And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe that here was the likeness which they spoke of.  By the roadside there chanced to be an old beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity.  A yellow claw—­the very same that had clawed together so much wealth—­poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man’s name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed Scattercopper.  Still, nevertheless, with an earnest shout, and evidently with as much good faith as ever, the people bellowed,—­

“He is the very image of the Great Stone Face!”

But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that sordid visage, and gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious features which had impressed themselves into his soul.  Their aspect cheered him.  What did the benign lips seem to say?

“He will come!  Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!”

The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy.  He had grown to be a young man now.  He attracted little notice from the other inhabitants of the valley; for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, save that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face.  According to their idea of the matter, it was a folly, indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as Ernest was industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake of indulging this idle habit.  They knew not that the Great Stone Face had become a teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed in it would enlarge the young man’s heart, and fill it with wider and deeper sympathies than other hearts.  They knew not that thence would come a better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a better life than could be moulded on the defaced example of other human lives.  Neither did Ernest know that the thoughts and affections which came to him so naturally, in the fields and at the fireside, and wherever he communed with himself, were of a higher tone than those which all men shared with him.  A simple soul,—­simple as when his mother first taught him the old prophecy,—­he beheld the marvellous features beaming adown the valley, and still wondered that their human counterpart was so long in making his appearance.