Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/186

 almost anguish, and then at a sudden thought he shrank together, his arm crooked over his eyes. He sank forward, till covering his eyes, into a great bed of fern, just eginning to unroll their whitey-green balls into long, pale plumes. There he lay as still as if he were dead. Two men came riding through the lane, their horses treading noiselessly over the leaf-mold. They had almost passed the motionless, prostrate figure when the older reined in and pointed with his whip. "What is that, LeMaury?"

At the unexpected sound the boy half rose, showing a face so convulsed that the other horseman cried out alarmed, "It ees a man crazed! Ride on, mon colonel!" He put spurs to his horse and sprang forward as he spoke.

The old soldier laughed a little, and turned to Nathaniel. "Why, 'tis the minister his son. I know you by the look of your father in you. What bad dream have we waked you from, you pretty boy?"

"You have not waked me from it," cried Nathaniel. "I will never wake as long as I live, and when I die!"

"Why, LeMaury is right. The poor lad is crazed. We must see to this."

He swung himself stiffly from the saddle and came limping up to Nathaniel. Kneeling by the boy he brought him up to a sitting position, and at the sight of the ashen face and white, turned-back eyeballs he sat down hastily, drawing the young head upon his shoulder with a rough tenderness. "Why, so lads look under their first fire, when they die of fear. What frights you so?"

Nathaniel opened great solemn eyes upon him. "I