The young mother left the cottage; now she knew where she would go. She put the heavy basket down outside the gate and took the child into her arms; and so she walked across the meadow which separated her from the shore.
The meadow was a perfect sea of flowers, waving and whispering round her ankles, and the pollen water was calm and blue; and presently it was not water through which they sailed, but the blue blossoms of the flax, which she gathered in her outstretched hands.
And the flowers bent down and rose up again, whispering, lapping against the sides of the boat like little waves. The flax-field before them appeared to be infinite, but presently a white mist enveloped them, and they heard the plashing of real waves, but above the mist they heard a lark singing.
“How does the lark come to sing on the sea?” asked the child.
“The sea is so green that the lark takes it for a meadow,” answered the mother.
The mist had dispersed again. The sky was blue and the lark was still singing.
Then they saw, straight before them, in the middle of the sea, a green island with a white, sandy beach, and people, dressed all in pure white, walking hand in hand. The setting sun shone on the golden roof of a colonnade, where white fires burnt in sacred sacrificial vessels; and the green island was spanned by a rainbow, the colour of which was rose-red and sedge-green.
“What is it, mammy?”
The mother could make no reply.
“Is it the Kingdom of Heaven of which the dove sang? What is the Kingdom of Heaven, mammy?”