ith the uttermost hills.
It was as if they had imparted to him something of their own
ruggedness, their aloofness, their stoical power of endurance.

A cheery little breeze stirred the branches of horse-chestnuts and
rhododendrons, tossed the silver-backed foliage of the ilex, and set
the cedar boughs swaying with slow, dignified indolence. Hidden within
their depths of shadow, birds and monkeys twittered and chattered; and
at intervals there came to Lenox the peculiar long-drawn note with
which the hill villagers call to one another across the valleys. An
infectious spirit of jubilation pervaded the air. The sun himself, in
these cheerful latitudes, is transformed from an instrument of torture
to the golden-locked hero of Norse and Greek legend; and with every
step of the ascent Lenox felt the blood course more swiftly through his
veins.

Ilex and rhododendrons, clustering close to the road's edge, shut off
the vast prospect on his left; till, at an abrupt turn of the road,
they gave place to a watercourse, descending in a cataract of boulders
to the valley below. Then the glorious company of the mountains sprang
suddenly into view, lifting scarred heads to heaven, and greeting the
new day with a Te Deum audible to the spirit, if not to the ear itself.
To the spirit of Eldred Lenox these outward symbols of the eternal
verities, fit emblems of the stern faith in which he had been reared,
spoke with no uncertain voice; and their message was a message of
aspiration, of conquest, of the iron self-mastery and self-restraint
indispensable to both. They reminded him, also, that life held many
good gifts in atonement for the one gift denied; that a man might do
worse than live and work unhindered by the volcanic forces of passion.

The past five years had, after all, been years of fruitful service to
the great country he loved; the three letters after his name assured
him of that. And there remained much more to be done in the same
direction; work that would make unstinted demands upon his energy and
fortitude; work that must, in due time, force him to forget.

Arrived on the Mall, with its far-reaching view of valley and hill, and
its outcrop of glittering granite, a word of encouragement set Shaitan
into a smart canter that brought them speedily to the half-way corner,
whence a densely shadowed road climbs upward to the great forest of
Kalatope. The glimpse of sun-splashed path and red pine-stems drew
Lenox aside