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Seven mornings he prayed thus on his rock: and on the seventh, his prayer ended, he stood watching while the sunrays, like dogs shepherding a flock, searched in the mists westward and gathered up the tale of boats one by one. While he counted them, the shoreward breeze twanged once like a harp, and he heard a fresh young voice singing from the base of the cliff at his feet–

“There lived a king in Argos,–
A merchantman in Tyre
Would sell the King his cargoes,
But took his heart’s desire:
Sing Io, Io, Io!–“

Graul looked toward his wife. “That will be the boy Laian,” said Motte; “he sits on the rock below and sings at his fishing.”

“The song is a strange one,” said Graul; “and never had Laian voice like that.”

The singer mounted the cliff–

“The father of that merry may
A thousand towns he made to pay,
And lapp’d the world in fire!”

He stood before them–a handsome, smiling youth, with a crust of brine on his blue sea-cloak, and the light of the morning in his hair. “Salutation, O Graul!” said he, and looked so cordial and well-willing that the King turned to him from the dead lamp and the hooded women as one turns to daylight from an evil dream.

“Salutation, O Stranger!” he answered. “You come to a poor man, but are welcome–you and your shipmates.”

“I travel alone,” said the youth; “and my business–“

But the King put up his hand. “We ask no man his business until he has feasted.”

“I feast not in a house of mourning; and my business is better spoken soon than late, seeing that I heal griefs.”

“If that be so,” answered Graul, “you come to those who are fain of you.” And then and there he told of Gwennolar. “The blessing of blessings rest on him who can still my child’s voice and deliver her from my people’s curse!”

The Stranger listened, and threw back his head. “I said I could heal griefs. But I cannot cure fate; nor will a wise man ask it. Pain you must suffer, but I can soothe it; sorrow, but I can help you to forget; death, but I can brace you for it.”

“Can death be welcomed,” asked Graul, “save by those who find life worse?”

“You shall see.” He stepped to the mourning women, and took the eldest by the hand. At first he whispered to her–in a voice so low that Graul heard nothing, but saw her brow relax, and that she listened while the blood came slowly back to her cheeks.

“Of what are you telling her?” the King demanded.

“Hush!” said the Stranger, “Go, fetch me a harp.”

Graul brought a harp. It was mute and dusty, with a tangle of strings; but the Stranger set it against his knee, and began to mend it deftly, talking the while in murmurs as a brook talks in a covert of cresses. By and by as he fitted a string he would touch and make it hum on a word–softly at first, and with long intervals–as though all its music lay dark and tangled in chaos, and he were exploring and picking out a note here and a note there to fit his song. There was trouble in his voice, and restlessness, and a low, eager striving, and a hope which grew as the notes came oftener, and lingered and thrilled on them. Then his fingers caught the strings together, and pulled the first chord: it came out of the depths with a great sob–a soul set free. Other souls behind it rose to his fingers, and he plucked them forth, faster and faster–some wailing, some laughing fiercely, but each with the echo of a great pit, the clang of doors, and the mutter of an army pressing at its heels. And now the mourners leaned forward, and forgot all except to listen, for he was singing the Creation. He sang up the stars and set them in procession; he sang forth the sun from his chamber; he lifted the heads of the mountains and hitched on their mantles of green forest; he scattered the uplands with sheep, and the upper air with clouds; he called the west wind, and it came with a rustle of wings; he broke the rock into water and led it dancing down the cliffs, and spread it in marshes, and sent it spouting and hurrying in channels. Flowers trooped to the lip of it, wild beasts slunk down to drink; armies of corn spread in rank along it, and men followed with sickles, chanting the hymn of Linus; and after them, with children at the breast, women stooped to glean or strode upright bearing baskets of food. Over their heads days and nights hurried in short flashes, and the seasons overtook them while they rested, and drowned them in showers of bloom, and overtopped their bodies with fresh corn: but the children caught up the sickles and ran on. To some–shining figures in the host–he gave names; and they shone because they moved in the separate light of divine eyes watching them, rays breaking the thickets or hovering down from heights where the gods sat at their ease.