The lonely Man's heart grows heavier and heavier as he waits and watches, whilst the weary time passes and the countless days and nights come and go.
Time comes when he begins to get feebler and feebler. At last he grows sick to death, and lingers long a-dying.
Then these shadows pass away.
Out from the Threshold grows the shadow of an old woman, thin and worn, sitting in a lonely cottage on a jutting cliff. In the window a lamp burns in the night time to welcome the Lost One should he ever return, and to guide him to his Mother's home. By the lamp the Mother watches, till, wearied out, she sinks to sleep.
As she sleeps the Shadow Builder summons her sleeping soul with the wave of his spectral hand.
She stands beside him in the lonely abode, whilst round them through the misty walls passes onward the Procession of the Dead Past.
As she looks, the Shadow Builder lifts his spectral hand to point to the vision of her Son.
But the Mother's eyes are quicker than even the spectral hand that evokes all the shadows of the rushing storm, and ere the hand is raised she sees her Son among the Shadows of the Past. The Mother's heart is filled with unspeakable joy, as she sees him alive and hale, although a prisoner amongst the tropic seas.
But alas! she knows not that in the dim Procession pass only the things that have been; and that although in the past the lonely Sailor lived, in the present - even at the moment - he may be dying or dead.
The Mother stretches out her arms to her Boy; but even as she does, her sleeping soul loses sight of the dim Procession and vanishes from the Shadow Builder's lonely abode. For when she knows that her Boy is alive, there follows a great pain that he is lonely and waits and watches for help; and the quick heart of the Mother is overcome with grief, and she wakes with a bitter cry.
Then as she rises and looks past the dying lamp out into the dawn, the Mother feels that she has seen a vision of her son in sleep, and that he lives and waits for help; and her heart glows with a great resolve.
Quickly then from the Threshold float many shadows. -
A lonely Mother speeding with flying feet to a distant city.
Grave men refusing, but not unkindly, a kneeling woman making an appeal with uplifted hands.
Hard men spurning a praying Mother from their doors.
A wild rabble of bad and thoughtless boys and girls hounding through the streets a hurrying woman.
A shadow of pain on a Mother's heart.
The upcoming of a black cloud of despair, but which hangs far off - for it cannot advance into the bright sunlight of the Mother's resolve.
Weary days with their own myriad shadows.
Lonely nights - black want - cold - hunger and pain; and through all these darkening shadows the swift moving shadow of the Mother's flying feet.
A long long line of such pictures come ever anigh in the Procession, till the dead heart of the Shadow Builder grows icy, and his burning eyes look out savagely on all who give pain and trial to the Mother's faithful heart.
And so all these shadows float out into a black mist, and are lost in the gloom of the Gate of Dread.
Another shadow grows out of the mist. -
An Old Man sits in his armchair. The firelight flickering throws his image, quaintly dancing, on the wall of the room. He is old, for the great shoulders are bowed, and the grand strong face is lined with years. There is another shadow in the room; it is the Mother's - she is standing by the table, and is telling her story; her thin hands point away where in the distance she knows her Son is a prisoner in the lonely seas.
The Old Man rises; the enthusiasm of the Mother's heart has touched him, and back to his memory rush the old love and energy and valour of his youth. The great hand rises, closes, and strikes the table with a mighty blow, as though declaring a binding promise. The Mother sinks to her knees, - she seizes the great hand and kisses it, and stands erect.
Other men come in - they receive orders - they hurry out.
Then come many shadows whose movement and swiftness and firm purpose mean life and hope.
At sunset, when the masts make long shadows on the harbour water, a big ship moves out on her journey to the tropic seas. Men's shadows quickly flit up and down the rigging and along the decks.
As the shadows wheel round the capstan bar the anchor rises; and into the sunset passes the great vessel.
In the bow, like a figure of Hope, stands the Mother, gazing with eager eyes on the far-off horizon.
Then this shadow fades.
A great ship sweeps along with white sails swelling to the breeze; at the bow stands the Mother, gazing ever out into the distance before her.
Storms come and the ship flies before the blast; but she swerves not, for the Mother, with outstretched hand, points the way, and the helmsman swaying beside his wheel obeys the hand.
So this shadow also passes.
The shadows of days and nights come on in quick succession; and the Mother seeks ever for her Son.