And she clasped me
round the neck, and cried, "Come! I will be your bride, and you shall be
rich and powerful; and all men shall speak well of you, and you shall write
songs; and we will sing them together, and feast and play from dawn to
dawn."
And I wept; and turned me about, and cried, "Wife and child, song and
wealth, are pleasant; but blessed is the work which the All-Father has
given the people to do. Let the maimed and the halt and the blind, the
needy and the fatherless, come up after me, and we will bore the mountain."
But the rich drove me out, and drove back those who would have followed me.
So I went up by myself, and bored the mountain seven years, weeping; and
every year Lillian came to me, and said, "Come, and be my husband, for
my beauty is fading, and youth passes fast away." But I set my heart
steadfastly to the work.
And when seven years were over, the poor were so multiplied, that the rich
had not wherewith to pay their labour. And there came a famine in the land,
and many of the poor died. Then the rich said, "If we let these men starve,
they will turn on us, and kill us, for hunger has no conscience, and they
are all but like the beasts that perish.
Pages:
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783