Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/67

52 they had made; and then, with a laugh and a song, sprang on the way of their pilgrimage. And still fresh help came up from under the heather to force a way to the sea. And the fays and elves leered from boulder and from pool as they saw the steady ripples breaking the pride of the rocks. For here and there a wall of adamant would stretch across their path, and, seek as they might, no corner of exit could be found. But ever they sought the higher level, and still the waters rose, and the stream became a pool, and deepened day by day, till it rose to the crest of the crag, and then, with a roar full of a thousand echoes, rushed in white foam like snow into the startled glen.

And at last, when the moon rode low, and swathed in mist, and the sad sea sobbed on the ridge of drenched sand, with a laugh that stirred the sea-birds from their sorrow, the child of the hills leapt into the lap of ocean. Great was the news that passed, and many the stories they told, that night and all nights for ever; but the first was the sweetest of all, for it spoke of the heather, and the cool, dewy brows of the hills at the head of the glen, to the old sad sea, bitter with brine, and weary.

And that soft, misty night, with the low moon brooding over it, grew into ages, and still the stream came on—now brawling and battling, now sighing and singing, now full of laughter and peace. And the pools grew deeper and stiller, till the big hills saw their beauty reflected in fulness, with the sky and the stars in their depths. And the fall became a torrent, the hoarse roar of the past, with its passion and battle, deep in its open throat. And the rocks crumbled and widened, till the path of the stream to the sea was a path like the track of a dream—wild with great dark corries and gaunt ravines, and fair with smooth pebbly places, and long lown tracts; and all the way, the purple of the heather, the yellow, gold, and green of the moorland whin.

And one day man came into the solitudes, borne like a wave from the bosom of the sea. And he sat by the shore, and sang strange songs of a land across the water, where