noon we came upon one of those very patriarchs our-
selves, in the edge of a poor village. He was basking
in the love of relatives and friends whom he had not
seen for fifty years; and about him and caressing him
were also descendants of his own body whom he had
never seen at all till now; but to him these were all
strangers, his memory was gone, his mind was stag-
nant. It seemed incredible that a man could outlast
half a century shut up in a dark hole like a rat, but
here were his old wife and some old comrades to
testify to it. They could remember him as he was in
the freshness and strength of his young manhood,
when he kissed his child and delivered it to its mother's
hands and went away into that long oblivion. The
people at the castle could not tell within half a genera-