340 The Little Minister

down a hillside, until he struck against a tree.
He twined his arms round it, and had just done
so when it fell with him. After that, when he
touched trees growing in water, he fled from
them, thus probably saving himself from death.

What he heard now might have been the roll
and crack of the thunder. It sounded in his ear
like nothing else. But it was really something
that swept down the hill in roaring spouts of
water, and it passed on both sides of him, so that
at one moment, had he paused, it would have
crashed into him, and at another, he was only
saved by stopping. He felt that the struggle in
the dark was to go on till the crack of doom.

Then he cast himself upon the ground. It
moved beneath him like some great animal, and
he rose, and stole away from it. Several times
did this happen. The stones against which his
feet struck seemed to acquire life from his touch.
So strong had he become, or so weak all other
things, that whatever clump he laid hands on, by
which to pull himself out of the water, was at
once rooted up.

The daylight would not come. He longed
passionately for it. He tried to remember what
it was like, and could not; he had been blind
so long. It was away in front somewhere, and
he was struggling to overtake it. He expected
to see it from a dark place, when he would rush
forward to bathe his arms in it, and then the ele-
ments that were searching the world for him
would see him, and he would perish. But death
did not seem too great a penalty to pay for light.

And at last day did come back, gray and drear.