Charn by Lord Duncany. Charn leaned forward and rode. All things were won
with his weariness. It was not with him a matter of years or of
centuries, but of wide floods of time, and an old heaviness and a
pain in the arms that had become for him part of the scheme that the
gods had made, and was of a peace with eternity. If the gods
had even sent him a contrary wind, it would have divided all time in
his memory into two equal slabs. So gray were all things always where he
was, that if any radiance lingered a moment among the dead on the face
of such a queen, perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have perceived
it. It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such numbers.
They were coming in thousands, where they used to come in fifties. It
was neither Haron's duty nor his wont to ponder in his gray soul why these
things might be harn leaned forward and rowed. Then no one came for a
while. It was not usual for the gods to send no one down from
Earth for such a space, but the gods knew best. Then one man
came alone, and the little shade sat shivering on a lonely bench, and
the great boat pushed off only one passenger. The gods knew best, and
great and weary Haron rowed on and on beside the little silent, shivering ghost,
and the sound of the river was like a mighty scythe that grief in
the beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die like the
echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as old as time,
and the pain in Harn's arms. Then the boat from the slow gray
river loomed up to the coast of dis and the little silent Shade, still
shivering, stepped ashore, and Harn turned the boat to go wearily back to
the world. Then the little shadows spoke, that had been a man I
am the last. He said, No one had ever made Harn smile before,
no one before had ever made him weep. End of Haron by Lord Duncany