there were no beads; it was only the shining threads that made it
sparkle so, like clean sand in the sun. When you looked closely at
the cloth, you could see the lovely pattern woven in it--small leaf
and flower, the leaves like moss leaves, and the flowers like the
pimpernel, but not half so big, and they were yellow and red and
blue and violet in colour.

But there were many, many things besides the lovely clothes to make
him contented and happy. First, the beautiful woman of the hills who
loved and cherished him and made him call her by the sweet name of
"mother" so many times every day that he well nigh forgot she was
not his real mother. Then there was the great stony hill-side on
which he now lived for a playground, where he could wander all day
among the rocks, overgrown with creepers and strange sweet-smelling
flowers he had never seen on the plain below. The birds and
butterflies he saw there were different from those he had always seen;
so were the snakes which he often found sleepily coiled up on the
rocks, and the little swift lizards. Even the water looked strange
and more beautiful than the water in the plain, for here it gushed
out of the living rock, sparkling like crystal in the sun, and was
always cold when he dipped his hands in it even on the hottest days.
Perhaps the most wonderful thing was the immense distance he could
see, when he looked away from the hillside across the plain and saw
the great dark forest where he had been, and the earth stretching far,
far away beyond.

Then there was his playmate, the great yellow-spotted cat, who
followed him about and was always ready for a frolic, playing in a
very curious way. Whenever Martin would prepare to take a running
leap, or a swift run down a slope, the animal, stealing quietly up