be in flower in another week,' he said; and he began to wonder at the
beautiful order of the spring. The pear and the cherry were the first;
these were followed by the apple, and after the apple came the lilac,
the chestnut, and the laburnum. The forest trees, too, had their order.
The ash was still leafless, but it was shedding its catkins, and in
another fifteen days its light foliage would be dancing in the breeze.
The oak was last of all. At that moment a swallow flitted from stone to
stone, too tired to fly far, and he wondered whence it had come. A
cuckoo called from a distant hill; it, too, had been away and had come
back.

His eyes dwelt on the lake, refined and wistful, with reflections of
islands and reeds, mysteriously still. Rose-coloured clouds descended,
revealing many new and beautiful mountain forms, every pass and every
crest distinguishable. It was the hour when the cormorants come home to
roost, and he saw three black specks flying low about the glittering
surface; rising from the water, they alighted with a flutter of wings on
the corner wall of what remained of Castle Hag, 'and they will sleep
there till morning,' he said, as he toiled up a little path, twisting
through ferns and thorn-bushes. At the top of the hill was his house,
the house Father Peter had built. Its appearance displeased him, and he
stood for a long time watching the evening darkening, and the yacht
being towed home, her sails lowered, the sailors in the rowing-boat.
'They will be well tired before they get her back to Tinnick;' and he
turned and entered his house abruptly.




III