Within was a paddock, and beyond another fence, and beyond that a great pile of blackened timber.

The place was so smiling and homelike under the westering sun that one looked to see a trim steading with the smoke of hearth fires ascending, and to hear the cheerful sounds of labour and of children's voices.

Instead there was this grim, charred heap, with the light winds swirling the ashes.
Every man of us uncovered his head as he rode towards the melancholy place.

I noticed a little rosary, which had been carefully tended, but horses had ridden through it, and the blossoms were trailing crushed on the ground.

There was a flower garden too, much trampled, and in one corner a little stream of water had been led into a pool fringed with forget-me-nots.