A tinkling gurgle from an irregular, dark spot against the foot of the bluff told of a ravine, and the running stream, whose musical babble, as it made its way to the river, sounded like the prattle of a child compared to the river's volume falling by the mill.
As he took his way in the gathering gray of night, the long-limbed youth cast giant shadows, subtle, indistinct shadows far across the road and into other shadows, where they merged into the formless gloom and were lost.
While yet rounding the bluff he heard the barking of a dog and then the tinkle of a cow-bell. Common sounds these were, but coming on the stillness from the heights above they lent a sort of musical enchantment to the quiet and the enfolding mystery of night. Then a human voice was heard, a woman's voice that seemed to burst suddenly into the flower of a full blown song.
The youth slowed up a bit and listened. The words thrown out by the ringing voice sounded clearly:
I'm a pilgrim
And I'm a stranger;
I can tarry, I can tarry but a night.
The young man stopped. The song was to him unusual. The clear voice took the notes unhesitatingly and rolled them in melodious movement as she sang the words "p-i-l-grim" and "s-t-r-a-n-ger," and then hurrying on gladly, as if it were a matter for great rejoicing that she could tarry but a night.
The youth dropped his ax and bundle to the ground and turned his face toward the bluff casting its long shadows. The bell tinkled a moment in the gathering gloom. Then the voice rang out again on the evening hush:
Do not detain me,
For I am going
To where the streamlets are ever flowing.
Again there was the peculiar rolling fall and rise on the syllables. Again the gladness of some exultation, then the refrain "I'm a pilgrim" with its confidence and its melody.