variety of the hills delighted him, and there was as much various colour
as there were many dips and curves, for the hills were not far enough
away to dwindle to one blue tint; they were blue, but the pink heather
showed through the blue, and the clouds continued to fold and unfold, so
that neither the colour nor the lines were ever the same. The retreating
and advancing of the great masses and the delicate illumination of the
crests could be watched without weariness. It was like listening to
music. Slieve Cairn showing straight as a bull's back against the white
sky, a cloud filling the gap between Slieve Cairn and Slieve Louan, a
quaint little hill like a hunchback going down a road. Slieve Louan was
followed by a great boulder-like hill turned sideways, the top indented
like a crater, and the priest likened the long, low profile of the next
hill to a reptile raising itself on its forepaws.

He stood at gaze, bewitched by the play of light and shadow among the
slopes; and when he turned towards the lake again, he was surprised to
see a yacht by Castle Island. A random breeze just sprung up had borne
her so far, and now she lay becalmed, carrying, without doubt, a
pleasure-party, inspired by some vague interest in ruins, and a very
real interest in lunch; or the yacht's destination might be Kilronan
Abbey, and the priest wondered if there were water enough in the strait
to let her through in this season of the year. The sails flapped in the
puffing breeze, and he began to calculate her tonnage, certain that if
he had such a boat he would not be sailing her on a lake, but on the
bright sea, out of sight of land, in the middle of a great circle of
water. As if stung by a sudden sense of the sea, of its perfume and its
freedom, he imagined the filling of the sails and the rattle of the
ropes, and how a fair wind would carry him as far as the cove of Cork
before morning. The run from Cork to Liverpool would be slower, but the
wind might veer a little, and in four-and-twenty hours the Welsh