Thus, gradually the songs which had begun as songs of triumph fell into a minor, and became songs of exile. The restlessness of unsatisfied longing crept over the joy of discovery. Many abandoned the common round of life. Tents arose on the hill-sides, whose inmates, forsaking the Island treasures which had become to them such baubles, and the pursuit of those Island ambitions which had become to them so childish, lived only to gaze towards that mountain-range of their home which was encircling them unseen, and to watch for the breaking of the mist.
These the mother and sister might have joined, but for their waiting for the brother's return.
At last, in the twilight of a winter's evening, he came back, weary and worn.
The three sat together once more around the cottage hearth. A chill of unconfessed disappointment brooded over them all, like the mist itself which brooded around their Island; and they sat silent.
Weary and worn the mother and sister had expected to see him, footsore with travel, with cheeks hollow with scanty food, and perchance a form wasted by hard usage; for should the servant be greater than his lord? But in his eyes there was a look of unrest and despondency that scarcely fitted a messenger of glad tidings.
"My son," said the mother at length, laying her hand on the hand with which he had covered his brow, "we could not hope that all would welcome the great news. All did not listen even to Him!"
"It is not that," he answered, "that disquiets me. I want to be sure we are doing what He meant. Hundreds have listened. In some cities whole streets are unpeopled by the news I brought; workmen have left the workshops, judges the judgment-seat, merchants their bales, women their homes.
"'Why toil any more,' they say, 'for the low ambitions of this mere peak of rock? Why heap up its cockle-shells of wealth? Around us is the Continent, the Main Land of our true life; before us is our Home. For the moment we are poised here, like birds of passage on a sea-girt rock; what is there to do but to take a moment's rest, or a moment's refreshment, and plume our wings for flight?'
"Thus, where my message was believed, cities have been unpeopled, homes have been broken up, every-day pursuits have grown aimless and insipid, and have been abandoned, until some, not of the scoffers, but of the soberer sort, have said,—
"If your tidings are true, let them be true. The hour will come which discovers them to all. We will go on our quiet way, and find them true when our hour comes. And, we trow, the King, if he come, will be as well pleased to find us at our work as you at your watching."