THE RUIN
Just under the old ruined castle the ground sinks and forms a hollow, and there a little wood of ilex-trees has grown, through whose dark and thick evergreen foliage no ray of sunlight seems ever to penetrate. It is a weird and uncanny sort of place: the trees seem black, the ground is black, and no grass or flowers grow there. Only on some bit of old crumbling masonry the ivy has extended a funereal pall. No birds seem to nestle in this solitary spot, and the earth smells damp, whilst you shiver a little in the cool shade of the sacred trees. It is peculiarly quiet and silent under the ilex; and if, sitting there in the long summer afternoons, you get drowsy and dreamy, thinking perhaps of times long, long ago, you would not wonder very much if, through the dark green of the melancholy trees that make a dome of shade over your head, a white form should glide, swift and silent—glide down from the golden light beyond into the darkness and gloom of the ilex wood.
Dream or reality, what does it matter, since both pass away in the night of time, and after a while are remembered no more?
How many may have come under the old, old ilex-trees in drowsy hot summer afternoons, or later, when the silver moon tried with her trembling rays to pierce the dark gloom of the wood! how many, each with his burden of joy or sorrow—gone—forgotten—faded away!
Dream or reality, what does it matter?
CHAPTER VI
AQUILEIA
We were a gallant company.