Dreams | Page 6

him. Far below
rolled the white mist over the valleys of superstition, and above him
towered the mountains. They had seemed low before; they were of an
immeasurable height now, from crown to foundation surrounded by
walls of rock, that rose tier above tier in mighty circles. Upon them
played the eternal sunshine. He uttered a wild cry. He bowed himself
on to the earth, and when he rose his face was white. In absolute silence
he walked on. He was very silent now. In those high regions the
rarefied air is hard to breathe by those born in the valleys; every breath
he drew hurt him, and the blood oozed out from the tips of his fingers.
Before the next wall of rock he began to work. The height of this
seemed infinite, and he said nothing. The sound of his tool rang night
and day upon the iron rocks into which he cut steps. Years passed over
him, yet he worked on; but the wall towered up always above him to
heaven. Sometimes he prayed that a little moss or lichen might spring
up on those bare walls to be a companion to him; but it never came.
And the years rolled on; he counted them by the steps he had cut--a few
for a year--only a few. He sang no more; he said no more, "I will do
this or that"--he only worked. And at night, when the twilight settled
down, there looked out at him from the holes and crevices in the rocks
strange wild faces.
"Stop your work, you lonely man, and speak to us," they cried.
"My salvation is in work, if I should stop but for one moment you
would creep down upon me," he replied. And they put out their long
necks further.
"Look down into the crevice at your feet," they said. "See what lie
there- -white bones! As brave and strong a man as you climbed to these
rocks." And he looked up. He saw there was no use in striving; he
would never hold Truth, never see her, never find her. So he lay down
here, for he was very tired. He went to sleep forever. He put himself to

sleep. Sleep is very tranquil. You are not lonely when you are asleep,
neither do your hands ache, nor your heart. And the hunter laughed
between his teeth.
"Have I torn from my heart all that was dearest; have I wandered alone
in the land of night; have I resisted temptation; have I dwelt where the
voice of my kind is never heard, and laboured alone, to lie down and be
food for you, ye harpies?"
He laughed fiercely; and the Echoes of Despair slunk away, for the
laugh of a brave, strong heart is as a death blow to them.
Nevertheless they crept out again and looked at him.
"Do you know that your hair is white?" they said, "that your hands
begin to tremble like a child's? Do you see that the point of your shuttle
is gone?--it is cracked already. If you should ever climb this stair," they
said, "it will be your last. You will never climb another."
And he answered, "I know it!" and worked on.
The old, thin hands cut the stones ill and jaggedly, for the fingers were
stiff and bent. The beauty and the strength of the man was gone.
At last, an old, wizened, shrunken face looked out above the rocks. It
saw the eternal mountains rise with walls to the white clouds; but its
work was done.
The old hunter folded his tired hands and lay down by the precipice
where he had worked away his life. It was the sleeping time at last.
Below him over the valleys rolled the thick white mist. Once it broke;
and through the gap the dying eyes looked down on the trees and fields
of their childhood. From afar seemed borne to him the cry of his own
wild birds, and he heard the noise of people singing as they danced.
And he thought he heard among them the voices of his old comrades;
and he saw far off the sunlight shine on his early home. And great tears
gathered in the hunter's eyes.

"Ah! they who die there do not die alone," he cried.
Then the mists rolled together again; and he turned his eyes away.
"I have sought," he said, "for long years I have laboured; but I have not
found her. I have not rested, I have not repined, and I have not seen her;
now my strength is gone. Where I lie down worn out other men will
stand, young and fresh. By the steps that I have cut they will climb; by
the stairs that I have built they