the dark green fir
boughs on the hills.

As he listened to the swish and murmur of the wind, the earth-old tune
with the power to carry the soul back to the dawn of time, the years
fell away from him and he forgot much, remembering more. He knew now
that there had always been a longing in his heart to hear the
wind-chant in the firs. He had called that longing by other names, but
he knew it now for what it was when, hearing, he was satisfied.

He was a tall man with iron-grey hair and the face of a
conqueror--strong, pitiless, unswerving. Eagle eyes, quick to discern
and unfaltering to pursue; jaw square and intrepid; mouth formed to
keep secrets and cajole men to his will--a face that hid much and
revealed little. It told of power and intellect, but the soul of the
man was a hidden thing. Not in the arena where he had fought and
triumphed, giving fierce blow for blow, was it to be shown; but here,
looking down on the homeland, with the strength of the hills about
him, it rose dominantly and claimed its own. The old bond held. Yonder
below him was home--the old house that had sheltered him, the graves
of his kin, the wide fields where his boyhood dreams had been dreamed.

Should he go down to it? This was the question he asked himself. He
had come back to it, heartsick of his idols of the marketplace. For
years they had satisfied him, the buying and selling and getting gain,
the pitting of strength and craft against strength and craft, the
tireless struggle, the exultation of victory. Then, suddenly, they had
failed their worshipper; they ceased to satisfy; the sacrifices he had
heaped on their altars availed him nothing in this new need and hunger
of his being. His gods mocked him and he wearied of their service.
Were there not better things than these, things he had once known and
loved and forgotten? Where were the ideals of his youth, the lofty
aspirations that had upborne him then? Where was the eagerness and
zest of new dawns, the earnestness of well-filled, purposeful hours of
labour, the satisfaction of a good day worthily lived, at eventide the
unbroken rest of long, starry nights? Where might he find them again?
Were they yet to be had for the seeking in the old valley? With the
thought came a great yearning for home. He had had many habitations,
but he realized now that he had never thought of any of these places
as home. That name had all unconsciously been kept sacred to the long,
green, seaward-looking