"and you liked to play with him sometimes, but in a little while you
will be glad that he has gone from you."
He asked her why.
"Because though he was fond of you and liked to follow you about and
play with you, he is very fierce and powerful, and all the other beasts
are afraid of him. So long as he was with us they would not come, but
now he has gone they will come to you and let you go to them."
"Where are they?" said Martin, his curiosity greatly excited.
"Let us wait here," she said, "and perhaps we shall see one by-and-by."
So they waited and were silent, and as nothing came and nothing
happened, Martin sitting on the mossy ground began to feel a strange
drowsiness stealing over him. He rubbed his eyes and looked round; he
wanted to keep very wide awake and alert, so as not to miss the sight of
anything that might come. He was vexed with himself for feeling drowsy,
and wondered why it was; then listening to the low continuous hum of the
bees, he concluded that it was that low, soft, humming sound that made
him sleepy. He began to look at the bees, and saw that they were unlike
other wild bees he knew, that they were like bumble-bees in shape but
much smaller, and were all of a golden brown colour: they were in
scores and hundreds coming and going, and had their home or nest in the
rock a few feet above his head. He got up, and climbing from his
mother's knee to her shoulder, and standing on it, he looked into the
crevice into which the bees were streaming, and saw their nest full of
clusters of small round objects that looked like white berries.
Then he came down and told her what he had seen, and wanted to know all
about it, and when she answered that the little round fruit-like objects
he had seen were cells full of purple honey that tasted sweet and salt,
he wanted her to get him some.
"Not now--not today," she replied, "for now you love me and are
contented to be with me, and you are my own darling child. When you are
naughty, and try to grieve me all you can, and would like to go away and
never see me more, you shall taste the purple honey."
He looked up into her face wondering and troubled at her words, and she
smiled down so sweetly on his upturned face, looking very beautiful and
tender, that it almost made him cry to think how wilful and passionate
he had been, and climbing on to her knees he put his little face against
her cheek.
[Illustration: THE DOE--TIMIDLY SMELT AT HIS HAND, THEN LICKED IT WITH
HER LONG PINK TONGUE.]
Then, while he was still caressing her, light tripping steps were heard
over the stony path, and through the bushes came two beautiful wild
animals--a doe with her fawn! Martin had often seen the wild deer on the
plains, but always at a great distance and running; now that he had
them standing before him he could see just what they were like, and of
all the four-footed creatures he had ever looked on they were
undoubtedly the most lovely. They were of a slim shape, and of a very
bright reddish fawn-colour, the young one with dappled sides; and both
had large trumpet-like ears, which they held up as if listening, while
they gazed fixedly at Martin's face with their large, dark, soft eyes.
Enchanted with the sight of them, he slipped down from his mother's lap,
and stretched out his arms towards them, and the doe, coming a little
nearer, timidly smelt at his hand, then licked it with her long, pink
tongue.
In a few minutes the doe and fawn went away and they saw them no more;
but they left Martin with a heart filled with happy excitement; and they
were but the first of many strange and beautiful wild animals he was now
made acquainted with, so that for days he could think of nothing else
and wished for nothing better.
But one day when she had taken him a good way up on the hillside, Martin
suddenly recognized a huge rocky precipice before him as the one up
which she had taken him, and from the top of which he had seen the great
blue water. Instantly he demanded to be taken up again, and when she
refused he rebelled against her, and was first passionate and then
sullen. Finding that he would not listen to anything she could say, she
sat down on a rock and left him to himself. He could not climb up that
precipice, and so he rambled away to some distance, thinking to hide
himself from her, because he thought her unreasonable and unkind not to
allow him to see the blue water once more. But presently he caught sight
of a snake lying motionless on a bed of moss at the foot of a rock, with
the sun on it, lighting up its polished scales so that they shone like
gems or coloured glass. Resting his elbows on the stone and holding his
face between his hands he fell to watching the snake, for though it
seemed fast asleep in the sun its gem-like eyes were wide open.
All at once he felt his mother's hand on his head: "Martin," she said,
"would you like to know what the snake feels when it lies with eyes open
in the bright hot sun? Shall I make you feel just how he feels?"
"Yes," said Martin eagerly, forgetting his quarrel with her; then taking
him up in her strong arms she walked rapidly away, and brought him to
that very spot where he had seen the doe and fawn.
She sat him down, and instantly his ears were filled with the murmur of
the bees; and in a moment she put her hand in the crevice and pulled out
a cluster of white cells, and gave them to Martin. Breaking one of the
cells he saw that it was full of thick honey, of a violet colour, and
tasting it he found it was like very sweet honey in which a little salt
had been mixed. He liked it and he didn't like it; still, it was not the
same in all the cells; in some it was scarcely salt at all; and he
began to suck the honey of cell after cell, trying to find one that was
not salt; and by-and-by he dropped the cluster of cells from his hand,
and stooping to pick it up forgot to do so, and laying his head down and
stretching himself out on the mossy ground looked up into his mother's
face with drowsy, happy eyes. How sweet it seemed, lying there in the
sun, with the sun shining right into his eyes, and filling his whole
being with its delicious heat! He wished for nothing now--not even for
the sight of new wonderful things; he forgot the blue water, the
strange, beautiful wild animals, and his only thought, if he had a
thought, was that it was very nice to lie there, not sleeping, but
feeling the sun in him, and seeing it above him; and seeing all
things--the blue sky, the grey rocks and green bushes and moss, and the
woman in her green dress and her loose black hair--and hearing, too, the
soft, low, continuous murmur of the yellow bees.
For hours he lay there in that drowsy condition, his mother keeping
watch over him, and when it passed off, and he got up again, his temper
appeared changed; he was more gentle and affectionate with his mother,
and obeyed her every wish. And when in his rambles on the hill he found
a snake lying in the sun he would steal softly near it and watch it
steadily for a long time, half wishing to taste that strange purple
honey again, so that he might lie in the sun, feeling what the snake
feels. But there were more wonderful things yet for Martin to see and
know in the hills, so that in a little while he ceased to have that
desire.
[Illustration]
_Chapter Fifteen_
_Martin's Eyes Are Opened_
One morning when they went up into a wild rocky place very high up on
the hillside a number of big birds were seen coming over the mountain at
a great height in the air, travelling in a northerly direction. They
were big hawks almost as big as eagles, with very broad rounded wings,
and instead of travelling straight like other birds they moved in wide
circles, so that they progressed very slowly.
[Illustration: THROWING UP HER ARMS, SHE CRIED A LONG CALL, AND THE
BIRDS BEGAN TO COME LOWER AND LOWER DOWN.]
They sat down on a stone to watch the birds, and whenever one flying
lower than the others came pretty near them Martin gazed delightedly at
it, and wished it would come still nearer so that he might see it
better. Then the woman stood up on the stone, and, gazing skywards and
throwing up her arms, she uttered a long call, and the birds began to
come lower and lower down, still sweeping round in wide circles, and
by-and-by one came quite down and pitched on a stone a few yards from
them. Then another came and lighted on another stone, then another, and
others followed, until they were all round him in scores, sitting on the
rocks, great brown birds with black bars on their wings and tails, and
buff-coloured breasts with rust-red spots and stripes. It was a
wonderful sight, those eagle-like hawks, with their blue hooked beaks
and deep-set dark piercing eyes, sitting in numbers on the rocks, and
others and still others dropping down from the sky to increase the
gathering.
Then the woman sat down by Martin's side, and after a while one of the
hawks spread his great wings and rose up into the air to resume his
flight. After an interval of a minute or so another rose, then another,
but it was an hour before they were all gone.
"O the dear birds--they are all gone!" cried Martin. "Mother, where are
they going?"
She told him of a far-away land in the south, from which, when autumn
comes, the birds migrate north to a warmer country hundreds of leagues
away, and that birds of all kinds were now travelling north, and would
be travelling through the sky above them for many days to come.
Martin looked up at the sky, and said he could see no birds now that the
buzzards were all gone.
"I can see them," she returned, looking up and glancing about the sky.
"O mother, I wish I could see them!" he cried. "Why can't I see them
when you can?"
"Because your eyes are not like mine. Look, can you see this?" and she
held up a small stone phial which she took from her bosom.
He took it in his hand and unstopped and smelt at it. "Is it honey? Can
I taste it?" he asked.
She laughed. "It is better than honey, but you can't eat it!" she said.
"Do you remember how the honey made you feel like a snake? This would
make you see what I see if I put some of it on your eyes."
He begged her to do so, and she consenting poured a little into the palm
of her hand. It was thick and white as milk; then taking some on her
finger tip, she made him hold his eyes wide open while she rubbed it on
the eye-balls. It made his eyes smart, and everything at first looked
like a blue mist when he tried to see; then slowly the mist faded away
and the air had a new marvellous clearness, and when he looked away over
the plain beneath them he shouted for joy, so far could he see and so
distinct did distant objects appear. At one point where nothing but the
grey haze that obscured the distance had been visible, a herd of wild
cattle now appeared, scattered about, some grazing, others lying down
ruminating, and in the midst of the herd a very noble-looking,
tawny-coloured bull was standing.
"O mother, do you see that bull?" cried Martin in delight.
"Yes, I see him," she returned. "Sometimes he brings his herd to feed on
the hillside, and when I see him here another time I shall take you to
him, and put you on his back. But look now at the sky, Martin."
He looked up, and was astonished to see numbers of great birds flying
north, where no birds had appeared before. They were miles high, and
invisible to ordinary sight, but he could see them so distinctly, their
shape and colours, that all the birds he knew were easily recognized.
There were swans, shining white, with black heads and necks, flying in
wedge-shaped flocks, and rose-coloured spoonbills, and flamingoes with
scarlet wings tipped with black, and ibises, and ducks of different
colours, and many other birds, both water and land, appeared, flock
after flock, all flying as fast as their wings could bear them towards
the north.
He continued watching them until it was past noon, and then he saw fewer
and fewer, only very big birds, appearing; and then these were seen less
and less until there were none. Then he turned his eyes on the plain and
tried to find the herd of wild cattle, but they were no longer visible;
it was as he had seen it in the morning with the pale blue haze over all
the distant earth. He was told that the power to see all distant things
with a vision equal to his mother's was now exhausted, and when he
grieved at the loss she comforted him with the promise that it would be
renewed at some other time.
Now one day when they were out together Martin was greatly surprised
and disturbed at a change in his mother. When he spoke to her she was
silent; and by-and-by, drawing a little away, he looked at her with a
fear which increased to a kind of terror, so strangely altered did she
seem, standing motionless, gazing fixedly with wide-open eyes at the
plain beneath them, her whole face white and drawn with a look of rage.
He had an impulse to fly from her and hide himself in some hole in the
rocks from the sight of that pale, wrathful face, but when he looked
round him he was afraid to move from her, for the hill itself seemed
changed, and now looked black and angry even as she did. The ground he
stood on, the grey old stones covered with silvery-white and yellow
lichen and pretty flowery, creeping plants, so beautiful to look at in
the bright sunlight a few moments ago, now were covered with a dull mist
which appeared to be rising from them, making the air around them dark
and strange. And the air, too, had become sultry and close, and the sky
was growing dark above them. Then suddenly remembering all her love and
kindness he flew to her, and clinging to her dress sobbed out, "O
mother, mother, what is it?"
She put her hand on him, then drew him up to her side, with his feet on
the stone she was standing by. "Would you like to see what I see,
Martin?" she asked, and taking the phial from her bosom she rubbed the
white thick liquid on his eye-balls, and in a little while, when the
mistiness passed off, she pointed with her hand and told him to look
there.
He looked, and as on the former occasion, all distant things were
clearly visible, for although that mist and blackness given off by the
hill had wrapped them round so that they seemed to be standing in the
midst of a black cloud, yet away on the plain beneath the sun was
shining brightly, and all that was there could be seen by him. Where he
had once seen a herd of wild cattle he now saw mounted men, to the
number of about a dozen, slowly riding towards the hill, and though they
were miles away he could see them very distinctly. They were dark,
black-bearded men, strangely dressed, some with fawn-coloured cloaks
with broad stripes, others in a scarlet uniform, and they wore
cone-shaped scarlet caps. Some carried lances, others carbines; and they
all wore swords--he could see the steel scabbards shining in the sun. As
he watched them they drew rein and some of them got off their horses,
and they stood for some time as if talking excitedly, pointing towards
the hill and using emphatic gestures.
What were they talking about so excitedly? thought Martin. He wanted to
know, and he would have asked her, but when he looked up at her she was
still gazing fixedly at them with the same pale face and terrible stern
expression, and he could but dimly see her face in that black cloud
which had closed around them. He trembled with fear and could only
murmur, "Mother! mother!" Then her arm was put round him, and she drew
him close against her side, and at that moment--O how terrible it
was!--the black cloud and the whole universe was lit up with a sudden
flash that seemed to blind and scorch him, and the hill and the world
was shaken and seemed to be shattered by an awful thunder crash. It was
more than he could endure: he ceased to feel or know anything, and was
like one dead, and when he came to himself and opened his eyes he was
lying in her lap with her face smiling very tenderly, bending over him.
"O poor little Martin," she said, "what a poor weak little boy you are
to lose your senses at the lightning and thunder! I was angry when I saw
them coming to the hill, for they are wicked, cruel men, stained with
blood, and I made the storm to drive them away. They are gone, and the
storm is over now, and it is late--come, let us go to our cave;" and she
took him up and carried him in her arms.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_Chapter Sixteen_
_The People of the Mist_
When Martin first came to the hills it was at the end of the long, hot,
dry summer of that distant land: it was autumn now, and the autumn was
like a second summer, only not so hot and dry as the first. But
sometimes at this season a wet mist came up from the sea by night and
spread over all the country, covering it like a cloud; to a soaring bird
looking down from the sky it must have appeared like another sea of a
pale or pearly grey colour, with the hills rising like islands from it.
When the sun rose in the morning, if the sky was clear so that it could
shine, then the sea-fog would drift and break up and melt away or float
up in the form of thin white clouds. Now, whenever this sea-mist was out
over the world the Lady of the Hills, without coming out of her chamber,
knew of it, and she would prevent Martin from leaving the bed and going
out. He loved to be out on the hillside, to watch the sun come up, and
she would say to him, "You cannot see the sun because of the mist; and
it is cold and wet on the hill; wait until the mist has gone and then
you shall go out."
But now a new idea came into her mind. She had succeeded in making him
happy during the last few days; but she wished to do more--she wished to
make him fear and hate the sea so that he would never grow discontented
with his life on the hills nor wish to leave her. So now, one morning,
when the mist was out over the land, she said to Martin when he woke,
"Get up and go out on to the hill and see the mist; and when you feel
its coldness and taste its salt on your lips, and see how it dims and
saddens the earth, you will know better than to wish for that great
water it comes from."
So Martin got up and went out on the hill, and it was as she had said:
there was no blue sky above, no wide green earth before him: the mist
had blotted all out; he could hardly see the rocks and bushes a dozen
yards from him; the leaves and flowers were heavy laden with the grey
wet; and it felt clammy and cold on his face, and he tasted its salt on
his lips. It seemed thickest and darkest when he looked down and
lightest when he looked up, and the lightness led him to climb up among
the dripping, slippery rocks; and slipping and stumbling he went on and
on, the light increasing as he went, until at last to his delight he got
above the mist. There was an immense crag there which stood boldly up
on the hillside, and on to this he managed to climb, and standing on it
he looked down upon that vast moving sea of grey mist that covered the
earth, and saw the sun, a large crimson disc, rising from it.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE MIST PEOPLE--HELD THE SHELL TO MARTIN'S
EAR--AND MARTIN KNEW--THAT IT WAS THE VOICE OF THE SEA.]
It was a great thing to see, and made him cry out aloud for joy: and
then as the sun rose higher into the pure, blue sky the grey mist
changed to silvery white, and the white changed in places to shining
gold: and it drifted faster and faster away before the sun, and began to
break up, and when a cloud of mist swept by the rock on which he stood
it beat like a fine rain upon his face, and covered his bright clothes
with a grey beady moisture.
Now, looking abroad over the earth, it appeared to Martin that the
thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands of fragments of mist, had
the shapes of men, and were like an innumerable multitude of gigantic
men with shining white faces and shining golden hair and long cloud-like
robes of a pearly grey colour, that trailed on the earth as they moved.
They were like a vast army covering the whole earth, all with their
faces set towards the west, all moving swiftly and smoothly on towards
the west. And he saw that every one held his robes to his breast with
his left hand, and that in his right hand, raised to the level of his
head, he carried a strange object. This object was a shell--a big
sea-shell of a golden yellow colour with curved pink lips; and very soon
one of the mist people came near him, and as he passed by the rock he
held the shell to Martin's ear, and it sounded in his ear--a low, deep
murmur as of waves breaking on a long shingled beach, and Martin knew,
though no word was spoken to him, that it was the sound of the sea, and
tears of delight came to his eyes, and at the same time his heart was
sick and sad with longing for the sea.
Again and again, until the whole vast multitude of the mist people had
gone by, a shell was held to his ear; and when they were all gone, when
he had watched them fade like a white cloud over the plain, and float
away and disappear in the blue sky, he sat down on the rock and cried
with the desire that was in him.
When his mother found him with traces of tears on his cheeks; and he was
silent when she spoke to him, and had a strange look in his eyes as if
they were gazing at some distant object, she was angrier than ever with
the sea, for she knew that the thought of it had returned to him and
that it would be harder than ever to keep him.
One morning on waking he found her still asleep, although the traces of
tears on her cheeks showed that she had been awake and crying during the
night.
"Ah, now I know why she cries every morning," thought Martin; "it is
because I must go away and leave her alone on the hills."
He was out of her arms and dressed in a very few moments, moving very
softly lest she should wake; but though he knew that if she awoke she
would not let him go, he could not leave her without saying good-bye.
And so coming near he stooped over her and very gently kissed her soft
cheek and sweet mouth and murmured, "Good-bye, sweet mother." Then, very
cautiously, like a shy, little wild animal he stole out of the cavern.
Once outside, in the early morning light, he started running as fast as
he could, jumping from stone to stone in the rough places, and
scrambling through the dew-laden bushes and creepers, until, hot and
panting, he arrived down at the very foot of the hill.
Then it was easier walking, and he went on a little until he heard a
voice crying, "Martin! Martin!" and, looking back, he saw the Lady of
the Hills standing on a great stone near the foot of the mountain,
gazing sadly after him. "Martin, oh, my child, come back to me," she
called, stretching out her arms towards him. "Oh, Martin, I cannot leave
the hills to follow you and shield you from harm and save you from
death. Where will you go? Oh, me, what shall I do without you?"
For a little while he stood still, listening with tears in his eyes to
her words, and wavering in his mind; but very soon he thought of the
great blue water once more and could not go back, but began to run
again, and went on and on for a long distance before stopping to rest.
Then he looked back, but he could no longer see her form standing there
on the stone.
All that day he journeyed on towards the ocean over a great plain. There
were no trees and no rocks nor hills, only grass on the level earth, in
some places so tall that the spikes, looking like great white ostrich
plumes, waved high above his head. But it was easy walking, as the grass
grew in tussocks or bunches, and underneath the ground was bare and
smooth so that he could walk easily between the bunches.
He wondered that he did not get to the sea, but it was still far off,
and so the long summer day wore to an end, and he was so tired that he
could scarcely lift his legs to walk. Then, as he went slowly on in the
fading light, where the grass was short and the evening primroses were
opening and filling the desert air with their sweet perfume, he all at
once saw a little grey old man not above six inches in height standing
on the ground right before him, and staring fixedly at him with great,
round, yellow eyes.
"You bad boy!" exclaimed this curious little, old man; whereupon Martin
stopped in his walk and stood still, gazing in the greatest surprise at
him.
"You bad boy!" repeated the strange little man.
The more Martin stared at him the harder he stared back at Martin,
always with the same unbending severity in his small, round, grey face.
He began to feel a little afraid, and was almost inclined to run away;
then he thought it would be funny to run from such a very small man as
this, so he stared bravely back once more and cried out, "Go away!"
"You bad boy!" answered the little grey man without moving.