"Welcome, my fair ones," roared he, as with heavy timbers in his maw he caught the Brooks again in strong embrace, and dashing at the smoking monster, knocked him down at once. Down came the mill-dam with an earthquake noise; the din upon the air was not of clanging tools and hammer stroke; the wheels were racking and rumbling, not beneath brick walls, but over the rocks and ruined factories below; while the pale and shadowy faces looked no longer wistfully on the landscape, but madly rushed about to spread the tale of ruin through the land.
The same old thing! The same old journey over the country. The same old havoc as they went. But the strength of a thousand Brooks seemed given to the Mountain-Torrent as, looking miles away, he saw a wide expanse of water fringed with brown and bluish lines. "It is the Ocean, fair ones," cried he; "when your feeble sights shall see it, bless my power, for at length we reach a home no art of man can invade to fetter us or bind us down. Ten millions of our species mingle there; in small harmony it is true, but better fight among ourselves than ever thus to wage a war with man. Now too approaches the time of our revenge: we'll take his life; we'll sink his ships; we'll break his boasted wealth into uncounted atoms, and scatter it."
The Brooks trembled in the strong grasp of the Mountain-Torrent to hear the vehemence with which he spoke these threatening words; but lost their fears in greater astonishment, as now they neared the ocean waste, fringed with the lines of brown and blue of which he spoke.
"Why, sister, what a noise!" cried one of the Brooks, "our own is not to be heard."
"See what a dreadful wall appears to rise and fall as we approach," answered the other. And they both clung closer to the embrace of the Torrent as he crossed the beach they reached at last, and plunged, with sticks and stones and all, upon the wall of foam and sand, which parted as the Mountain-Torrent and the Brooks joined forces with old _Ocean's_ solemn waste.
In an instant the meadow-born Brook writhed in pain, pressed on by thousands of Mountain-Torrents every way at once. She foamed and fought, and fought and foamed; under and over, up and below she plunged, but no escape; one weary work for ages yet to come!