"The child looked up, the child looked round, he could never describe
what he felt; but in his great agitation he cried more loudly, 'Oh,
papa! mamma! Come, come to poor Edwy!' It was an echo, the echo of the
rocks which repeated the words of the child; and the more loudly he
spoke, the more perfect was the echo; but he could catch only the few
last words; this time he only heard, 'Poor, poor Edwy!' Edwy had not
lost all recollection of some far distant happy home, and of some kind
parents far away; and now at that minute he believed that what the echo
said came from them, and that they were calling to him, and saying,
'Poor, poor Edwy!' But where were those who called to him? alas! he
could not tell. Were they in the holes in the rocks?--his mind was then
used to the notion of people living in caves--or were they at the top
of the rocks? or were they up high in the blue bright heavens?
"It would have been a sorrowful sight to behold that pretty boy
looking up at the rocks and the sky, and down among the reeds, and
sedges, and alders by the side of the brook, for some persons to whom
the voice might belong; in hopes of seeing that same lady he sometimes
dreamed of, and that kind gentleman he used to call papa; and to see
how the tears gushed from his eyes when he could not find anyone.
"After a while he called again, and called louder still. 'Come, come,'
was his cry again, 'Edwy is lost! lost! lost!' Echo repeated the last
words as before, 'Lost! lost! lost!' and now the voice sounded from
behind him, for he had moved round a corner of a rock.
"The child heard the voice behind, and turned and ran that way; and
stopped and called again, and then heard it the other way; and next he
shrieked from fear, and echo returned the shriek once more, and thrice,
finishing off with broken sounds, which to Edwy's ears appeared as if
somebody a long way off was mocking him.
"His terror was now at its highest; indeed he could never remember what
he did next, or when he turned to go down the valley; but turn he did,
after having run back many paces.
"His steps, however, were guided by One whose eye was never off him,
even his kind and heavenly Father; and on he went, neither heeding
stones nor briars; every step taking him nearer to the mouth of the
glen, and the entrance on the great high road.
"And who had been driving along that road in a fine carriage with four
horses?"
* * * * *
"Who?" cried Henry Fairchild, turning over another leaf; "who, but his
own papa?--but I must go on."
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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