On the Shores of Longing 149

Long was the way and weary the pilgrim-
age, but at last he reached the beloved green
Isle of the Gael, and fared into the south-
west — and this is the land in which it is told
that Patrick the Saint celebrated Mass on
every seventh ridge he passed over. He
came at sunset on the last day of the week
to the place of bells and cells among the
rocks of the coast of Kerry. In that blessed
spot there is ever a service of angels ascend-
ing and descending. And when he saw once
more the turf dyke and the wattled cells and
the rude stone church of the brotherhood
where he had been a son of reading in his
boyhood, and the land all quiet with the
labour of the week done, and the woods red
with the last light of the finished day, the
tears ran down his face, and he fell on the
earth and kissed it for joy at his return. It
was a glad thing for him to be there once
more; to recognise each spot he had loved,
to look on the old stones and trees, the hills
and sparkling sea, the rocky isle and the
curraghs of the fisher-folk ; to smell the reek
of the peat curling up blue in the sweet air ;
for all these things had haunted him in
dreams when he was in a distant land.