That night, while M’Cracken marched the remnant of his army to Slievemis, Neal and blind Phelim set off on their journey north. They travelled safely in the rear of the yeomen who were searching the country side. Neal lay hid all one day in a little wood while Phelim, who seemed to want little rest and no sleep, wandered in the neighbourhood and brought back tidings of the doings of the yeomen who had passed. Before daybreak the next morning Neal left his guide behind him and made his way to the sandhills near Port Ballin-trae. He lay in a hollow near the mouth of the river Bush. He understood from what Phelim had told him that Captain Twinely and his men had pushed northwards in pursuit of him, and that he had followed in their tracks. He realised that there must be a large force gathered in Bushmills and Ballintoy, and that the whole country would be scoured to find him. Therefore, though he was within a few miles of his home, he dare not stir in the daytime. He lay in his sandy hollow through the long hot day, with the sound of the sea in his ears. He slept for an hour or two now and then. Once he crept among the dunes to a place where a little stream trickled down, in order to get a drink, but he did not venture to stay beside the stream. For some time he amused himself by plaiting the spiked grass into stiff green rods, and then, from a razor shell which he found in his hollow, he fashioned pike heads for the ends of the rods. Afterwards he picked all the yellow crow-toes within reach, and the broad mauve flowers of the wild convolvulus. He set them out in gay beds, like flowers growing in gardens, and edged them round with borders of wild thyme. Then, with great labour, he collected forty or fifty snail shells and laid them in rows, making each row consist only of those like each other in colouring. He had lines of dark brown shells, of pale yellow, and of striped shells. These again he subdivided according to the width and number of their stripes. Once he ventured to creep to a place from which he could watch the sea. He saw that the tide was flowing. Below him on the strand were a number of seagulls, strutting, fluttering, shrieking, splashing with wing-tips and feet in the oncoming waves. He supposed that the young fry of some fish must have drifted shorewards, and that the birds were feasting on them. Then’, at the far end of the bay, he saw men’s figures moving, near the Black Rock, among the boats hauled up on the shore in the creek from which he and Maurice and Una had set out to fish on Rackle Roy. A dread seized him that these might be yeomen. Since he had come within reach of home, since he had seen and heard the sea, since he had breathed the familiar salt-laden air, his courage had left him. He felt a very coward, desperately anxious not to be caught and dragged back again to the horror of death. He wanted to live now that he was back at home and almost within reach of Una.