BOOK III
GUEST THE ONE-EYED
CHAPTER I
A grey, dull day—not a glimpse of the sun since morning.
A man came hobbling along the little-used path, a solitary figure under the leaden sky. The clouds hung so low that it seemed as if the heavens had fallen, and were supported only by the mountain peaks on the horizon. A grey, dull day—and the man’s spirit was grey and dull within him. All that the day had given him was a fragment of a song that had sprung into his mind; he hummed it half-consciously as he went along.
“No sun over the sand,
Waste, waste.
No eagle over land,
Dead, dead.”
His voice was deep and hollow-sounding; in its depth a ring of loneliness and unsatisfied longing. There seemed a power of fate and sorrow behind it, as behind the dull roar of the sea. The eternal restlessness of life, and the boundless seeking of the soul quivered in this old man’s voice. Strong, yet soft, its tones had power at times to move those who heard to sadness in themselves.
He felt a peculiar comfort in the sound of his own voice when wandering thus alone; and he was a man who wandered much alone. And for all that he carried no heavy burden, his steps often faltered.