be a Sunday-school.

A little farther on, a priest was standing by the door of a small
barn-like-looking place with a cross at one end. Antony vaguely supposed
it to be a church, and thought, also vaguely, that it was the
oddest-looking one he had ever seen. He concluded that Byestry was too
small to boast a larger edifice.

On reaching the quay he turned to the right, walking along a cobbled
pavement, which presently sloped down to the beach and a narrow stretch
of firm smooth sand, bordered by brown rocks and the sea on one side, and
a towering cliff on the other. The tide was going down, leaving the brown
rocks uncovered. Among them were small crystal pools, reflecting the blue
of the sky as in a mirror. Sea spleenwort and masses of samphire grew on
the cliffs to his right. No danger here to the would-be samphire
gatherer; it could be plucked from the safety of solid earth, with as
great ease as picking up shells from the beach.

After some half hour's walking, Antony turned a corner, bringing him to a
yet lonelier beach. Looking back, he found Byestry shut from his
view,--the cliffs behind him, the sea before him, the sky above him,
stretches of sand around him, and himself alone, save for Josephus, and
sea-gulls which dipped to the water or circled in the blue, and jackdaws
which cried harshly from the cliffs.

He sat down on the sand, and began to fill his pipe. It was
extraordinarily lonely, extraordinarily peaceful. There was no sinister
note in the loneliness such as he had experienced in the vast spaces of
the African veldt, but a reposefulness, a quiet rest which appealed to
him. The very blueness of the sky and sparkle of the sunshine was tender
after the brazen glitter of the African sun. Turning to look behind him,
he saw that here the cliff was grass-covered, sloping almost to the
beach, and among the grass, hiding its green, were countless bluebells, a
sheet of shimmering colour. Two lines of Tennyson's came suddenly into
his mind.

And the whole isle side flashing down with never a tree
Swept like a torrent of gems from the sky to the blue of the sea.

The island of flowers and the island of silence in one, he felt the place
to be, and no fear of fighting, with himself as sole inhabitant. So might
the islands have been after Maeldune had renounced his purpose of
revenge, after he had returned from the isle of the saint who had spoken
words of peace.

He lost count of time. A pleasant waking