There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there."
"How shall we rank thee upon glory's page?
Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage."
"Grief fills the room up of my absent child;
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Remembers me of all his gracious parts."
Near midnight, on March the ninth, the weary fugitives arrived
at Gonzales. They had been detained by the deep mud in the
bottom lands, and by the extreme exhaustion of the ladies,
demanding some hours' rest each day. The village was dark
and quiet. Here and there the glimmer of a candle,
now and then the call of a sentry, or the wail of a child
broke the mysterious silence.
Ortiz appeared to know the ground perfectly. He drove without
hesitation to a log house in which a faint thread of light was
observable, and as he approached it he gave a long, peculiar
whistle. The door was instantly thrown open, and, as the
wagon stopped, two men stepped eagerly to it. In another
instant the Senora was weeping in her husband's arms, and
Isabel laughing and crying and murmuring her sweet surprises
into the ear of the delighted Luis. When their wraps had been
removed from the wagon, Ortiz drove away, leaving Navarro and
Antonia standing by the little pile of ladies' luggage.
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