Martin shivered and nestled closer to her; and then while the shadows of evening were gathering round them, she sat rocking herself to and fro on a stone, murmuring many tender, sweet words to him, until the music of her voice and the warmth of her bosom made him sleep.

CHAPTER XIV

THE WONDERS OF THE HILLS

Now, although Martin had gone very comfortably to sleep in her arms and found it sweet to be watched over so tenderly, he was not the happy little boy he had been before the sight of the distant ocean.  And she knew it, and was troubled in her mind, and anxious to do something to make him forget that great blue water.  She could do many things, and above all she could show him new and wonderful things in the hills where she wished to keep him always with her.  To caress him, to feed and watch over him by day, and hold him in her arms when he slept at night—­all that was less to him than the sight of something new and strange; she knew this well, and therefore determined to satisfy his desire and make his life so full that he would always be more than contented with it.

In the morning he went out on the hillside, wandering listlessly among the rocks, and when the big cat found him there and tried to tempt him to a game he refused to play, for he had not yet got over his disappointment, and could think of nothing but the sea.  But the cat did not know that anything was the matter with him, and was more determined to play than ever; crouching now here, now there among the stones and bushes, he would spring out upon Martin and pull him down with its big paws, and this so enraged him that picking up a stick he struck furiously at his tormentor.  But the cat was too quick for him; he dodged the blows, then knocked the stick out of his hand, and finally Martin, to escape from him, crept into a crevice in a rock where the cat could not reach him, and refused to come out even when the Lady of the Hills came to look for him and begged him to come to her.  When at last, compelled by hunger, he returned to her, he was silent and sullen and would not be caressed.

He saw no more of the cat, and when next day he asked her where it was, she said that it had gone from them and would return no more—­that she had sent it away because it had vexed him.  This made Martin sulk, and he would have gone away and hidden himself from her had she not caught him up in her arms.  He struggled to free himself, but could not, and she then carried him away a long distance down the mountain-side until they came to a small dell, green with creepers and bushes, with a deep carpet of dry moss on the ground, and here she sat down and began to talk to him.

“The cat was a very beautiful beast with his spotted hide,” she said; “and you liked to play with him sometimes, but in a little while you will be glad that he has gone from you.”

He asked her why.