WITH CARL OF THE HILL 23 



same dispassioned tones, "You had better go and find 

 out," and so returned to the house in the quiet good 

 temper of every day. The man appeared no more 

 that night nor thereafter so long as we remained : but 

 at three o'clock the following morning, I, who had 

 crept out to look at the wonder of Venus in the 

 heavens which then was flashing like the star of old, 

 saw in a cow-byre a light ; and lo ! the woman had 

 returned from a forest tramp of twenty miles, and came 

 on to the sater without a sign of weariness, but 

 singing as she came. 



It was on the evening after this that Carl took me up 

 to the top of the hill, under solemn promise that I 

 would not look behind until he gave me leave. So 

 we climbed till we came to a huge and jagged 

 boulder that seemed the end of all things ; for below 

 it was the vast of mountain and forest, and beyond it 

 was the sky. And then we turned and looked. 

 " There," said Carl ; " often when I have been hard 

 at work all day in the forest below, I come up here to 

 look at that, and so I do not feel tired." 



And indeed it was a beautiful scene. 



Around us lay the cold grey shapes of the lichened 

 boulders, and among them a single dying pine-tree 

 reared its bare gaunt form — the sentry-post of the 



