Page 115 (1/1)

And then as he cae where the road passes from Glenavelin to Glen Adler, he stopped as in duty bound to look at the fa of two streareen and woodland spaces of the pastoral Avelin; at the feet, a land of stones and dwarf junipers and naked rifts in the hills, hite-falling waters and dark shadows even at midday And then, beyond and afar, the lines of hill-land crowd upon each other till the eye is lost in a le bald peaks rising sentinel-like in the waste The grey heavens lent a chill eeriness to the direy distances; the sharp winds, the forerunners of snow, blew over the ary of temper the love of these bleak hills blazed up fiercely in his heart Never before had he felt so keenly the nae He had not been back six s as matters of course, the beauty of the place, its sport, its memories Rarely had he felt that intimate joy in it which lies at the bottom of all true souls There is a sentis and called the "Lilt of the Heather," and which is knit closer to man's heart than love of wife or kin or his own fair fortune It had not colory, but now on the brink of winter the far-off melancholy of the place and its infinite fascination sees It was his own land, the place of his fathers; and now he must sever himself from it and carry only a barren memory

And yet he felt no aiety of the wanderer, to whom the homeland is dearest as a memory, who pitches his camp by waters of Babylon and yet as ever the old word on his lip, the old song in his ear, and the kindly picture in his heart Strange that it is the little races ander farthest and yet have the eternal hoe, for to the little peoples, their land, bare and uncouth and unfriendly for the needs of life, must be more the ideal, the dreaive corn and wine for their folks, the little bare places afford no e Yet spiritual it is, and for two men who in the moment of their extree, a score will figure the windy hill, the grey lochan, and the mournful sea