grew in speed and in power. Through the great crowd and beyond it, never
looking back, up and over the brow of the mountain they went, and leaving
behind them the gathered universe of men, descended into a pale night.
Hither and hither went the Master, searching up and down the gloomy
valley; now looking behind a great rock, and now through a thicket of
brushwood; now entering a dark cave, and now ascending a height and gazing
all around; till at last, on a bare plain, seated on a grey stone, with
her hands in her lap, they found the little orphan child who had called
the sea her mother.

"As he drew near to her, the Lord called out, 'My poor little lamb, I have
found you at last!' But she did not seem to hear or understand what he
said; for she fell on her knees, and held up her clasped hands, and cried,
'Do not be angry with me. I am a goat; and I ran away because I was
afraid. Do not burn me.' But all the answer the Lord made was to stoop,
and lift her, and hold her to his breast. And she was an orphan no more.

"So he turned and went back over hill and over dale, and Herbert followed,
rejoicing that the lost lamb was found.

"As he followed, he spied in a crevice of a rock, close by his path, a
lovely primrose. He stooped to pluck it. And ere he began again to follow,
a cock crew shrill and loud; and he knew it was the cock that rebuked
Peter; and he trembled and stood up. The Master had vanished. He, too,
fell a-weeping bitterly. And again the cock crew; and he opened his eyes,
and knew that he had dreamed. His mother stood by his bedside, comforting
the weeper with kisses. And he cried to her--

"'O mother! surely he would not come over the sea to find me in the storm,
and then leave me because I stopped to pluck a flower!'"