And so I strayed through the silent, sunny rooms, touching the walls with aching heart, and bidding each threshold adieu. Ghosts walked with me through the dimmed sunbeams; far in the house, faintest familiar sounds seemed to stir, half-heard whispers, the echo of laughter, a dear voice calling from above. Over these floors Silver Heels's light feet had passed, brushing every plank, perhaps the very spot I stood on. Hark! Over and over again that fading echo filled my ears for an instant, as though somebody had just spoken in a distant room.
Passing the stocks where Silver Heels had so often sat to pout and embroider, or battle with us to protect her helpless feet from torment, I came to the school-room once more.
Apparently nobody had entered it since I had written my verses on Eurydice—so long, so long ago. There were traces of the verses still—smeared from my struggle with Silver Heels when I had written:
"Silver Heels toes in like ducks."
Heaven save the libel!
And here on a bench was my tattered mythology, thumbed and bitten, and the fly-leaf soaked with ink where Peter had made a scene of battle in Indian fashion, the English being scalped on all sides by himself, Esk, and Joseph Brant, all labelled.
I took the book, turning to where I had written my bequest to Silver Heels on the inside cover, and then carried it to my chamber, there to add this last link of childhood to the others in my packets.
I do not exactly understand why, but I also carried with me the flag I had taken from Cresap's fort, and rolled it up in my uniform which was given me by Sir William.
Neither flag nor uniform were any longer mine, yet I ever have found it impossible to neglect that which I once loved. So I rolled the bunting and my scarlet clothes with my best silver-gray velvet, and tied all together.
When young Bareshanks came to announce that Warlock waited, I bade him carry my two packets down, following, myself, with Sir William's long rifle, and otherwise completely equipped with hatchet, knife, powder and ball, flint and tinder, and a small stew-pan.