"And diamond-birds chirping their single notes,
Now 'mid the trumpet-flower's deep blossoms seen,
Now floating brightly on with fiery throats--
Small winged emeralds of golden green;
And other larger birds with orange cheeks,
A many-color-painted, chattering crowd,
Prattling forever with their curved beaks,
And through the silent woods screaming aloud."



XIII

KIRWAN'S SEARCH FOR HY-BRASAIL


The boy Kirwan lay on one of the steep cliffs of the Island of Innismane--
one of the islands of Arran, formerly called Isles of the Saints. He was
looking across the Atlantic for a glimpse of Hy-Brasail. This was what
they called it; it was a mysterious island which Kirwan's grandfather had
seen, or thought he had seen--and Kirwan's father also;--indeed, there was
not one of the old people on the island who did not think he had seen it,
and the older they were, the oftener it had been seen by them, and the
larger it looked. But Kirwan had never seen it, and whenever he came to
the top of the highest cliff, where he often went bird-nesting, he climbed
the great mass of granite called The Gregory, and peered out into the
west, especially at sunset, in hopes that he would at least catch a
glimpse, some happy evening, of the cliffs and meadows of Hy-Brasail. But
as yet he had never espied them. All this was more than two hundred years