tan looking in upon Paradise. The wild mountains, or the
locust-smitten track would have better suited the tumult of his mind. It
would have been a relief to him to have retreated from so fair a scene,
and to have retraced his steps, but he was not his own master, and was
hurried on. Sorely against his determined strong resolve and will, crying
out and protesting and shuddering, the youth was forced along into the
fulness of beauty and blessing with which he was so little in tune. With
rage and terror he recognised that he had no part in his own movements,
but was a mere slave. In spite of himself he must go forward and behold a
peace and sweetness which witnessed against him. He dashed down through
the thick grass, plunged into the water, and without rest or respite began
a second course of aimless toil and travail through the day.

The savage dogs of the villages howled and fled from him as he passed by;
beasts of burden, on their way to market, which he overtook or met, stood
still, foamed and trembled; the bright birds, the blue jay and golden
oriole, hid themselves under the leaves and grass; the storks, a religious
and domestic bird, stopped their sharp clattering note from the high tree
or farmhouse turret, where they had placed their nests; the very reptiles
skulked away from his shadow, as if it were poisonous. The boors who were
at their labour in the fields suspended it, to look at one whom the Furies
were lashing and whirling on. Hour passed after hour, the sun attained its
zenith, and then declined, but this dreadful compulsory race continued.
Oh, what would he have given for one five minutes of oblivion, of slumber,
of relief from the burning thirst which now consumed him! but the master
within him ruled his muscles and his joints, and the intense pain of
weariness had no concomitant prostration of strength. Suddenly he began to
laugh hideously; and he went forward dancing and singing loud, and playing
antics. He entered a hovel, made faces at the children, till one of them
fell into convulsions, and he ran away with another; and when some country
people pursued him, he flung the child in their faces, saying, "Take
that," and said he was Pentheus, king of Thebes, of whom he had never
heard, about to solemnise the orgies of Bacchus, and he began to spout a
chorus of Greek, a language he had never learnt or heard spoken.

Now it is evening again, and he has come up to a village grove, where the
rustics were h