Down their sides ran the streams, down busily, hasting away through every valley to the Daur, which bore them back to the ocean-heart--through woods and meadows, park and waste, rocks and willowy marsh.

Behind the valleys rose mountains; and behind the mountains, other mountains, more and more, each swathed in its own mystery; and beyond all hung the curtain-depth of the sky-gulf.
Gibbie sat and gazed, and dreamed and gazed.

The mighty city that had been to him the universe, was dropped and lost, like a thing that was now nobody's, in far indistinguishable distance; and he who had lost it had climbed upon the throne of the world.

The air was still; when a breath awoke, it but touched his cheek like the down of a feather, and the stillness was there again.

The stillness grew great, and slowly descended upon him.