At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about toutter, the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, soimbued with benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse,threw his arms aloft, and shouted, "Behold! Behold! Ernest ishimself the likeness of the Great Stone Face!"Then all the people looked, and saw that what the deep-sighted poetsaid was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. But Ernest, having finishedwhat he had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward,still hoping that some wiser and better man than himself would byand by appear, bearing a resemblance to the GREAT STONE FACE.
THE END
.
1830
TWICE-TOLD TALES
THE HOLLOW OF THE THREE HILLS
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
IN THOSE STRANGE OLD TIMES, when fantastic dreams and madmen'sreveries were realized among the actual circumstances of life, twopersons met together at an appointed hour and place. One was a lady,graceful in form and fair of feature, though pale and troubled, andsmitten with an untimely blight in what should have been the fullestbloom of her years; the other was an ancient and meanly-dressed woman,of ill-favored aspect, and so withered, shrunken, and decrepit, thateven the space since she began to decay must have exceeded theordinary term of human existence. In the spot where theyencountered, no mortal could observe them. Three little hills stoodnear each other, and down in the midst of them sunk a hollow basin,almost mathematically circular, two or three hundred feet inbreadth, and of such depth that a stately cedar might but just bevisible above the sides. Dwarf pines were numerous upon the hills, andpartly fringed the outer verge of the intermediate hollow, withinwhich there was nothing but the brown grass of October, and here andthere a tree trunk that had fallen long ago, and lay mouldering withno green successor from its roots. One of these masses of decayingwood, formerly a majestic oak, rested close beside a pool of green andsluggish water at the bottom of the basin. Such scenes as this (sogray tradition tells) were once the resort of the Power of Evil andhis plighted subjects; and here, at midnight or on the dim verge ofevening, they were said to stand round the mantling pool, disturbingits putrid waters in the performance of an impious baptismal rite. Thechill beauty of an autumnal sunset was now gilding the threehill-tops, whence a paler tint stole down their sides into the hollow.
"Here is our pleasant meeting come to pass," said the aged crone,"according as thou hast desired. Say quickly what thou wouldst have ofme, for there is but a short hour that we may tarry here."As the old withered woman spoke, a smile glimmered on hercountenance, like lamplight on the wall of a sepulchre. The ladytrembled, and cast her eyes upward to the verge of the basin, as ifmeditating to return with her purpose unaccomplished. But it was notso ordained.
"I am a stranger in this land, as you know," said she at length.
"Whence I come it matters not; but I have left those behind me withwhom my fate was intimately bound, and from whom I am cut off forever.
There is a weight in my bosom that I cannot away with, and I have comehither to inquire of their welfare.""And who is there by this green pool that can bring thee newsfrom the ends of the earth?" cried the old woman, peering into thelady's face. "Not from my lips mayst thou hear these tidings; yet,be thou bold, and the daylight shall not pass away from yonderhill-top before thy wish be granted.""I will do your bidding though I die," replied the ladydesperately.
The old woman seated herself on the trunk of the fallen tree, threwaside the hood that shrouded her gray locks, and beckoned hercompanion to draw near.
"Kneel down," she said, and lay your forehead on my knees."She hesitated a moment, but the anxiety that had long been kindlingburned fiercely up within her. As she knelt down, the border of hergarment was dipped into the pool; she laid her forehead on the oldwoman's knees, and the latter drew a cloak about the lady's face, sothat she was in darkness. Then she heard the muttered words of prayer,in the midst of which she started, and would have arisen.
"Let me flee- let me flee and hide myself, that they may not lookupon me!" she cried. But, with returning recollection, she hushedherself, and was still as death.
For it seemed as if other voices- familiar in infancy, andunforgotten through many wanderings, and in all the vicissitudes ofher heart and fortune- were mingling with the accents of the prayer.
At first the words were faint and indistinct, not rendered so bydistance, but rather resembling the dim pages of a book which westrive to read by an imperfect and gradually brightening light. Insuch a manner, as the prayer proceeded, did those voices strengthenupon the ear; till at length the petition ended, and theconversation of an aged man, and of a woman broken and decayed likehimself, became distinctly audible to the lady as she knelt. But thosestrangers appeared not to stand in the hollow depth between thethree hills. Their voices were encompassed and reechoed by the wallsof a chamber, the windows of which were rattling in the breeze; theregular vibration of a clock, the crackling of a fire, and thetinkling of the embers as they fell among the ashes, rendered thescene almost as vivid as if painted to the eye. By a melancholy hearthsat these two old people, the man calmly despondent, the womanquerulous and tearfull and their words were all of sorrow. Theyspoke of a daughter, a wanderer they knew not where, bearingdishonor along with her, and leaving shame and affliction to bringtheir gray heads to the grave. They alluded also to other and morerecent wo, but in the midst of their talk their voices seemed tomelt into the sound of the wind sweeping mournfully among the autumnleaves; and when the lady lifted her eyes, there was she kneeling inthe hollow between three hills.
