noon
Then up again and another run , and so on . But although feeling hungry and thirsty , he was so full of the thought of the great blue water he was going to see , so eager to look upon it at last after wishing for it so long , that he hardly gave himself any time to hunt for food . Nor did he think of his mother of the hills , alone today , and grieving at his loss , so excited was he at the prospect of what lay before him . A little past noon he began to hear a low murmuring sound that seemed in the earth beneath him , and all about him , and in the air above him ; but he did not know that it was the sound of the sea . At length he came to a place where the earth rose up in long ridges of yellow sand , on which nothing grew but scattered tufts of stiff , yellow grass . As he toiled over the loose sand , sometimes sinking ankle-deep in it , the curious deep murmuring sound he had heard for so long grew louder and louder , until it was like the sound of a mighty wind in a wood , but deeper and hoarser , rising and falling , and at intervals broken by great throbs , as of thunder echoed and re-echoed among the distant hills . At length he had toiled over the last ridge of sand ; and then all at once the world -- his world of solid earth at all events -- came to an abrupt end ; for no more ground on which to set a foot was before him , but only the ocean -- that ocean which he had wanted so badly , and had loved at a distance more than the plains and hills , and all they contained to delight him !