sent Columbus into the desolate Atlantic,
inspired and supported these barbarians on their perilous march. There is
one legend which profoundly represents their spirit, of how a flying
party of these wanderers encountered a very old man shod with iron. The
old man asked them whither they were going; and they answered with one
voice: "To the Eternal City!" He looked upon them gravely. "I have sought
it," he said, "over the most part of the world. Three such pairs as I now
carry on my feet have I worn out upon this pilgrimage, and now the fourth
is growing slender underneath my steps. And all this while I have not
found the city." And he turned and went his own way alone, leaving them
astonished.

And yet this would scarcely parallel the intensity of Will's feeling for
the plain. If he could only go far enough out there, he felt as if his
eyesight would be purged and clarified, as if his hearing would grow more
delicate, and his very breath would come and go with luxury. He was
transplanted and withering where he was; he lay in a strange country and
was sick for home. Bit by bit, he pieced together broken notions of the
world below: of the river, ever moving and growing until it sailed forth
into the majestic ocean; of the cities, full of brisk and beautiful
people, playing fountains, bands of music and marble palaces, and lighted
up at night from end to end with artificial stars of gold; of the great
churches, wise universities, brave armies, and untold money lying stored
in vaults; of the high-flying vice that moved in the sunshine, and the
stealth and swiftness of midnight murder. I have said he was sick as if
for home: the figure halts. He was like some one lying in twilit,
formless pre-existence, and stretching out his hands lovingly towards
many-coloured, many-sounding life. It was no wonder he was unhappy, he
would go and tell the fish: they were made for their life, wished for no
more than worms and running water, and a hole below a falling bank; but
he was differently designed, full of desires and aspirations, itching at
the fingers, lusting with the eyes, whom the whole variegated world could
not satisfy with aspects. The true life, the true bright sunshine, lay
far out upon the plain. And, O! to see this sunlight once before he died!
to move with a jocund spirit in a golden land! to hear the trained
singers and sweet church bells, and see the holiday gardens! "And, O
fish!" he would cry, "if you would only turn