Part 2

Still it played; still it laughed; still it stained its mouth with purple berries; but sometimes the little hands hung weary, and the little eyes looked out heavily across the water.

And Life and Love dared not look into each other’s eyes, dared not say, “What ails our darling?” Each heart whispered to itself, “It is nothing, it is nothing, tomorrow it will laugh out clear.” But tomorrow and tomorrow came. They journeyed on, and the child played beside them, but heavily, more heavily.

One day Life and Love lay down to sleep; and when they awoke, it was gone: only, near them, on the grass, sat a little stranger, with wide-open eyes, very soft and sad. Neither noticed it; but they walked apart, weeping bitterly, “Oh, our Joy! our lost Joy! shall we see you no more for ever?”

The little soft and sad-eyed stranger slipped a hand into one hand of each, and drew them closer, and Life and Love walked on with it between them. And when Life looked down in anguish, she saw her tears reflected in its soft eyes. And when Love, mad with pain, cried out, “I am weary, I am weary! I can journey no further. The light is all behind, the dark is all before,” a little rosy finger pointed where the sunlight lay upon the hill-sides. Always its large eyes were sad and thoughtful: always the little brave mouth was smiling quietly.

When on the sharp stones Life cut her feet, he wiped the blood upon his garments, and kissed the wounded feet with his little lips. When in the desert Love lay down faint (for Love itself grows faint), he ran over the hot sand with his little naked feet, and even there in the desert found water in the holes in the rocks to moisten Love’s lips with. He was no burden--he never weighted them; he only helped them forward on their journey.

When they came to the dark ravine where the icicles hang from the rocks--for Love and Life must pass through strange drear places--there, where all is cold, and the snow lies thick, he took their freezing hands and held them against his beating little heart, and warmed them--and softly he drew them on and on.

And when they came beyond, into the land of sunshine and flowers, strangely the great eyes lit up, and dimples broke out upon the face. Brightly laughing, it ran over the soft grass; gathered honey from the hollow tree; and brought it them on the palm of its hand; carried them water in the leaves of the lily, and gathered flowers and wreathed them round their heads, softly laughing all the while. He touched them as their Joy had touched them, but his fingers clung more tenderly.

So they wandered on, through the dark lands and the light, always with that little brave smiling one between them. Sometimes they remembered that first radiant Joy, and whispered to themselves, “Oh! could we but find him also!”

At last they came to where Reflection sits; that strange old woman who has always one elbow on her knee, and her chin in her hand, and who steals light out of the past to shed it on the future.

And Life and Love cried out, “O wise one! tell us: when first we met, a lovely radiant thing belonged to us--gladness without a tear, sunshine without a shade. Oh! how did we sin that we lost it? Where shall we go that we may find it?”

And she, the wise old woman, answered, “To have it back, will you give up that which walks beside you now?”

And in agony Love and Life cried, “No!”

“Give up this!” said Life. “When the thorns have pierced me, who will suck the poison out? When my head throbs, who will lay his tiny hands upon it and still the beating? In the cold and the dark, who will warm my freezing heart?”

And Love cried out, “Better let me die! Without Joy I can live; without this I cannot. Let me rather die, not lose it!”

And the wise old woman answered, “O fools and blind! What you once had is that which you have now! When Love and Life first meet, a radiant thing is born, without a shade. When the roads begin to roughen, when the shades begin to darken, when the days are hard, and the nights cold and long--then it begins to change. Love and Life WILL not see it, WILL not know it--till one day they start up suddenly, crying, ‘O God! O God! we have lost it! Where is it?’ They do not understand that they could not carry the laughing thing unchanged into the desert, and the frost, and the snow. They do not know that what walks beside them still is the Joy grown older. The grave, sweet, tender thing--warm in the coldest snows, brave in the dreariest deserts--its name is Sympathy; it is the Perfect Love.”

South Africa.

II. THE HUNTER.

In certain valleys there was a hunter. Day by day he went to hunt for wild-fowl in the woods; and it chanced that once he stood on the shores of a large lake. While he stood waiting in the rushes for the coming of the birds, a great shadow fell on him, and in the water he saw a reflection. He looked up to the sky; but the thing was gone. Then a burning desire came over him to see once again that reflection in the water, and all day he watched and waited; but night came and it had not returned. Then he went home with his empty bag, moody and silent. His comrades came questioning about him to know the reason, but he answered them nothing; he sat alone and brooded. Then his friend came to him, and to him he spoke.

“I have seen today,” he said, “that which I never saw before--a vast white bird, with silver wings outstretched, sailing in the everlasting blue. And now it is as though a great fire burnt within my breast. It was but a sheen, a shimmer, a reflection in the water; but now I desire nothing more on earth than to hold her.”

His friend laughed.

“It was but a beam playing on the water, or the shadow of your own head. Tomorrow you will forget her,” he said.

But tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow the hunter walked alone. He sought in the forest and in the woods, by the lakes and among the rushes, but he could not find her. He shot no more wild fowl; what were they to him?

“What ails him?” said his comrades.

“He is mad,” said one.

“No; but he is worse,” said another; “he would see that which none of us have seen, and make himself a wonder.”

“Come, let us forswear his company,” said all.

So the hunter walked alone.

One night, as he wandered in the shade, very heartsore and weeping, an old man stood before him, grander and taller than the sons of men.