The third and last of the miraculous events in the life of this high-destined man was to be the attainment of extensive influence and sway over his fellow-creatures . Whether he were to be a king , and founder of an hereditary throne , or the victorious leader of a people contending for their freedom , or the apostle of a purified and regenerated faith , was left for futurity to show . As messengers of the sign , by which Ralph Cranfield might recognize the summons , three venerable men were to claim audience of him . The chief among them , a dignified and majestic person , arrayed , it may be supposed , in the flowing garments of an ancient sage , would be the bearer of a wand , or prophet 's rod . With this wand , or rod , or staff , the venerable sage would trace a certain figure in the air , and then proceed to make known his heaven-instructed message ; which , if obeyed , must lead to glorious results . With this proud fate before him , in the flush of his imaginative youth , Ralph Cranfield had set forth to seek the maid , the treasure , and the venerable sage , with his gift of extended empire . And had he found them ? Alas ! it was not with the aspect of a triumphant man , who had achieved a nobler destiny than all his fellows , but rather with the gloom of one struggling against peculiar and continual adversity , that he now passed homeward to his mother 's cottage . He had come back , but only for a time , to lay aside the pilgrim 's staff , trusting that his weary manhood would regain somewhat of the elasticity of youth , in the spot where his threefold fate had been foreshown him . There had been few changes in the village ; for it was not one of those thriving places where a year 's prosperity makes more than the havoc of a century 's decay ; but like a gray hair in a young man 's head , an antiquated little town , full of old maids , and aged elms , and moss-grown dwellings . Few seemed to be the changes here . The drooping elms , indeed , had a more majestic spread ; the weather-blackened houses were adorned with a denser thatch of verdant moss ; and doubtless there were a few more gravestones in the burial-ground , inscribed with names that had once been familiar in the village street . Yet , summing up all the mischief that ten years had wrought , it seemed scarcely more than if Ralph Cranfield had gone forth that very morning , and dreamed a daydream till the twilight , and then turned back again . 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 XXXXX a great , old tree , trifling with his own impatience , as people often do in those intervals when years are summed into a moment .
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