ed on the example of other human lives. Neither did Ernest
know that the thoughts and affections which came to him so naturally, in
the fields and at the fireside, were of a higher tone than those which
all men shared with him. A simple soul,--simple as when his mother first
taught him the old prophecy,--he beheld the marvelous features beaming
down the valley, and still wondered that their human counterpart was so
long in making his appearance.

By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddest
part of the matter was that his wealth, which was the body and spirit of
his existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of him
but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled, yellow skin. Since
the melting away of his gold, it had been very generally allowed that
there was no such striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the ignoble
features of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the mountain
side. So the people ceased to honor him during his lifetime, and quietly
forgot him after his decease. Once in a while, it is true, his memory
was brought up in connection with the magnificent palace which he had
built, and which had long ago been turned into a hotel for the
accommodation of strangers, multitudes of whom came, every summer, to
visit that famous natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face. The man of
prophecy was yet to come.

III

It so happened that a native-born son of the valley, many years before,
had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard fighting, had
now become an illustrious commander. Whatever he may be called in
history, he was known in camps and on the battlefield under the nickname
of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran, being now weary of a
military life, and of the roll of the drum and the clangor of the
trumpet that had so long been ringing in his ears, had lately signified
a purpose of returning to his native valley, hoping to find repose where
he remembered to have left it. The inhabitants, his old neighbors and
their grown-up children, were resolved to welcome the [v]renowned
warrior with a salute of cannon and a public dinner; and all the more
enthusiastically because it was believed that at last the likeness of
the Great Stone Face had actually appeared. A friend of Old
Blood-and-Thunder, traveling through the valley, was said to have been
struck with the resemblance. Moreover, the schoolmates and early
acquaintances of the g