seven miles. Caius rode on under the lonely cliffs where the gulls
wintered, and threading his way upon smooth places on the ice, came, in
the course of not much more than an hour, up to the end of the cliffs,
crossed the neck of the sand-bar, and followed the inward shore till he
got back to the first road.

Now, on this end of the island very few families lived. Caius had only
been upon the road he was about to traverse once or twice. The reason it
was so little built upon was that the land here belonged entirely to the
farm of Madame Le Maitre, which stretched in a narrow strip for a couple
of miles from O'Shea's dwelling to the end of the island. The only point
of interest which this district had for Caius was a cottage which had
been built in a very sheltered nook for the accommodation of two women,
whose business it was to care for the poultry which was kept here. Caius
had been told that he might always stop at this lodge for a drink of
milk or beer or such a lunch as it could afford, and being thirsty by
reason of hard riding and ill-temper, he now tried to find the path that
led to it.

CHAPTER II.

ONCE MORE THE VISION.

When Caius turned up the farm road, which was entirely sheltered between
gentle slopes, the bright March sun felt almost hot upon his cheek. The
snow road under his horse's hoofs was full of moisture, and the snowy
slopes glistened with a coating of wet. He felt for the first time that
the spring of the year had come.

He was not quite certain where lay the cottage of which he was in quest;
and, by turning up a wrong path, he came to the back of its hen-houses.
At first he only saw the blank wall of a cowshed and two wooden
structures like old-fashioned dovecotes, connected by a high fence in
which there was no gate. Up to this fence he rode to look over it,
hoping to speak to the people he heard within; but it was too high for
him to see over. Passing on, he brought his head level with a small
window that was let into the wall of one of the hen-houses. The window
had glass in it which was not at all clean, but a fragment of it was
broken, and through this Caius looked, intending to see if there was any
gate into the yard which he could reach from the path he was on.

Through the small room of deserted hen-roosts, through the door which
was wide open on the other side, he saw the sunny space of the yard
beyond. All the fowls were gathered in an open place that had been
shovell