Alixe was alive or that I should find her. There was assurance in
this benignant night. In that thought, dreaming that her cheek lay
close to mine, her arm around my neck, I fell asleep. I waked to
bear the squirrels stirring in the trees, the whir of the partridge,
and the first unvarying note of the oriole. Turning on my dry,
leafy bed, I looked down, and saw in the dark haze of dawn the
beavers at their house-building.

I was at the beginning of a deep gorge or valley, on one side of
which was a steep sloping hill of grass and trees, and on the other
a huge escarpment of mossed and jagged rocks. Then, farther up, the
valley seemed to end in a huge promontory. On this great wedge grim
shapes loomed in the mist, uncouth and shadowy and unnatural--a
lonely, mysterious Brocken, impossible to human tenantry. Yet as
I watched the mist slowly rise, there grew in me the feeling that
there lay the end of my quest. I came down to the brook, bathed
my face and hands, ate my frugal breakfast of bread, with berries
picked from the hillside, and, as the yellow light of the rising
sun broke over the promontory, I saw the Tall Calvary upon a knoll,
strange comrade to the huge rocks and monoliths--as it were vast
playthings of the Mighty Men, the fabled ancestors of the Indian
races of the land.

I started up the valley, and presently all the earth grew
blithe, and the birds filled the woods and valleys with jocund
noise.

It was near noon before I knew that my pilgrimage was over.

Coming round a point of rock, I saw the Gray Monk, of whom