She began to shake with great silent sobs. Her face was wet now, and she could n't see. She sank at the roots of the mountain-ash.
"Rowan-tree, rowan-tree!" she cried, "I shall never see him any more!"
And as she sobbed, a little breeze came from the Three Rock Mountain, and all the trees in the garden murmured gently. The great ash unbent, the elm swayed, and the little apple-trees nodded with compassion. All the shrubs in the garden rustled.
Hush—hush! Hush—hush! Hush—hush!
"Oh, rowan-tree! rowan-tree!"
Hush—hush! Hush—hush!
The moon came gently from behind a great saffron-edged cloud and seemed to bend toward her. Its rays poured sweetly toward the dark head. A rabbit had come somehow into the garden and sat up near her, its ears lop, its pink nose twitching.
See—see! See—see! See—see! The trees were like kindly muses. The sobbing ceased as she watched, as a child's sobbing might.
It scampered off now, for in the kennel the foxhound puppies had wakened—her step or some cry of hers, maybe—and were snuffling and whining to get at her. And from the stables came the rap-rap of Fenian's hoofs, uneasy in his stall.
"I must go in," she said.
Her hand patted the bark of the rowan-tree, and she turned to go into the old house that had been there so many centuries and was there still, sheltering the complement of aging, tyrannous servants in their peaceful sleep, and was beckoning her, she felt, beckoning her to its wide lap....