To-day, to him
gazing South with a new-born need stirring in his heart, the clear sky
over their long low outline seemed to pulsate with promise; to-day,
the unseen was everything, the unknown the only real fact of life. On
this side of the hills was now the real blank, on the other lay the
crowded and coloured panorama that his inner eye was seeing so
clearly. What seas lay beyond, green, leaping, and crested! What
sun-bathed coasts, along which the white villas glittered against the
olive woods! What quiet harbours, thronged with gallant shipping
bound for purple islands of wine and spice, islands set low in
languorous waters!
He rose and descended river-wards once more; then changed his mind and
sought the side of the dusty lane. There, lying half-buried in the
thick, cool under-hedge tangle that bordered it, he could muse on the
metalled road and all the wondrous world that it led to; on all the
wayfarers, too, that might have trodden it, and the fortunes and
adventures they had gone to seek or found unseeking--out there,
beyond--beyond!
Footsteps fell on his ear, and the figure of one that walked somewhat
wearily came into view; and he saw that it was a Rat, and a very dusty
one.
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