"Just here, from my window below, I saw thee coming down the mountain with Gehazi, thy servant, on that day when it was promised to me that I should bear a son."
He nodded.
"For as often as we passed by," he said, "we found food and a little room prepared upon the wall. 'Thou hast been careful for us,' said I, 'with all this care. What is to be done for thee? Shall I speak to the King for thee, or to the captain of the host?' Thine answer was, 'I dwell in Shunem, among my own people.'"
"There is no greener spot in Israel."
"'But,' said my servant Gehazi, 'Every spot is greener where a child plays.' Therefore this child was promised thee."
She said, "But once a year the plain is yellow and not green; yellow away to the foot of Carmel; and that is in this season of the barley harvest. It was on such a day as this that my son fell in the field among the reapers, and his father brought him in and set him on my knees. On such a day as this I left him dead, and saddled the ass and rode between the same yellow fields to Megiddo, and thence towards Carmel, seeking thee. See the white road winding, and the long blue chine yonder, by the sea. By and by, when the sun sinks over it, the blue chine and the oaks beneath will turn to one dark colour; and that will be the hour that I met thee on the slope, and lighted off the ass and caught thee by the feet. As yet it is all parched fields and sky of brass and a white road running endless—endless."
"But what are these black shadows that pass between me and the sun?"
"They are crows, my master."
"What should they do here in these numbers?"
The woman rose and flung a stone at the birds. Seating herself again, she said—