But his heart grew cold because the village did not remember him as he remembered the village . `` Here is the change , '' sighed he , striking his hand upon his breast . `` Who is this man of thought and care , weary with world-wandering and heavy with disappointed hopes ? The youth returns not who went forth so joyously . '' And now Ralph Cranfield was at his mother 's gate , in front of the small house where the old lady , with slender but sufficient means , had kept herself comfortable during her son 's long absence . Admitting himself within the enclosure , he leaned against a great old tree , trifling with his own impatience as people often do in those intervals when years are summed into a moment . He took a minute survey of the dwelling -- its windows brightened with the sky-gleam , its doorway with the half of a millstone for a step , and the faintly-traced path waving thence to the gate . He made friends again with his childhood 's friend -- the old tree against which he leaned -- and , glancing his eye down its trunk , beheld something that excited a melancholy smile . It was a half-obliterated inscription -- the Latin word '' Effode '' -- which he remembered to have carved in the bark of the tree with a whole day 's toil when he had first begun to muse about his exalted destiny . It might be accounted a rather singular coincidence that the bark just above the inscription had put forth an excrescence shaped not unlike a hand , with the forefinger pointing obliquely at the word of fate . Such , at least , was its appearance in the dusky light . `` Now , a credulous man , '' said Ralph Cranfield , carelessly , to himself , `` might suppose that the treasure which I have sought round the world lies buried , after all , at the very door of my mother 's dwelling . That would be a jest indeed . '' More he thought not about the matter , for now the door was opened and an elderly woman appeared on the threshold , peering into the dusk to discover who it might be that had intruded on her premises and was standing in the shadow of her tree . It was Ralph Cranfield 's mother . Pass we over their greeting , and leave the one to her joy and the other to his rest -- if quiet rest he found . But when morning broke , he arose with a troubled brow , for his sleep and his wakefulness had alike been full of dreams . All the fervor was rekindled with which he had burned of yore to unravel the threefold mystery of his fate . The crowd of his early visions seemed to have awaited him beneath his mother 's roof and thronged riotously around to welcome his return . In the well-remembered chamber , on the pillow where his infancy had slumbered , he had passed a wilder night than ever in an Arab tent or when he had reposed his head in the ghastly shades of a haunted forest .
A shadowy maid had stolen to his bedside and laid her finger on the scintillating heart ; a hand of flame had glowed amid the darkness , XXXXX downward to a mystery within the earth ; a hoary sage had waved his prophetic wand and beckoned the dreamer onward to a chair of state .
Pass carved opened pointing put remember shaped sighed took waving