For a moment he stood so, caught into a joy that was almost anguish, and then at a sudden thought he shrank together, his arm crooked over his eyes. He sank forward, still covering his eyes, into a great bed of fern, just beginning 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 suppose it is the conviction of sin. That is what they call it." For an instant the old man's face was blank with astonishment, and then it wrinkled into a thousand lines of mirth. He began to laugh as though he would never stop. Nathaniel had never heard anyone laugh like that. He clutched at the old man. "How dare you laugh!" The other wiped his eyes and rocked to and fro, "I laugh--who would not--that such a witless baby should talk of his sin. You know not what sin is, you silly innocent!" At the kindliness of the tone an aching knot in the boy's throat relaxed. He began to talk hurriedly, in a desperate whisper, his hands like little birds' claws gripping the other's great gauntleted fist. "You do not know how wicked I am--I am so wholly forward the wonder is the devil does not take me at once. I live only in what my father calls the lust of the eye. I--I would rather look at a haw-tree in bloom than meditate on the Almighty!" He brought out this awful confession with a gasp at its enormity, but hurried on to a yet more terrible climax. "I cannot be righteous, but many times there are those who cannot--but oh, worse than that, I cannot even _wish_ to be! I can only wish to be a painter." At this unexpected ending the old man gave an exclamation of extreme amazement.