A SUBTERRANEAN CAVE AT 

 CLOONABINNIA 



A LOW hill, covered with scrubby hazel and boulders 

 of grey rock. Below it a bay, then a long stretch 

 of lake ending in mountains and the western sky, 

 the broad surface pale with the inimitable pallor of 

 fresh water. In the side of the hill a broken tree, 

 veiled in ivy, seemed the goal of a track that led 

 from the road close by; following the track a low 

 opening revealed itself by the tree, deeper darkness 

 amid the darkness of overhanging ivy. Irregular 

 steps, half choked in mud, led down the wide, slanting 

 throat of the cavity, there were perhaps a dozen of 

 them. Down on the right some more short and 

 crooked steps led further to where water dripped and 

 dropped in darkness, a well used by the whole neigh- 

 bourhood, the women making their way down the 

 muddy steps even in the twilight, by the knowledge 

 born of lifelong acquaintance. 



The larger cave bent away under the hill, with low 

 gullet arching away into blackness of night. The 

 floor was a distraction of great blocks and boulders, 

 among which a pool or two glinted in the candle- 

 light, a living thing lurking in this tomb of some past 

 throe of the hill. The roof drooped lower, coated 

 and tasselled with the soft white oozing of the lime- 

 stone; the ridges of the boulders were sharp and 

 steep, the rifts between them of uncertain depth, 



G 81 



