It was then that he noticed the wind, the lifting clouds, and the far-away sky. He smelt the wind as he breathed in great gasps through his nostrils, to ease the pressure on his heart and lungs. Then suddenly, he longed for the mountains and the wide undulating plains and the rocky passes and the swift-flowing rivers, away to the south in his own country. Freedom and solitude and quiet, with only the wind coming through the bog heather! Hiding in some rocky fastness of the mountains, listening to the wind! Away, away, where nobody could catch him! To the mountains! To the mountains! Dark blue mountains with bulging sides and little sheep roaming over them, that he could catch and kill! A wild ferocity of joy overcame him. He stared with dilated nostrils ahead into the rim of the sky above the houses, towards the south. He gazed, as if he were measuring the distance between him and the mountains, so as to take a giant leap, that would carry him at once into the heart of their solitude. Then he bent down, looking ahead intently. He spat on his hands. He put his hand to his head to settle his hat. But his hat was not there. His skull was bare and damp. He felt all over it and found a patch of clotted blood at the rear base, where it had been kicked during the struggle in the inquiry room. He took no notice of the blood, but kept feeling all over the skull, with a dazed look in his eyes, muttering: “What am I to do without a hat? I had it this two years.” In the same dazed way he felt all over his body. He uttered a little shout. He had found it in his trousers pocket, where he had stuffed it, during the inquiry, when he heard that ominous ring in Gallagher’s voice. He clapped it on to his skull, all wrinkled and tattered and tiny. He beat it with his palms, as if it were a mattress. Then, with a gentle sigh, he darted away, headed due south for the mountains. He ran recklessly, without thinking of the way, or taking any precautions. It was the slum district which he knew so well, the district that enclosed Titt Street, the brothels, the Bogey Hole, tenement houses, churches, pawnshops, public-houses, ruins, filth, crime, beautiful women, resplendent idealism in damp cellars, saints starving in garrets, the most lurid examples of debauchery and vice, all living thigh to thigh, breast to breast, in that fœtid morass on the north bank of the Liffey. He ran through narrow streets and great, wide, yawning streets, lanes and archways, streets patched and buttressed, with banks of earth from fallen houses almost damming them in places, pavements strewn with offal, soddened by the rain. He never made a mistake. He was headed for the mountains. The smell of the mountains was in his nostrils, flooding his lungs, making his heart pant with longing. At last he entered Beresford Place and saw the river. Instinctively he paused, leaning against a wall, to examine the Bridge. He gasped and trembled.