Aunt Kirsty when that pain came into his arm, more
than he wanted all the gold of all the rainbows he had ever seen. He
bent to his paddle with much less vim, and slowly and painfully round
the island he came, and out into the open lake. And then,--where, oh,
where, was the pot of gold? And where was the rainbow? He seemed to
have come out with one stroke of his paddle from a world that was all
colour and light to one that was cold, grey and dreary. He looked
about him amazed. All the beauty of the lake had faded into mist. The
rainbow was gone! A chill, damp breeze fanned his hot face, coming
down from the north, where the clouds had grown black. The little
mariner sat on his heels in the bottom of his canoe and looked about
him in dismay. Surely the pot of gold had not gone. Perhaps it was
hidden away behind those dark clouds and would come gleaming out again
right in front of him. But though he sat and waited, the world only
grew greyer and darker. Collie stood up again and barked defiance at a
heron that sailed away overhead, but his little master sharply bade him
lie down. The pain in his arm gave another twinge, and slowly and
sadly he took up his paddle and turned his canoe homeward.

As he did so he felt a light breeze lift him. It came from the north,
where those dark clouds had swallowed up his rainbow. A strange, weird
thing was happening up there in those clouds, and the boy paused to
watch. Down the shimmering floor of the lake, sweeping slowly towards
him, came a great army. Stealthy, hurrying shapes, with bent,
grey-cowled heads, and trailing garments, rank on rank they stole
forward, mystery and fear in their every movement. Many a time, on an
autumn evening, the boy had watched the fog start away up the lake and
come stealing down, until the islands and the town and the forest were
covered as with a blanket. But he had never seen anything so awesome
as this. The strange shapes into which the light gusts of wind had
driven the mist made them look like an army of ghosts driven out of the
haunts of night. They were bringing night in their train, too. For as
they swept silently onward, everything in earth and lake and sky was
blotted out. One by one the islands vanished; the far-off eastern
shore was wiped away as if by some magic hand. The tower of the little
Indian church stood out for a moment above the flood and then sank
engulfed; and the next moment the great host had swept ov