Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Fantasy literature; Nature -- Juvenile fiction; Self-reliance -- Juvenile fiction
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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