

Night Is Before the Dawn 



(Neolithic^ 



THERE is a place in the distant isles where the sun is long in 

 coming. It is a place of meandering strands and flat, grassy is- 

 lands. Low walls of ragged rock crawl out from the smoothness of 

 the sands and plunge unconcernedly into the gently heaving waters. 

 When the tide runs out, the rocks are girt around with a fringe of 

 vivid-orange seaweed that makes sucking noises in the restless ocean 

 swell. This place is mewed over by gulls and wailed at by curlews. 

 Sheets of little pattering sandpipers wave back and forth with the 

 swilling of the surf upon the golden shores, and endlessly flapping, 

 spiky flights of terns shrill at the oncoming wind. Falcons rise from 

 the labyrinth of grass to landward and beat into the air, crying 

 harshly. The black of night is rent from time to time by strange lone 

 cries, and usually the wind wails; but even if all else is quiet, there is 

 forever the suppressed thunder of the ocean surf pounding upon these 

 distant shores. The sun is long in coming even in summer when it 

 goes away for such a little time and the night is bright with cold 

 stars. The water between the isles hurries silently about, polished 



