A mellowed wail of the bagpipe came from Strone, the last farewell of the departing soldiers; it was but a moment, then was gone. The wind changed from the land, suddenly the odours of the traffics of peace blew familiarly, the scents of gathered hay and the more elusive perfume of yellowing corn. A myriad birds, among them the noisy rooks the blackest and most numerous, sped home. In the bay the skiffs spread out their pinions, the halyards singing in the blocks, the men ye-hoing. For a space the bows rose and fell, lazy, reluctant to be moving in their weary wrestle with the sea, then tore into the blue and made a feather of white. Gilian looked at them and saw them the birds of night and sea, the birds of prey, the howlets of the brine, flying large and powerful throughout the under-sky that is salt and swinging and never lit by moon or star. And as the boats followed each other out of the bay, a gallant company, the crews leaned on tiller or on mast and sang their Gaelic _iorrams_ that ever have the zest of the oar, the melancholy of the wave. As it were in a pious surrender to the influence of the hour, he and the girl walked slowly, silently, by the wayside, busy with their own imaginings. They were all alone. Beyond the Boshang Gate is an entrance to the policies, the parks, the gardens, of the Duke, standing open with a welcome, a trim roadway edged with bush and tree. Into it Nan and Gilian walked, almost heedless, it might seem, of each other’s presence, she plucking wild flowers as she went from bush to bush, humming the refrain of the fishers’ songs, he with his eyes wide open looking straight before him yet with some vague content to have her there for his companion. When they spoke again they were in the cloistered wood, the sea hidden by the massive trees. “I will show you my heron’s nest,” said Gilian, anxious to add to the riches the ramble would confer on her. She was delighted. Gilian at school had the reputation of knowing the most wonderful things of the woods, and few were taken into his confidence. He led her a little from the path to the base of a tall tree with its trunk for many yards up as bare as a pillar. “There it is,” he said, pointing upward to a knot of gathered twigs swaying in the upper branches. “Oh! is it so high as that?” she cried, with disappointment. “What is the use of showing me that? I cannot see the inside and the birds.” “But there are no birds now,” said Gilian; “they are flown long ago. Still I’m sure you can easily fancy them there. I see them quite plainly. There are three eggs, green-blue like the sky up the glen, and now--now there are three grey hairy little birds with tufts on their heads. Do you not see their beaks opening?” “Of course I don’t,” said Nan impatiently, straining her eyes for the tree-top. “If they are all flown how can I see them?”