would turn to meet the coming wave, and let it break round and rush
past him, and then in a moment he would be standing knee-deep in the
midst of a great sheet of dazzling white foam, until with a long
hiss as it fled back, drawing the round pebbles with it, it would be
gone, and he would laugh and shout with glee. What a grand old
play-fellow the sea was! And it loved him, like the big spotted cat
of the hills, and only pretended to be angry with him when it wanted
to play, and would do him no harm. And still he was not satisfied,
but grew bolder and bolder, putting himself in its power and trusting
to its mercy. He could play better with his clothes off; and one day,
chasing a great receding wave as far as it would go, he stood up
bravely to encounter the succeeding wave, but it was greater than
the last, and lifting him in its great green arms it carried him high
up till it broke with a mighty roar on the beach; then instead of
leaving him stranded there it rushed back still bearing him in its
arms out into the deep. Further and further from the shore it
carried him, until he became terrified, and throwing out his little
arms towards the land, he cried aloud, "Mother! Mother!"

He was not calling to his own mother far away on the great plain; he
had forgotten her. Now he only thought of the beautiful woman of the
Hills, who was so strong, and loved him and made him call her
"Mother"; and to her he cried in his need for help. Now he
remembered her warm, protecting bosom, and how she had cried every
night at the fear of losing him; how when he ran from her she
followed him, calling to him to return. Ah, how cold was the sea's
bosom, how bitter its lips!

Struggling still with the great wave, struggling in vain, blinded
and half-choked with salt water, he was driven violently against a
great black object tumbling about in the surf, and with all the
strength of his little hands he clung to it. The water rolled over
him, and beat against him, but he would not lose his hold; and at
last there came a bigger wave and lifted him up and cast him right
on to the object he was clinging to. It was as if some enormous
monster of the sea had caught him up and put him in that place, just
as the Lady of the Hills had often snatched him up from the edge of
some perilous precipice to set him down in a safe place.

There he lay exhausted, stretched out at full length, so tossed
about on the billows that he had a sensation of being