est jests of Rabelais ... and in
the fold the silent sheep, and great solemn cows warm in their
manger....

Five years, going on six now, since he had left the sea, and invested
his fortune in a Belfast shipyard, and taken over the homestead of Clan
Campbell to run as it had always been run, wisely, sanely, healthily....
There were the servant boys and girls, with a comfortable roof above
them. There were the cotter tenants, satisfied, certain of justice. At
the shows his shorthorns took ribbons. For local charities, his duty was
done.... But there was something, something lacking....

It wasn't peace. Peace he had in plenty. The spring of the heather, the
tang of the sea brought peace. The bats of twilight, and the sallow
branches, and the trout leaping in the river at the close of day. And
the twilight itself, like some shy girl.... Out of all these came an
emanation, a cradle-song, that lulled like the song of little waves....
And as for pleasure, there was pleasure in listening to the birds among
the trees, to seeing the stooking of barley, to watching the blue banner
of the flax, to walking on frosty roads on great nights of stars.... To
riding with the hunt, clumsily, as a sailor does, but getting in at the
death, as pleased as the huntsman, or the master himself.... To the whir
of the reel as the great blue salmon rushed ... Pleasure, and peace, and
yet not satisfaction.

He thought, for a while, that what he missed was the ships, and that,
subconsciously, there was some nostalgia for the sea on him. He had gone
to Belfast thinking that with live timbers beneath his feet, the--the
vacuum within him would be filled, but the thought of a ship somehow,
when he was there, failed to exalt him. He loved them always, the long
live ships, the canvas white as a gull, the delicacy of spars--all the
beautiful economy.... But to command one again, to go about the world,
aimlessly but for the bartering of cargo, and to return at the voyage's
end, with a sum of money--no! no! not enough!

And so he came back to the peace and pleasure of the glens, the purple
heather, and the red berries, the chink of pebbles on the strand. To
the hunts on frosty mornings, to the salmon-fishing, to the showing of
cattle. To peace: to pleasure....

And he suddenly asked himself what had he done to deserve this peace,
these pleasant days? What right had he to them? What had he given to
life, what achieved for the world, that he should have s