Now one day when they were out together Martin was greatly surprised and disturbed at a change in his mother.  When he spoke to her she was silent; and byand-by, drawing a little away, he looked at her with a fear which increased to a kind of terror, so strangely altered did she seem, standing motionless, gazing fixedly with wide-open eyes at the plain beneath them, her whole face white and drawn with a look of rage.  He had an impulse to fly from her and hide himself in some hole in the rocks from the sight of that pale, wrathful face, but when he looked round him he was afraid to move from her, for the hill itself seemed changed, and now looked black and angry even as she did.  The ground he stood on, the grey old stones covered with silvery-white and yellow lichen and pretty flowery, creeping plants, so beautiful to look at in the bright sunlight a few moments ago, now were covered with a dull mist which appeared to be rising from them, making the air around them dark and strange.  And the air, too, had become sultry and close, and the sky was growing dark above them.  Then suddenly remembering all her love and kindness he flew to her, and clinging to her dress sobbed out, “O mother, mother, what is it?”

She put her hand on him, then drew him up to her side, with his feet on the stone she was standing by.  “Would you like to see what I see, Martin?” she asked, and taking the phial from her bosom she rubbed the white thick liquid on his eye-balls, and in a little while, when the mistiness passed off, she pointed with her hand and told him to look there.

He looked, and as on the former occasion, all distant things were clearly visible, for although that mist and blackness given off by the hill had wrapped them round so that they seemed to be standing in the midst of a black cloud, yet away on the plain beneath the sun was shining brightly, and all that was there could be seen by him.  Where he had once seen a herd of wild cattle he now saw mounted men, to the number of about a dozen, slowly riding towards the hill, and though they were miles away he could see them very distinctly.  They were dark, black-bearded men, strangely dressed, some with fawn-coloured cloaks with broad stripes, others in a scarlet uniform, and they wore cone-shaped scarlet caps.  Some carried lances, others carbines; and they all wore swords—­he could see the steel scabbards shining in the sun.  As he watched them they drew rein and some of them got off their horses, and they stood for some time as if talking excitedly, pointing towards the hill and using emphatic gestures.

What were they talking about so excitedly? thought Martin.  He wanted to know, and he would have asked her, but when he looked up at her she was still gazing fixedly at them with the same pale face and terrible stern expression, and he could but dimly see her face in that black cloud which had closed around them.  He trembled with fear and could only murmur, “Mother! mother!” Then her arm was put