A great stone face in 8th in short story
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The Great Stone Face-I, Class 8 CBSE English Lesson Summary, Explanation
By Ruchika Gupta
The Great Stone Face-I, CBSE Class 8 English Honeydew Book Lesson 9 Explanation, Summary, Difficult words
The Great Stone Face-I Class 8 English Honeydew Book Lesson 9 - Detailed explanation of the lesson along with the meanings of difficult words. Also, the explanation is followed by a Summary of the lesson. All the exercises and Question and Answers given at the back of the lesson have been covered.
Class 8 English (Honeydew Book) Chapter 9 - The Great Stone Face-I
the great stone face I
The Great Stone Face-I - Introduction
The Great Stone Face-I revolves around the old prophecy that persists in a valley which has the Great Stone Face beaming over it. The old prophecy says that one day a man will come bearing likeness of the Great Stone Face and he will be the noblest and greatest of his time. One day, a mother tells her son, Ernest about the prophecy and since then, he eagerly awaits the arrival of the man. The story focuses on how the inhabitants of the village misjudge two men to be the one spoken about in the prophecy and how even after waiting for so long, Ernest is still hopeful that the man will come.
“Perhaps you may”. Since that day, Ernest never forgot about the prophecy and thought about it whenever he glanced at the valley. Ernest was an obedient and hard-working child who helped his mother. One fine day, a word spread across town that a son of the valley named Gathergold that had settled out of it to establish as a shopkeeper wanted to spend his last days in his native valley. He was so wealthy that it would have taken him a hundred years to count his wealth. A rumour was spread that he is the man being spoken of in the prophecy. People were excited to see him and upon seeing him, everyone except Ernest, believed that Mr Gathergold bore the likeness of the Great Stone Face. It was only after he lost all his wealth before dying that people agreed that he was not the man from the prophecy. As Ernest was a simple and helpful child, he grew up to be a diligent and kind man in his youth. He used to stay unnoticed in the valley as he was plain and simple which drew almost no attention to him. The only thing people noticed was that he used to gaze at the Great Stone Face for hours after finishing the work for the day. People thought it was foolish but still excusable as he was neighbourly. By the time he had grown up, the Great Stone Face had become a teacher for Earnest. It made him wiser than others of his age. Some time later, another son of a valley who had left it to become a soldier expressed his desire to spend his last days in the valley where he was born. After hard fighting, he had risen to the rank of a famous Commander and was known as Blood-and-Thunder in the battlefield. A word spread across the valley that this great fighter is the man they have been waiting for. Preparations to welcome him began and people who never even thought of looking at the Great Stone Face, began spending hours looking at it to know how Blood-and-Thunder would look. On the day of his arrival, everyone left their work early to gather at the place where the feast was organised to welcome the General. When people saw him, they shouted in joy as they claimed that he had the exact same face. At first, Ernest could not see him but when he did, he could compare Blood-and-Thunder and the Great Stone Face that stood beside him. He concluded that there was no such resemblance as people proclaimed. He turned away in disappointment as his heart (felt like it was the Great Stone Face was saying itself to him) whispered to him, “fear not, Earnest, the man will come”.