Page 86 - The snake's pass

74 THE snake's pass.
There was no doubt that poor Joyce's farm, thus
sheltered, was an exceptionally favoured spot, and I could
well understand how loth he must be to leave it.
Murdock's land, even under the enchantment of its
distance, seemed very different, and was just as bleak
as Sutherland had told me. Its south-western end
ran down towards the Snake's Pass. I mounted the
wall of rock on the north of the Pass to look down,
and was surprised to find that down below me was
the end of a large plateau of some acres in extent which
ran up northward, and was sheltered north and west by
a somewhat similar formation of rock to that which pro-
tected Joyce's land. This, then, was evidently the place
called the " Cliff Fields " of which mention had been
made at Widow Kelligan's.
The view from where I stood was one of ravishing
beauty. Westward in the deep sea, under grey clouds
of endless variety, rose a myriad of clustering islets,
some of them covered with grass and heather, where
cattle and sheep grazed ; others were mere rocks
rising boldly from the depths of the sea, and sur-
rounded by a myriad of screaming wild-fowl. As the
birds dipped and swept and wheeled in endless circles,
their white breasts and grey wings varying in infinite
phase of motion—and as the long Atlantic swell, tempered
by its rude shocks on the outer fringe of islets, broke
in fleecy foam and sent living streams through the
crevices of the rocks and sheets of white water over
the boulders where the sea rack rose and fell, I thought