"Like! Why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder himself, in a monstrous
looking-glass," cried a third.
Just then a silence fell on the crowd, for the General rose to speak,
and as he did so Ernest for the first time saw the hero. There he stood,
head and shoulders above the crowd, with the golden epaulets glittering
on his uniform. Long and eagerly Ernest gazed on his face, and then
beyond, to the one on the mountain side. Were they, indeed, alike?
Ernest saw in the warrior's face only cruelty and hardness, with none of
the tender sympathy he knew so well in the other face.
"This is not the man," sighed Ernest, as he turned sadly away. "Must we
wait longer yet?"
But as the great mountain rose before him, once again the lips seemed to
say: "Fear not, Ernest; fear not. He will come."
The years sped swiftly by. Ernest still lived in the valley, a quiet and
gentle man, doing his work as best he knew. But gradually the people of
the village had come to know and feel that Ernest knew more than they.
Not a day passed by that the world was not better because this man,
humble as he was, had lived.
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