At last he overtook some of his brother’s servants with the led horses, whom he scarcely recognized, so far were his senses obscured. Their master had ridden on before with two servants, they told him; he would have to ride hard to overtake them. He seemed eager, they said, to be at home. Inglesant could scarcely sit his horse, much less expect to overtake his brother—who was well mounted and an impetuous rider—nevertheless he gave his horse the spur, and the animal, also a good roadster, soon left the servants far behind. The confusion of mind which he suffered increased more and more as he rode along, and the events of his past life came up before his eyes as clearly and palpably as the objects through which he was riding, so that he could not distinguish the real from the imaginary, the present from the past, which added extremely to his distress. He stood again amid the confusion and carnage of Naseby field; once more he saw the throng of heads, and heard that terrible cry that had welcomed him to the scaffold; again he looked into the fatal crystal, and strange visions and ghostly shapes of death and corruption came out from it, and walked to and fro along the hedgerows and across the road before him, making terrible the familiar English fields; a tolling of the passing bell rang continually in his ear, and his horse’s footfalls sounded strange and funereal to his diseased sense. He knew nothing of the road, nor of what happened as he rode along, nor what people he passed; but he missed the direct turning, and reached Mintern at last by another lane which led him some distance round. The servants with the led horses were there before him, standing before the inn door, and other strange servants in his brother’s liveries, and several horses stood about. The old manor that was now an inn stood close to the Church, at the opening of the village, with a little green before it and a wall, in the centre of which was a pair of gates flanked with pillars. The iron gates were closed, but the wall had been thrown down for some yards on either side, thus giving ample access to the house within. It was a handsome house with a large high window over the porch, in the upper panes of which Inglesant could see coats of arms. Amid the tracery of the iron gates running greyhounds were interlaced.