’ve been so long in comin’ here,’ replied he; ‘but, of course, he didn’t know that you were alive, and I had been parted from a lady for years—a lover’s quarrel—and I had to choose between courtin’ her again and marryin’ her, or comin’ to Farcalladen Rise at once. Well, I went to the altar first.’
“‘Oh, sir, you’ve come with the speed of the wind, for now that I’ve news of him, it is only yesterday that he went away, not years agone. But tell me, does he ever think of me?’ I questioned.
“‘He thinks of you,’ he said, ‘as one for whom the masses for the dead are spoken; but while I knew him, first and last, the memory of you was with him.’
“With that he got off his horse, and said: ‘I’ll walk with you to his father’s home.’
“‘You’ll not do that,’ I replied; ‘for it’s level with the ground. God punish them that did it! And they’re lyin’ in the glen by the stream that he loved and galloped over many a time.’
“‘They are dead—they are dead, then,’ said he, with his bridle swung loose on his arm and his hat off reverently.
“‘Gone home to Heaven together,’ said I, ‘one day and one hour, and a prayer on their lips for the lad; and I closin’ their eyes at the last. And before they went they made me sit by them and sing a song that’s common here with us; for manny and manny of the strength and pride of Farcalladen Rise have sailed the wide seas north and south, and otherwhere, and comin’ back maybe and maybe not.’
“‘Hark,’ he said, very gravely, ‘and I’ll tell you what it is, for I’ve heard him sing it, I know, in the worst days and the best days that ever we had, when luck was wicked and big against us and we starvin’ on the wallaby track; or when we found the turn in the lane to brighter days.’