It was dark ere I set out homewards, and on the summit of the hill I stopped to look across the coombe, where flickered the innumerable wood fires of the iron smelters’ forges.  It reminded me strangely of that eventful day, but a few weeks past, when I journeyed over the selfsame road with my father, and instinctively I breathed a prayer for vengeance against his foul murderer.