  Ule was a little city in the midst of a wide plain, and round about it was a stout wall. One straight, white road crossed the plain from end to end, entering the city at the northern gate and leaving it by the southern gate. The borders of the plain were blue mountains whose peaks reached the sky, and among these peaks the sun made his bed. At least, so said the good people of Ule. Nothing could shake their faith, for did they not every morning see him rise from the eastern peaks, fresh and ready for the day's work of warming the air of Ule, and encouraging the trees of Ule to bear fruit and the buds of Ule to spread into flowers? And every evening did they not see him, tired and faint, sink to rest amid the western peaks? The rare strangers who came now and then to the city and heard this story, were apt to smile unbelievingly and ask laughingly how, after laying his head among the pillows on the western side of the plain, the sun was able to wake up on the opposite side, many miles distant? But this question presented no difficulty to the good people of Ule. 'Why,' they would reply a little irritably, for they liked to think that the sun was theirs and theirs only, 'surely the sun can walk in his sleep as well—nay, better—than ordinary folk? A baby could see that!' they would add with a laugh. So it was settled that the sun spent all his time in the neighbourhood of Ule. If the citizens had ever travelled away from their native part, perhaps they would have thought otherwise; but they rarely, or never, did. 'What!' they would say, in pained astonishment, 'leave Ule! Why?' 'To see the world,' the rash stranger who had made the suggestion might reply. 'The world? This is the world,' would be the answer. And they really believed that it was. The knowledge that thousands of other places, no whit less happy than themselves, or even more happy, were in existence would have made the Ulians quite bad-tempered. And beyond doubt they were in need of no other cause to excite their anger, for had they not the Flamp? |
|
