Bright
recollections and impressions flock towards him like spirits of
light--he can hear the rushing sound of their wings--he calls to them
for aid, and they encircle him round; they struggle with the spirits of
darkness for his soul. He has known much brightness, much beauty in his
life--surely the bright angels are the stronger and must conquer. Ah!
why had he not lived royally, amidst women and flowers and wine?
One morning as he was getting up, he said: "Merle, I must and will hit
upon something that'll send me to bed thoroughly tired out."
"Yes dear," she answered. "Do try."
"I'll try wheeling stones to begin with," he said. "The devil's in it if
a day at that doesn't make a man sleep."
So that day and for many days he wheeled stones from some newly broken
land on the hillside down to a dyke that ran along the road.
Calm, golden autumn days; one farm above another rising up towards the
crest of the range, all set in ripe yellow fields. One little cottage
stands right on the crest against the sky itself, and it, too, has its
tiny patch of yellow corn. And an eagle sails slowly across the deep
valley from peak to peak.
People passing by stared at Peer as he went about bare-headed, in his
shirt-sleeves, wheeling stones. "Aye, gentlefolks have queer notions,"
they would say, shaking their heads.
"That's it--keep at it," a dry, hacking voice kept going in Peer's head.
"It is idiocy, but you are doomed to it. Shove hard with those skinny
legs of yours; many a jade before you has had to do the same.
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