THE HERON 
been staled by recurrence, but miracles, whose 
incomprehensibility is all the greater for their 
repetition. And where so common a sight as 
a star is an inexplicable won- 
der, there is room and to 
spare for things which wiser 
men have roped out. To 
those who go to live among 
them, the strength of the hills 
is apt to become an ac- 
tual force, overwhelming and 
rather terrible. When Andy 
left the cottage in the glen, 
the sough of the wind in the 
chink, and the patter of the. 
rain on the roofs were too 
real to be questioned he 
never thought about them at all ; but on the 
Gap during the lonely evenings, he began to 
meditate about these and other things, more 
than was good for him. He could not have 
told which was the exact day when the wind 
under the door became a whisper, and the 
stars over Slieve Corrig, eyes winking with 
evil suggestion ; but the transition was quick, 
for defences go down easily at seventy years. 
Andy had only lived a few weeks on the Gap 
before he knew that the place was peopled 
with devils. They came out at sunset with 
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