ugh for them. You've seen the goldfish in the swan-basin, my
lady, how they open and shut their gills constantly: that's their way of
getting air out of the water by some wonderful contrivance nobody
understands, for they need breath just as much as we do; and to close
their gills is to them the same as closing a man's mouth and nose. That's
how the most of those herrings are taken."

All were now ready to seek the harbor. A light westerly wind was still
blowing, with the aid of which, heavy-laden, they crept slowly to the
land. As she lay snug and warm, with the cool breath of the sea on her
face, a half sleep came over Clementina, and she half dreamed that she was
voyaging in a ship of the air, through infinite regions of space, with a
destination too glorious to be known. The herring-boat was a living
splendor of strength and speed, its sails were as the wings of a will in
place of the instruments of a force, and softly as mightily it bore them
through the charmed realms of Dreamland toward the ideal of the soul. And
yet the herring-boat but crawled over the still waters with its load of
fish, as the harvest-wagon creeps over the field with its piled-up
sheaves; and she who imagined its wondrous speed was the only one who did
not desire it should move faster. No word passed between her and Malcolm
all their homeward way. Each was brooding over the night and its joy that
enclosed them together, and hoping for that which was yet to be shaken
from the lap of the coming time.

Also, Clementina had in her mind a scheme for attempting what Malcolm had
requested of her: the next day must see it carried into effect, and ever
and anon, like a cold blast of doubt invading the bliss of confidence,
into the heart of that sea-borne peace darted the thought that if she
failed she must leave at once for England, for she would not again meet
Liftore.

CHAPTER LXVII.

SHORE.

At last they glided once more through the stony jaws of the harbor, as if
returning again to the earth from a sojourn in the land of the
disembodied. When Clementina's foot touched the shore she felt like one
waked out of a dream, from whom yet the dream has not departed, but keeps
floating about him, waved in thinner and yet thinner streams from the
wings of the vanishing sleep. It seemed almost as if her spirit, instead
of having come back to the world of its former abode, had been borne
across the parting waters and landed on the shore of the imm