"I knew the sea. I knew the secret caves where ocean roars to
ocean; the floods that are icy cold, from which the nose of a
salmon leaps back as at a sting; and the warm streams in which we
rocked and dozed and were carried forward without motion. I swam
on the outermost rim of the great world, where nothing was but
the sea and the sky and the salmon; where even the wind was
silent, and the water was clear as clean grey rock.

"And then, far away in the sea, I remembered Ulster, and there
came on me an instant, uncontrollable anguish to be there. I
turned, and through days and nights I swam tirelessly,
jubilantly; with terror wakening in me, too, and a whisper
through my being that I must reach Ireland or die.

"I fought my way to Ulster from the sea.

"Ah, how that end of the journey was hard! A sickness was racking
in every one of my bones, a languor and weariness creeping
through my every fibre and muscle. The waves held me back and
held me back; the soft waters seemed to have grown hard; and it
was as though I were urging through a rock as I strained towards
Ulster from the sea.

"So tired I was! I could have loosened my frame and been swept
away; I could have slept and been drifted and wafted away;
swinging on grey-green billows that had turned from the land and
were heaving and mounting and surging to the far blue water.

"Only the unconquerable heart of the salmon could brave that end
of toil. The sound of the rivers of Ireland racing down to the