think better what the new faith might be. What
would be its first principle? he asked himself, and not finding any
answer to this question, he began to think of his life in America. He
would begin as a mere recorder of passing events. But why should he
assume that he would not rise higher? And if he remained to the end of
his day a humble reporter, he would still have the supreme satisfaction
of knowing that he had not resigned himself body and soul to the life of
the pool, to a frog-like acquiescence in the stagnant pool.

His hand held back a hazel-branch, and he stood staring at the lake. The
wild ducks rose in great flocks out of the reeds and went away to feed
in the fields, and their departure was followed by a long interval,
during which no single thought crossed his mind--at least, none that he
could remember. No doubt his tired mind had fallen into lethargy, from
which a sudden fear had roughly awakened him. What if some countryman,
seeking his goats among the rocks, had come upon the bundle and taken it
home! And at once he imagined himself climbing up the rocks naked. Pat
Kearney's cabin was close by, but Pat had no clothes except those on his
back, and would have to go round the lake to Garranard; and the priest
thought how he would sit naked in Kearney's cottage hour after hour.

'If anyone comes to the cabin I shall have to hold the door to. There is
a comic side to every adventure,' he said, 'and a more absurd one it
would be difficult to imagine.'

The day had begun in a ridiculous adventure--the baptism of the poor
child, baptized first a Protestant, then a Catholic. And he laughed a
little, and then he sighed.

'Is the whole thing a fairy-tale, a piece of midsummer madness, I
wonder? No matter, I can't stay here, so why should I trouble to
discover a reason for my going? In America I shall be living a life in
agreement with God's instincts. My quest is life.'

And, remembering some words in her last letter, his heart cried out that
his love must bring her back to him eventually, though Poole were to
take her to the end of the earth, and at once he was carried quickly
beyond the light of common sense into a dim happy world where all things
came and went or were transformed in obedience to his unexpressed will.
Whether the sun were curtained by leafage or by silken folds he did not
know--only this: that she was coming towards him, borne lightly as a
ball of thistle-down. He perceived the colour of he