Could they not do so by daylight?
Grandmother sat down on a bench on the terrace, and drew my head to her bosom. Lorand leaned his elbows upon the rail of the terrace and watched the work.
The hay was tossed into a heap and the high wind drove the chaff on to the terrace, but no one told the servants to be more careful.
This midnight work was, for me, so mysterious.
Only once I saw that Lorand turned round as he stood, and began to weep; thereupon grandmother rose, and they fell each upon the other's breast.
I clutched their garments and gazed up at them trembling. Not a single lamp burned upon the terrace.
"Sh!" whispered grandmother, "don't weep so loudly," she was herself choking with sobs. "Come, let us go."
With that she took my hand, and, leaning upon my brother's arm, came down with us into the courtyard, down to the wagon, which stood before the garden gate. Two or more heaps of straw hid it from the eye; it was visible only when we reached the bottom of the wagon.
On that wagon lay the coffin of my father.
So this it was that in the dead of night we had stealthily brought into the village, that we had in so skulking a manner escorted, and had so concealed; and of which we had spoken in whispers. This it was that we had wept over in secret—my father's coffin. The four retainers lifted it from the wagon, then carried it on their shoulders toward the garden. We went after it, with bared heads and silent tongues.