III


There was a stone outside my hut, a tall grey stone. It looked as if it
had a sort of friendly feeling towards me; as if it noticed me when I
came by, and knew me again. I liked to go round that way past the
stone, when I went out in the morning; it was like leaving a good friend
there, who I knew would be still waiting for me when I came back.

Then up in the woods hunting, sometimes finding game, sometimes none...

Out beyond the islands, the sea lay heavily calm. Many a time I have
stood and looked at it from the hills, far up above. On a calm day, the
ships seemed hardly to move at all; I could see the same sail for three
days, small and white, like a gull on the water. Then, perhaps, if the
wind veered round, the peaks in the distance would almost disappear, and
there came a storm, the south-westerly gale; a play for me to stand and
watch. All things in a seething mist. Earth and sky mingled together,
the sea flung up into fantastic dancing figures of men and horses and
fluttering banners on the air. I stood in the shelter of an overhanging
rock, thinking many things; my soul was tense. Heaven knows, I thought
to myself, what it is I am watching here, and why the sea should open
before my eyes. Maybe I am seeing now the inner brain of earth, how
things are at work there, boiling and foaming. Asop was restless; now
and again he would thrust up his muzzle and sniff, in a troubled way,
with legs quivering uneasily; when I took no notice, he lay down between
my feet and stared out to sea as I was doing. And never a cry, never a