e that marks for a moment the footstep of an angel, when he
touches ever so lightly the solid earth. He seemed to be reading the
thoughts of his sheep around him, yet all the time went on talking, and
knew he was talking, with the earl and the lady.

After a while, everything was changed. He was no longer either with his
sheep or his company. He was alone, and walking swiftly through and
beyond the park, in a fierce wind from the north-east, battling with
it, and ruling it like a fiery horse. By and by came a hoarse, terrible
music, which he knew for the thunderous beat of the waves on the low
shore, yet imagined issuing from an indescribable instrument, gigantic
and grotesque. He felt it first--through his feet, as one feels without
hearing the tones of an organ for which the building is too small to
allow scope to their vibration: the waves made the ground beat against
the soles of his feet as he walked; but soon he heard it like the
infinitely prolonged roaring of a sky-built organ. It was drawing him
to the sea, whether in the body or out of the body he knew not: he was
but conscious of forms of existence: whether those forms had relation
to things outside him, or whether they belonged only to the world
within him, he was unaware. The roaring of the great water-organ grew
louder and louder. He knew every step of the way to the shore--across
the fields and over fences and stiles. He turned this way and that, to
avoid here a ditch, there a deep sandy patch. And still the music grew
louder and louder--and at length came in his face the driving spray: it
was the flying touch of the wings on which the tones went hurrying past
into the depths of awful distance! His feet were now wading through the
bent-tufted sand, with the hard, bare, wave-beaten sand in front of
him. Through the dark he could see the white fierceness of the hurrying
waves as they rushed to the shore, then leaning, toppling, curling,
self-undermined, hurled forth at once all the sound that was in them in
a falling roar of defeat. Every wave was a complex chord, with winnowed
tones feathering it round. He paced up and down the sand--it seemed for
ages. Why he paced there he did not know--why always he turned and went
back instead of going on.

Suddenly he thought he saw something dark in the hollow of a wave that
swept to its fall. The moon came out as it broke, and the something was
rolled in the surf up the shore. Donal stood watching it. Why should he