CHAPTER XII 



THE WARNING 



The day Mr French left Drumgool on his visit to 

 DubUn it rained. 



Croagh Mahon had been winding himseK with 

 scarves of mist all the day before, and he had come 

 up so close to Drumgool that you might have hit 

 him with a biscuit, to use Moriarty's expression. 



The weather kept the great mountain forever in 

 fantastic movement, now retreating, now advanc- 

 ing. He grew and shrank in a wizard way with 

 the changes of the atmosphere. To-day he would 

 be immense, slate-coloured, strewn with dim 

 ravines, standing beneath the subdued beauty of 

 the quiet winter dayUght, a sure sign that on the 

 morrow he would be blotted out. Fine v/eather 

 would cast him far away, and he would stand, 

 heather purple in the blue distance, but still call- 

 ing you to come to him. 



When Mr French departed for the station the 

 weather was clear, and Miss Grimshaw, having 

 watched him drive away, strolled down the garden, 

 then through a little wicket she passed into the 

 kitchen-garden, and from there along the uphill 

 path to the cliffs. 



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