"But I don't want to go to Oxford, father. I want to go to Cambridge!"

"It's all the same, Henry. Oxford'll make a snivellin' parson out of you, an' Cambridge'll turn you into a snivellin' atheist. I know them places well, Henry. I'm acquainted with people from both of them. All the Belfast mill-owners send their sons there, so's they can be made into imitation Englishmen. An' I tell you there's no differs between Cambridge an' Oxford. You crawl on your belly to the reredos at Oxford, an' you crawl on your belly to Darwin an' John Stuart Mill at Cambridge. They can't do without a priest of some sort at them places, an' I'm a Protestant, Henry, an' I want no priest at all. Now, at Trinity you'll crawl on your belly to no one but your God, an' you'll do damn little of that if you're any sort of man at all!"

Henry had reminded his father of the history and tradition of T.C.D., an ungracious institution which had taught men to despise Ireland.

"Well, you needn't pay any heed to the Provost, need you," Mr. Quinn retorted. "Is a man to run away from his country because a fool of a schoolmaster hasn't the guts to be proud of it? Talk sense, son! We want education in Ireland, don't we, far more nor any other people want it, an' how are we goin' to get it if all the young lads go off to Englan' an' let the schoolmasters starve in Ireland!"

Henry still maintained his position. "But, father," he said, "you yourself have often told me that Dr. Daniell is an imitation Englishman...." Dr. Daniell was the Provost of Trinity.

"He is, and so is his whole family. I know them well ... lick-spittles, the lot of them, an' the lad that's comin' after him, oul' Beattie, is no better ... a half-baked snob ... I'll tell you a story about him in a minute ... but all the same, it's not them that matter ... it's the place and the tradition an' the feel of it all ... do you make me out?"

"Yes, father, I know what you mean!"

"You'd be like a foreigner at Cambridge ... like one of them fellows that come from India or Germany or places like that ... but at Trinity you'd be at home, in your own country, Henry, where people with brains are badly needed!"

He went on like that until he wore down Henry's desire to go to Cambridge. "I'd rather you didn't go to a university at all," he said, "than not have you go to T.C.D."

"Very well, father!" said Henry, consenting.

"That's right, my son," the old man said, patting his son on the back. "An' now I'll tell you that yarn about Beattie. It'll make you split your sides!"

It appeared that Mr. Quinn had dined at a house in Dublin where Dr. Beattie was also a guest, and the don was telling tales as was his custom, of his acquaintances in high places. The poor old clergyman had a weakness for the company of kings and queens, and liked to tell people of what he had said to an emperor or of what a prince had said to him.

"I was talking to my friend, the Queen of Spain, a short time ago," Dr. Beattie had said, "and I made a joke which pleased her majesty. It was about my friend, the Kaiser, who was present at the time. The Kaiser heard us laughing, her majesty and me, and he came over to ask us why we were laughing so heartily, the Queen and me. The Queen was very embarrassed because, of course, I had been making fun of the Kaiser, but I did not lose my self-possession. I turned to the Emperor and said, 'Sir, the Queen and I have known each other for a few moments only, but already we have a secret between us!'" The Kaiser was very tickled by my retort ... very tickled ... and the Queen told me afterwards that it was very adroit of me to get out of it like that. She said it was my Irish wit!...

It was at this point that Mr. Quinn had interrupted. "An' what did your friend God say?" he had demanded innocently.

Mr. Quinn sat back in his chair, when he had finished telling the story, and roared loudly with laughter. "You ought to have seen the oul' snob turnin' red, white an' blue with rage," he shouted at Henry. "Such a take-down! My God, what a take-down! There he was, the oul' wind-bag, bletherin' about his friend, the Queen of Spain, an' his friend, the Emperor of Germany, an' there was me, just waitin' for him, just waitin', Henry, an' the minute he shut his gob, I jumped in, an' says I to him, 'An' what did your friend God say?' By the Holy O, that was a good one! I never enjoyed myself so much as I did that night, an' everybody else that was there was nearin' burstin' with tryin' not to laugh. Do you mind Lady Galduff?"

"Yes, father!"

"You mind her rightly, don't you? Well, when you go up to Dublin, you're to call on her, do you hear? Never mind about her manners. Ask her to tell you about me an' Dr. Beattie ... the way I asked him about his friend God. Oh, Holy O!..."

He could proceed no further, for his sides were shaking with laughter and the tears were streaming down his cheeks and his cheeks were the colour of beetroot.

"You'll hurt yourself, father," said Henry, "if you laugh like that!"

4

"Of course," said Mr. Quinn, after a while, "the man's a great scholar, an' I mebbe did wrong to take him down like that. But I couldn't help it, Henry. You see, he's always makin' little of Irish things, an' I have no use for a man like that. Not but what some people think too much of Ireland an' too little of other places. Many's a time I get ragin' mad when I hear some of the Nationalists bleatin' about Ireland as if a bit of bog in the Atlantic were worth the rest of the world put together. Do you know what, I'm goin' to say somethin' that'll surprise you. I don't believe Irishmen'll think properly about Ireland 'til they stop thinkin' about it altogether. We're too self-conscious. We haven't enough pride an' we've too much conceit. That's the truth. You daren't say a word of criticism about Ireland for fear you'd have the people jumpin' down your throat—an' that's a sign of weakness, Henry. Do you know why the English are as strong as they are? It's because they'll let you criticise them as much as you like, an' never lose their temper with you. The only time I ever knew them to be flabby and spineless was when the Boer War was on ... an' they'd scream in your face if you didn't say they were actin' like angels. They were only like that then, but we're like it all the time. The fools don't know that the best patriot is the man that has the courage to own up when his country's in the wrong!..."

Mr. Quinn suddenly sat up stiffly in his seat and gaped at his son for a few moments.

"Begod, Henry," he said, "I'm preachin' to you!"

"Yes, father, you are," Henry replied. "But I don't mind. It's rather interesting!"

But the force had gone out of Mr. Quinn. The thought that he had been preaching a sermon, delivering a speech, filled him with self-reproach.

"I never meant to start off like that," he said. "I only meant to tell you what was in my mind. You see, Henry, I love Ireland an' I want to see her as fine as ever she was ... but she'll never be fine again 'til she gets back her pride an' her self-respect. The English people have stolen that from us ... yes, they have, Henry! I knew Arthur Balfour when he was a young man ... I liked him too ... but I'll never forget that it was him that turned us into a nation of cadgers. I'm not much of a thinker, Henry, but the bit of brain I have'll be used for Ireland, whatever happens. You've got more brains than I have, an' I'd like you to use them for Ireland, too."

5

"This is the way I look at things," Mr. Quinn said later on. "The British people are the best people in the world, an' the Irish people are the best people in the British Empire, an' the Ulster people are the best people in Ireland!" He glanced about him for a few moments as if he were cogitating, and then he gave a chuckle and winked at his son. "An' begod," he said, "I sometimes think I'm the best man in Ulster!" He burst out laughing when he had finished. "Ah," he said, half to himself, as he stroked his fine beard, "I'm the quare oul' cod, so I am!"

"All the same," he went on, speaking soberly, "I'm not coddin' entirely. The Irish have plenty of brains, but they haven't any discipline, an' brains are no good unless you can control them. We need knowledge and experience, Henry, more nor anything else, an' the more knowledge we bring into the country, the better it'll be for us all. Too much imagination an' not enough knowledge ... that's what's the matter with us. The English have knowledge, but they've small imagination!... I declare to my goodness, the best thing that could happen to the two of us, the English and the Irish, would be for some one to pass a law compellin' every Irishwoman to marry an Englishman, an' every Englishwoman to marry an Irishman. We'd get some stability into Ireland then ... an' mebbe we'd get some intelligence into England."

6

Henry acquiesced in his father's wishes, but he did so reluctantly. Gilbert's plan for their future had attracted him greatly. He saw himself passing pleasant years at Cambridge in learning and in argument. There was to be scholarship and company and curiosity and enquiry. They were to furnish their minds with knowledge and then they were to seek adventures in the world: a new order of Musketeers: Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan.... He let the names of the Musketeers slide through his mind in order, wondering which of them was his prototype ... but he could not find a resemblance to himself in any of them. He felt that he would shrink from the deeds which they sought.... His mind went back again to thoughts of Cambridge. At all events, in the tourneys of the mind his part would be valiant. He would never shrink from combat with an intellect.... He supposed it would be possible to do at T.C.D. some of what he had proposed to do at Cambridge, but somehow T.C.D. did not interest him. It mattered as little to him as a Welsh University. It had no hold whatever on his mind. He knew that it was on the level of Oxford and Cambridge, but that knowledge did not console him. "It doesn't matter in the way that they do," he said to himself, and then he remembered something that Gilbert Farlow had said. "T.C.D. isn't Irish in the way that Oxford and Cambridge are English. It's in Ireland, but it isn't of Ireland!" Gilbert could always get at the centre of a thing. "Oxford and Cambridge have lots of faults," Gilbert had said, "but they're English faults. T.C.D. has lots of faults, but they're not Irish faults. Do you see what I mean, Quinny? It's ... it's like a garrison in an unfriendly country ... like ... what d'ye call it? ... that thing in Irish history ... the Pale! That's it! It's the Pale still going on being a Pale long after the need for it had ceased. I don't think that kind of place is much good to Irishmen. You'd better come to Cambridge!..."

"I can't, Gilbert. My father's set his heart on my going to Trinity, and I must go. I'd give the world to go with you and Ninian and Roger, but I'll have to do what he wants. Anyhow, I can join you in London when you come down, and we can spend our holidays together. I'll get my father to ask you all to Ireland the first vac. after you've gone up, and perhaps Mrs. Graham'll ask us all to Boveyhayne...."

7

Remembering what he had said to Gilbert about Boveyhayne, he remembered Mary Graham. He had not seen her since he had been to Boveyhayne at Easter, but he had written several times to her, lengthy letters, and had received short, shy replies from her; and sometimes he had tried to induce Ninian to talk about her. But "She isn't a bad little flapper!" was all that Ninian would say of his sister, and there was little comfort to be derived from that speech. Now, standing here in this window-corner, looking over the fields that stretched away to the Antrim mountains, Henry felt that Mary was slipping swiftly out of his life. It might be a very long time before he saw her again. ... How beautiful she had looked that day when she stood on Whitcombe platform and waved her hand to him as the train steamed out of the station! He must marry her. Mrs. Graham must ask him to spend the next summer at Boveyhayne so that he could meet Mary again. Anyhow he would write to her. He would tell her all he was doing. He would describe his life at Trinity to her. He would remind her continually of himself, and perhaps she would not forget him. Girls, of course, were very odd and they changed their minds an awful lot. Ninian might invite some chap from Cambridge to Boveyhayne.... That would be like Ninian, to go and spoil everything without thinking for a moment of what he was doing.... If only Mary and he were a few years older, they could become formally engaged, and then everything would be all right, but Mary was so young ...



THE FIFTH CHAPTER

1

Soon after Henry had returned to Ballymartin, John Marsh came to Mr. Quinn's house to prepare him for Trinity. "He'll put you in the way of knowin' more about Ireland nor I can tell you, Henry," Mr. Quinn said to his son on the evening before Marsh arrived, "an' a lot more nor you'll learn at Rumpell's, or, for that matter, at Trinity."

"Then why do you want me to go to Trinity?" Henry asked, still unable to conceal his disappointment at not being sent to Cambridge with his friends.

"I've told you that already," Mr. Quinn replied firmly, closing his lips down tightly. "I want you to have Irish friends as well as English friends, and I've learned this much from livin', that a man seldom makes friends ... friends, mind you ... after he's twenty-five. You only make acquaintances after that age. I'd like well to think there were people in Ireland that had as tight a hold on your friendship, Henry, as Gilbert Farlow and them other lads have.... An' there's another thing," he went on, leaning forward as he spoke and wagging his forefinger at Henry. "If you go to Trinity with a kindly feelin' for Ireland, it'll be something to think there's one man in the place that has a decent thought for his country an' isn't an imitation Englishman. Who knows what good you might do there?" He let his speculations consume him. "You might change the character of the whole college. You ... you might make it Irish. You ... you might be the means of turnin' the Provost into an Irishman an' start him takin' an interest in his country. The oul' lad might turn Fenian an' get transported or hung!..."

When he had ceased to speculate on what might happen if Henry began an Irish crusade in Trinity, he spoke again of Marsh.

"You'll like him," he said. "I know you will. He's a bit off his head, of course, but that's neither here nor there. The man's a scholar an' I think he writes bits of poetry. I've never seen any of his pieces, but somebody told me he wrote things. I'd like well to have a poet in the house!"

"Is he a Catholic?" Henry asked.

His father nodded his head. "An' very religious, too, I believe," he said. "Still, that's neither here nor there. I met him up in Dublin. Ernest Harper told me about him!"

Ernest Harper was the painter-poet who had influenced so many young men in Ireland, and Mr. Quinn had come into the circle of his friends through the Irish co-operative movement. He had made a special visit to Dublin to consult Harper about the education of his son, telling him of his desire that Henry should have a strong national sense ... "but none of your damned theosophy, mind!..." and Harper had recommended John Marsh to him. Marsh had lately taken his B.A. degree and he was anxious to earn money in circumstances that would enable him to proceed to his M.A.

"That lad'll do rightly," said Mr. Quinn, and he arranged to meet Marsh in the queer, untidy room in Merrion Square where Harper edited his weekly paper. "He has the walls of the place covered with pictures of big women with breasts like balloons," Mr. Quinn said afterwards when he tried to describe Ernest Harper's office, "an' he talks to you about fairies 'til you'd near believe a leprechaun 'ud hop out of the coalscuttle if you lifted the lid!"

Soon afterwards, they met, and Mr. Quinn explained his purpose to Marsh. "I'm not a Nationalist, thank God, nor a Catholic, thank God again, but I'm Irish an' I want my son to know about Ireland an' to feel as Irish as I do myself!"

Marsh talked about Nationalism and Freedom and English Misrule, but Mr. Quinn waved his hands before his face and made a wry expression at him. "All your talk about the freedom of Ireland is twaddle, John Marsh ... if you don't mind, I'll begin callin' you John Marsh this minute ... an' I may as well tell you I don't believe in the tyranny of England. The English aren't cruel—they're stupid. That's what they are—Thick! As thick as they can be, an' that's as thick as God thinks it's decent to let any man be! But they're not cruel. They do cruel things sometimes because they don't know any better, an' they think they're doin' the right things when they're only doin' the stupid thing. That's where we come in! Our job is to teach the English how to do the right thing." They smiled at him. "An' I'm not coddin,'" he went on. "I mean every word I say. It's not Home Rule for Ireland that's needed—it's Irish Rule for England; an' I'll maintain that 'til my dyin' day.... But that's neither here nor there. I think you're a fool, John Marsh, to go about dreamin' of an Irish Republic ... you don't mind me callin' you a fool, do you? ... but you love Ireland, and I'd forgive a man a great deal for that, so if you'll come an' be tutor to my son, I'll be obliged to you!"

And John Marsh, smiling at Mr. Quinn, had consented.

"That's right," Mr. Quinn said, gripping the young man's hand and wringing it heartily. "I like him," he added, turning to Ernest Harper, "an' he'll be good for Henry, an' I daresay I'll be good for him. You've an awful lot of slummage in your skull," he continued, addressing Marsh again, "but begod I'll clear that out!"

"Slummage?" Marsh asked questioningly.

"Aye. Do you not know what slummage is?"

He described it as a heap of steamy, flabby grain that is rejected by distillers after the spirit has been extracted from it. "An' it's only fit to feed pigs with," he said, ending his description. "An' the kind of stuff you're lettin' out of you now is only fit for pub-patriots. How soon can you come to Ballymartin. The sooner the better!"

He tried to drop the discussion of politics, but was so fond of it himself that before he had settled the date of Marsh's appearance at Ballymartin, he was in the middle of another discussion. His head was full of theories about Ireland and about the world, and he loved to let his theories out of his head for an airing. He very earnestly desired to keep Ireland different from England. "Ireland's the 'country' of this kingdom, an' England's the 'town,'" he sometimes said, or when his mood was bitter, he would say that he wished to preserve Ireland as a place in which gentlemen could live in comfort, leaving England to be the natural home of manufacturers and mill-owners.

"But it's no good talkin' of separatin' the two countries," he said to Marsh, "an' it's no good talkin' of drivin' the English out of Ireland because you can't tell these times who is English an' who is Irish. We've mingled our blood too closely for any one to be able to tell who's what. If you started clearin' out the English, you'd mebbe clear me out, for my family was planted here by William of Orange ... an' the damnedest set of scoundrels they were, too, by all accounts!... an' mebbe, Marsh, you yourself 'ud be cleared out!... Aye, an' you, too, Ernest Harper, for all you're waggin' your oul' red beard at me. You're Scotch, man, Scotch, to the backbone!..."

Harper rose at him, wagging his red beard, and filling the air with terrible prophecies!...

"Ah, quit, man!" said Mr. Quinn, and he turned and winked at Marsh. "Do you know what religion he is?" he said, pointing his finger at Harper. "He's a Nonconformin' Theosophist!" And he roared at his own joke.

"You can no more separate the destinies of England an' Ireland in the world," he went on, "nor you can separate the waters of the Liffey an' the Mersey in the Irish Sea. Bedam, if you can!"

Mr. Quinn liked to throw out these aphorisms, and he spent a great deal of time in inventing them. Once he flung a company of Dublin gossips into a rage because he declared that Dublin was called "the whispering gallery" and "the city of dreadful whispers" because it was populated by the descendants of informers and spies. That, he declared, was why Dublin people were so fond of tittle-tattle and tale-bearing and scandal-mongering. "The English hanged or transported every decent-minded man in the town, an' left only the spies an' informers, an' the whole of you are descended from that breed. That's why you can't keep anything to yourselves, but have to run abut the town tellin' everybody all the secrets you know!" And he charged them with constantly giving each other away. He repeated this generalisation about the Dublin people to John Marsh. "An' I tell you what'll happen to you, young fellow, one of these days. You'll be hanged or shot or transported or somethin', an' half the people of this place'll be runnin' like lightnin' to swear an information against you, as sure as Fate. If ever you think of startin' a rebellion, John Marsh, go up to Belfast an' start it. People'll be loyal to you there, but in this place they'd sell you for a pint of Guinness!"

He was half serious in his warning to Marsh, but ... "I should be glad to die for Ireland," Marsh replied, and it was said so simply that there was no priggishness in it. "I can think of no finer fate for an Irishman."

Mr. Quinn made a gesture of impatience. "It 'ud be a damn sight better to live for Ireland," he exclaimed angrily.

2

Henry was in the garden when John Marsh arrived, accompanied by Mr. Quinn. Two letters had come to him that morning from England—one from Gilbert Farlow and the other from Mary Graham, and he was reading them again for the seventh or eighth time when the dogcart drove up to the house.

My dear old ass, Gilbert wrote, why grizzle and grouse at the Bally Awful! That's my name now for things which can't be helped. I've taught it to Ninian, but he persists in calling it the Bloody Awful, which is low. He says that doesn't matter because he is low. Roger and I have had to clout his head rather severely lately ... it took two of us to do it.... Roger held his arms while I clouted him ... because he has become fearfully democratic, meaning by that, that anybody who knows more than his alphabet is an enemy of the poor. Roger and I are dead nuts on aristocracy at present. We go about saying, "My God, I'm a superman!" and try to look like Bernard Shaw. Roger only succeeds in looking like Little Lord Fauntleroy. But all this is away from the point, which is, why grizzle and grouse at the Bally Awful. If your papa will send you to T.C.D., you must just grin and bear it, my lad. I've never met anybody from Trinity.... I suppose people do come out of it after they get into it ... but if you're careful and remember the example of your little friends, Gilbert and Ninian and Roger, you'll come to no harm. And when you do come to London, we'll try to improve what's left of your poor mind. It would be splendid to go to Ballymartin for the summer. Tell your papa that Ninian and Roger and I solemnly cursed him three times for preventing you from coming to Cambridge, and then gave him three cheers for asking us to Ireland. The top of the morning to you, my broth of a boy, and the heavens be your bed, bedad and bejabers, as you say in your country, according to Punch. Yours ever, Gilbert.

P.S. What about that two bob you owe me?

Mary's letter was shorter than Gilbert's.

I think it's awfully horrid of your father not to let you go to Cambridge with Ninian and the others. I was so looking forward to going up in May Week and so was Mother. Of course, we shall go anyhow, but it would have been much nicer if you had been there. You would love Boveyhayne if you were here now. The hedges are full of wild roses and hazelnuts and there is a lovely lot of valaria on our wall. Old Widger says there will be a lovely lot of blackberries in September if everything goes well. I went out in a boat yesterday with Tom Yeo and I caught six dozen mackerel. You would have blubbed if you'd seen them flopping about in the bottom of the boat and looking so nice, and they were nice to eat. I love mackerel, don't you? Mother sends her love. Do write soon. I love getting letters and you write such nice ones. Your affectionate friend, Mary Graham. P.S. Love.

Mary always signed herself his affectionate friend. He had tried to make her sign herself his loving sweetheart, but she said she did not like to do that.

3

He hurriedly put the letters away, and rose to greet John Marsh who came across the lawn to him, talking to Mr. Quinn.

"This is John Marsh, Henry," Mr. Quinn said when he came up to him, and Henry and Marsh shook hands and murmured greetings to each other. "I'll leave you both here to get acquainted with each other," Mr. Quinn continued. "I've a few things to do about the house!" He went off at once, leaving them together, but before he had gone far he turned and shouted to Henry, "You can show him through the grounds! He'll want to stretch his legs after bein' so long in the train!"

"Very well, father!" Henry answered, and turned to Marsh.

His first impression of his tutor was one of insignificance. Marsh's clothes were cheap and ready-made, and they seemed to be a size too large for him. That, indeed, was characteristic of him, that he should always seem to be wearing things which were too big for him. His tie, too, was rising over the top of his collar.... But the sense of insignificance disappeared from Henry's mind almost immediately after Marsh had offered his hand to him and had smiled; and following the sense of insignificance came a feeling of personal shame that was incomprehensible to him until he discovered that his shame was caused because he had thought slightingly of Marsh, even though he had done so only for a few moments, and had allowed his mind to be concerned about the trivialities of clothes when it should have been concerned with the nature of the man who wore them. Henry's mind was oddly perverse; he had been as fierce in his denunciation of convention as ever Gilbert Farlow had been, but nevertheless he clung to conventional things with something like desperation. It was characteristic of him that he should palliate his submission to the conventional thing by inventing a sensible excuse for it. He would say that such things were too trivial to be worth the trouble of a fight or a revolt, and declare that one should save one's energies for bigger battles; but the truth was that he had not the moral courage to flout a convention, and he had a queer, instinctive dislike of people who had the courage to do so.... He knew that this habit of his was likely to distort his judgments and make him shrink from ordeals of faith, and very often in his mind he tried to subdue his cowardly fear of conventional disapproval ... without success. But John Marsh had the power to conquer people. The gentleness of him, the kindly smile and the look of high intent, made men of meaner motive feel unaccountably ashamed.

He was a man of middle height and slender build. His high, broad brow was covered by heavy, rough, tufty hair that was brushed cleanly from his forehead and cut tidily about the neck so that he did not look unkempt. His long, straight nose was as large as the nose of a successful business man, but it was not bulbous nor were the nostrils wide and distended. It was a delicately-shaped and pointed nose, with narrow nostrils that were as sensitive as the nostrils of a racehorse: an adventurous, pointing nose that would lead its owner to valiant lengths, but would never lead him into low enterprises. He had grey eyes that were quick to perceive, so that he understood things speedily, and the kindly, forbearing look in them promised that his understanding would not be stiffened by harshness, that it would be accompanied by sympathy so keen that, were it not for the hint of humour which they also held, he might almost have been mawkish, a sentimentalist too easily dissolved in tears. His thick eyebrows clung closely to his eyes, and gave him a look of introspection that mitigated the shrewdness of his pointing nose. There was some weakness, but not much, in the full, projecting lower lip and the slightly receding chin that caused his short, tightened upper lip to look indrawn and strained; and the big, ungainly, jutting ears consorted oddly with the serious look of high purpose that marked his face in repose. It was as though Puck had turned poet and then had turned preacher. One looked at the fleshy lower lip and the jutting ears, and thought of a careless, impish creature; one looked at the shapely, pointing nose and the kindly, unflinching eyes, and thought of a man reckless of himself in the pursuit of some fine purpose. One saw immediately that he was a man who could be moved easily when his sympathies were touched ... but that he could hardly be dissuaded from the fulfilment of his good intent. His Nationalism was like a cleansing fire; it consumed every impure thing that might penetrate his life. It was so potent that he did ridiculous things in asserting it.... It was typical of him that he should gaelicise his name, and equally typical of him that he should be undecided about the correct spelling of "John" in the ancient Irish tongue. He had called himself "Sean" Marsh, and then had called himself "Shane" and "Shaun" and "Shawn." Once, for a while, he transformed "John" into "Eoin" and then, tiring of it, had reverted to "Sean." But this restlessness over his name was not a sign of general instability of purpose. He might vary in the expression of his belief, but the belief itself was as immovable as the mountains.

4

It was said of him that on one occasion he had taken a cheque to a bank in Dublin to be cashed. An English editor had printed one of his poems and had paid for it ... and he was not accustomed to receiving money for his poems, which were printed mostly in little Irish propaganda journals! He had endorsed the cheque in Gaelic, and the puzzled bank manager had demanded that it should be endorsed in English.... Marsh had given him a lecture on Irish history that lasted for the better part of half-an-hour ... and then, because the manager looked so frightened, he had consented to sign his name in English.

5

They left the garden and walked slowly to the top of an ascending field where an old farm-horse, quit now of work, grazed in peace. It raised its head as they walked towards it, and gazed at them with blurred eyes, and then ambled to them. They stood beside it for a few moments while Marsh patted its neck with one hand and allowed it to nuzzle in the palm of the other. "I love beasts," he said, "Dogs and cats and birds and horses and cows ... I think I love cows best because they've got such big, soft eyes and look so stupid and reproachful ... except that dogs are very nice and companionable and faithful ... but so are cats...."

"Faithful? Cats?" Henry asked.

"Oh, yes ... quite faithful if they like you. Why should they be faithful if they don't? Poor, old chap! Poor, old chap!" he murmured, thrusting his fingers through the horse's worn mane. "Of course, horses are very nice, too," he went on. "And birds! ... I suppose one loves all animals. One has to be very brutal to hurt an animal; hasn't one?"

Henry laughed. "The Irish are cruel to animals," he said, "but the English aren't!"

Marsh flushed. "I've never been in England," he replied, looking away.

"Never?" Henry exclaimed.

"No, and I shall never go there!"

There was a sudden ferocity in his voice that startled Henry. "But why?" he asked.

"Why?..." Marsh's voice changed its note and became quiet again. "I'm Irish," he said. "That's why! I don't think that any Irishman ought to put his foot in England until Ireland is free!"

Henry snapped at him impatiently. "I hate all that kind of talk," he said.

Marsh looked at him in astonishment. "You hate all ... what talk?" he asked.

"All that talk about Ireland being free!"

"But don't you want Ireland to be free?" Marsh asked.

They had walked on across the field until they came to a barred gate, and Marsh climbed on to the top bar and perched himself there while Henry stood with his back against the gate and fondled the muzzle of the horse which had followed after them.

"I don't know what you mean when you say you want Ireland to be free!" Henry exclaimed.

"Don't know what I mean!..." Marsh's voice became very tense again, and he slipped down from the gate and turned quickly to explain his meaning to Henry, but Henry did not wait for the explanation. "No," he interrupted quickly. "Of course, I don't know much about these things, but I've read some books that father gave me, and I've talked to my friends ... one of them, Gilbert Farlow, is rather clever and he knows a lot about politics ... he argues with his father about them ... and I can't see that there's much difference between England and Ireland. People here don't seem to me to be any worse off than people over there!"

"It isn't a question of being worse off or better off," Marsh replied. "It's a question of being free. The English are governed by the English. The Irish aren't governed by the Irish. That's the difference between us. What does it matter what your condition is so long as you know that you are governed by a man of your own breed and blood, and that at any minute you may be in his place and he in yours, and yet you'll be men of the same breed and blood? I'd rather be governed badly by men of my own breed than be governed well by another breed...."

Henry remembered Ulster and his father and all his kinsmen scattered about the North who had sworn to die in the last ditch rather than be governed by Nationalists. "That's all very well," he said, "but there are plenty of people in Ireland who don't want to be governed by your breed, well or bad!"

"They'd consent if they thought we had the ability to govern well," Marsh went on. "Anyhow, we couldn't govern Ireland worse than the English have governed it!"

"Some people think you could!..."

But Marsh was in no mood to listen to objections. "You can't be free until you are equal with other people, and we aren't equal with the English. We aren't equal with anybody but subject people. And they look down on us, the English do. We're lazy and dirty and ignorant and superstitious and priest-ridden and impractical and ... and comic!... My God, comic! Whenever I see an Englishman in Ireland, running round and feeling superior, I want to wring his damned neck ... and I should hate to wring any one's neck."

Henry tried to interject a remark, but Marsh hurried on, disregarding his attempt to speak.

"How would they like it if we went over to their country and made remarks about them?" he exclaimed. "My brother went to London once and he saw people making love in public ... fellows and girls hugging each other in the street and sprawling about in the parks ... all over each other ... and no one took any notice. It wasn't decent.... How would they like it if we went over there and made remarks about that? ..."

Henry insisted on speaking. "But why should you hate the English?" he demanded, and added, "I don't hate them. I like them!"

"I didn't say I hated the English," Marsh replied. "I don't. I don't hate any race. That would be ridiculous. But I hate the belief that the English are fit to govern us, when they're not, and that we're not fit to govern ourselves, when we are. I'd rather be governed by Germans than be governed by the English!..." Henry moved away impatiently. "Yes, I would," Marsh continued. "At all events, the Germans would govern us well...."

"You'd hate to be governed by Germans!"

"I'd hate to be governed by any but Irishmen; but the Germans wouldn't make the muddles and messes that the English make!..."

"You don't know that," Henry said.

But Marsh would not take up the point. He swung off on a generalisation. "There won't be any peace or happiness in Ireland," he said, "until the English are driven out of it. Even the Orangemen don't like them. They're always making fun of them!..."

Henry repeated his assertion that he liked the English, conscious that there was something feeble in merely repeating it. He wished that he could say something as forceful as Marsh's statement of his dislike of England, but he was unable to think of anything adequate to say. "I like the English," he said again, and when he thought over that talk, there seemed to be nothing else to say. How could he feel about the English as John Marsh, who had never lived in England, felt? How could he dislike them when he remembered Gilbert Farlow and Roger Carey and Ninian Graham and Mrs. Graham and Old Widger and Tom Yeo and Jim Rattenbury ... and Mary Graham. His father had always spoken contemptuously of Englishmen, but he had never been moved by this violent antipathy to them which moved Marsh ... and most of his talk against England was only talk, intended to sting the English out of their complacency ... and he was eager to preserve the Union between the two countries. But Marsh wished to be totally separate from England. He was vague, very vague, about points of defence, and he boggled badly when Henry, trying to think like a statesman, talked of an Army and a Navy ... his mind wandered into the mists of Tolstoyianism and then he ended by suggesting that England would attend to these matters in self-defence. He could not satisfy Henry's superficial enquiries about the possibilities of trade conducted in Gaelic ... but he was positive about the need for separation, complete and irremediable separation, from England.

"We're separated from them physically," he said, "and I want us to be separated from them politically and spiritually. They're a debased people!..." Henry muttered angrily at that, for his mind was still full of Mary Graham. "They're a debased people ... that's why I want to get free of them ... and all the debasing things in Ireland are part of the English taint. We've nothing in common with them. They're a race of factory-hands and manufacturers; we're a race of farmers and poets; and you can never reconcile us. All you can do is to make us like them ... or worse!"

Henry remembered how his father had fulminated against the smooth Englishman who had proposed to turn Glendalough into a place like the Potteries or Wigan.

"But isn't there some middle course?" he said weakly. "Isn't there some way of getting at the minerals of Wicklow without making Glendalough a place like Wigan?"

"Not if the English have anything to do with it," Marsh answered. "I don't know what Wigan is like.... I suppose it's horrible ... but it's natural to Englishmen. They trail that sort of place behind them wherever they go. Slums and sickness and fat, rich men! If they had anything to do with developing Wicklow they'd make it stink!..."

"Well, I don't know," Henry said wearily, for he soon grew tired of arguments in which he was an unequal participator. "I like the English and I can't see any good in just hating them!"

"They found a decent, generous race in Ireland," Marsh exclaimed, "and they've turned it into a race of cadgers. Your father admits that. Ask him what he thinks of Arthur Balfour and his Congested Districts Board!..."

They went back to the house, and as they went, they talked of books, and as they talked of books, Marsh's mind became assuaged. He had lately published a little volume of poems and he spoke of it to Henry in a shy fashion, though his eyes brightened and gleamed as he repeated something that Ernest Harper had said of them ... but then Ernest Harper always spoke kindly of the work of young, sincere men.

"I'll give you a copy if you like," Marsh said to Henry.

"Oh, thank you!" Henry exclaimed. "I should love to have it. I suppose," he went on, "it's very exciting to have a book published."

"I cried when I first saw my book," Marsh answered very simply. "I suppose women do that when they first see their babies!..."

But Henry did not know what women do when they first see their babies.



THE SIXTH CHAPTER

1

All through the summer, Henry and John Marsh worked together, making Irishry, as Marsh called it. They studied the conventional subjects in preparation for T. C. D. but their chief studies were of the Irish tongue and Irish history. Marsh was a Gaelic scholar, and he had made many translations of Gaelic poems and stories, some of which seemed to Henry to be of extraordinary beauty, but most of which seemed to him to be so thoughtless that they were merely lengths of words. There appeared to be no connexion between these poems and tales and the life he himself led—and Marsh's point was that the connexion was vital. One evening, Henry, who had been reading "The Trojan Women" of Euripides, turned to Marsh and said that the Greek tragedy seemed nearer to him than any of the Gaelic stories and poems. He expressed his meaning badly, but what it came to was this, that the continuity of life was not broken in the Euripidean plays: the life of which Henry was part flowed directly from the life of which Euripides was part; he had not got the sensation that he was a stranger looking on at alien things when he had read "The Trojan Women," "I can imagine all that happening now," he said, "but I can't imagine any of that Gaelic life recurring. I don't feel any life in it. It's like something ... something odd suddenly butting into things ... and then suddenly butting out again ... and leaving no explanation behind it!"

He tried again, with greater success, to explain what he meant. "It's like reading topical references in old books," he said. "They mean nothing to us even when there are footnotes to explain them!"

Marsh had listened patiently to him, though there was anger in his heart. "You think that all that life is over!" he said, and Henry nodded his head.

"Listen," said Marsh, taking a letter from his pocket, "here is a poem, translated from Irish, that was sent to me by a friend of mine in Dublin. His name is Galway, and I'd like you to know him. Listen! It's called 'A Song for Mary Magdalene.'"

He read the poem in a slow, crooning voice that seemed always on the point of becoming ridiculous, but never did become so.

O woman of the gleaming hair (Wild hair that won men's gaze to thee), Weary thou turnest from the common stare, For the Shuiler[2] Christ is calling thee.

O woman with the wild thing's heart, Old sin hath set a snare for thee: In the forest ways forespent thou art, But the hunter Christ shall pity thee.

O woman spendthrift of thyself, Spendthrift of all the love in thee, Sold unto sin for little pelf, The captain Christ shall ransom thee.

O woman that no lover's kiss (Tho' many a kiss was given thee) Could slake thy love, is it not for this The hero Christ shall die for thee?

They were quiet for a while, and then Marsh turned to Henry and said, "Is that alien to you?"

"No," he answered, "but I did not say that it was all alien!..."

"Or this?" Marsh interrupted, taking up the manuscript again. "Galway sent these translations to me so that I might be the first to see them. He always does that. This one is called 'Lullaby of a Woman of the Mountain.'"

Little gold head, my house's candle, You will guide all wayfarers that walk this country.

Little soft mouth that my breast has known, Mary will kiss you as she passes.

Little round cheek, O smoother than satin, Iosa will lay His hand upon you.

Mary's kiss on my baby's mouth, Christ's little hand on my darling's cheek!

House, be still, and ye little grey mice, Lie close to-night in your hidden lairs.

Moths on the window, fold your wings, Little black chafers, silence your humming.

Plover and curlew fly not over my house, Do not speak, wild barnacle, passing over this mountain.

Things of the mountain that wake in the night time, Do not stir to-night till the daylight whitens.

"That's alive, isn't it?" Marsh, now openly angry, demanded. "Do you think that song doesn't kindle the hearts of mothers all over the world?... I can imagine Eve crooning it to little Cain and Abel, and I can imagine a woman in the Combe crooning it to her child!..." The Combe was a tract of slum in Dublin. "It's universal and everlasting. You can't kill that!"

"Then why has it got lost?"

"It isn't lost—it's only covered up. Our task is to dig it out. It's worth digging out, isn't it? The people in the West still sing songs like that. Isn't it worth while to try and get all our people to sing them instead of singing English music-hall stuff?..."

2

It was in that spirit that Marsh started the Gaelic class in Ballymartin. "And the Gaelic games," he said to Henry, "we'll revive them too!" Twice a week, he taught the rudiments of the Irish language to a mixed class of boys and girls, and every Saturday he led the Ballymartin hurley team into one of Mr. Quinn's fields....

There had been difficulty in establishing the mixed classes. The farmers and the villagers, having first declared that Gaelic was useless to them—"they'd be a lot better learnin' shorthand!" said John McCracken—then declared that they did not care to have their daughters "trapesin' about the loanies, lettin' on to be learnin' Irish, an' them only up to devilment with the lads!" But Marsh overcame that difficulty, as he overcame most of his difficulties, by persistent attack; and in the end, the Gaelic class was established, and the Ballymartin boys and girls were set to the study of O'Growney's primer. Henry was employed as Marsh's monitor. His duty was to supervise the elementary pupils, leaving the more advanced ones to the care of Marsh. It was while he was teaching the Gaelic alphabet to his class, that Henry first met Sheila Morgan.

She came into the schoolroom one night out of a drift of rain, and as she stood in the doorway, laughing because the wind had caught her umbrella and almost torn it out of her hands, he could see the raindrops glistening on her cheeks. She put the umbrella in a corner of the room, leaving it open so that it might dry more quickly, and then she shook her long dark hair back and wiped the rain from her face. He waited until she had taken off her mackintosh and hung it up in the cloakroom, and then he went forward to her.

"Have you come to join the class?" he asked, and she smiled and nodded her head. "It's a coarse sort of a night," she added, coming into the classroom.

He did not know her name, and he wondered where her home was. He knew everybody in Ballymartin, and many of the people in the country outside it, but he had never seen Sheila Morgan before.

"I thought I might as well come," she said, "but I'm only here for a while!"

Then she did not belong to the village. "Yes?..." he said.

"It's quaren dull in the country," she continued, "an' the classes'll help to pass the time. I wish it was dancin', but!"

Dancing! They had not made any arrangements for dancing, though the Gaels were very nimble on their feet. He glanced at Marsh reproachfully. Why had Marsh omitted to revive the Gaelic dances?

"Perhaps," he said to Sheila, "we can have dancing classes later on...."

"I'll mebbe be gone before you have them," she answered.

"How long are you staying for?" he asked.

"I don't know. I'm stopping with my uncle Matthew ... it's him has Hamilton's farm ... an' I'm stoppin' 'til he knows how his health'll be. He's bad...."

He remembered Matthew Hamilton. "Is he ill?" he said.

"Aye. He's been sick this while past, an' now he's worse, an' my aunt Kate asked me to come an' stop with them to help them in the house. He's not near himself at all. You'd think a pity of him if you seen the way he's failed next to nothin'.... Is it hard to learn Irish?"

"You'd better come an' try for yourself," he replied, and then he led her up to Marsh and told him that a new pupil had come to join the class. There was some awkwardness about names.... "Och, I never told you my name," she said, laughing as she spoke. "Sheila Morgan!" she continued. "I live in County Down, but I'm stayin' with my uncle Matthew," she explained to Marsh.

"Do you know any Gaelic at all?" Marsh asked.

"No," she replied. "I never learned it. Are you goin' to have any dancin' classes?"

Henry insisted that they ought to have had dancing classes as well as a hurley team. "The hurley's all right for the boys," he said, "but we've nothing for the girls...."

"But you'd want boys at the dancin' as well," Sheila interrupted. "I can't bear dancin' with girls!"

"No, of course not," said Henry.

Marsh considered. "Who's to teach the dancing?" he asked, adding, "I can't!"

"I'd be willin' to do that," Sheila said. "Mebbe you'd join the class yourself, Mr. Marsh?"

Marsh laughed, but did not answer.

"It'll be great value," she went on. "There's nothin' to do in the evenin's ... nothin' at all ... an' it's despert dull at night with nothin' to do!..."

"I'll think about it," said Marsh. "You can begin your Gaelic study now," he added. "Mr. Quinn'll give you a lesson!..."

3

It was Jamesey McKeown who caused the decision to hold the dancing classes to be made as quickly as it was. Jamesey was one of the pupils in the advanced section of the Gaelic class ... a bright-witted boy of thirteen, with a quick, sharp way. One day, Marsh and Henry had climbed a steep hill outside the village, and when they reached the top of it, they found Jamesey lying there, looking down on the fields beneath. His chin was resting in the cup of his upturned palms.

"God save you, Jamesey!" said Marsh, and "God save you kindly!" Jamesey answered.

The greeting and the reply are not native to Ulster, but Marsh had made them part of the Gaelic studies, and whenever he encountered friends he always saluted them so. His pupils, falling in with his whim, replied to his salute as he wished them to reply, but the older people merely nodded their heads or said "It's a soft day!" or "It's a brave day!" or, more abruptly, "Morra, Mr. Marsh!" The Protestants among them suspected that the Gaelic salutation was a form of furtive Popery....

They sat down beside the boy. "I suppose you'll be leaving school soon, Jamesey?" Marsh asked.

"Aye, I will in a while," Jamesey answered.

"What class are you in?"

"I'm a monitor, Mr. Marsh. I'm in my first year!..."

Henry sat up and joined in the conversation. "Then you're going to be a teacher?" he said.

"No, I'm not," Jamesey replied. "My ma put me in for the monitor to get the bit of extra education. That's all!"

"What are you going to be, Jamesey? A farmer?" said Marsh.

"No. I wouldn't be a farmer for the world!..."

"But why?"

The boy changed his position and faced round to them. "Sure, there's nothin' to do but work from the dawn till the dark," he said, "an' you never get no diversion at all. I'm quaren tired of this place, I can tell you, an' my ma's tired of it too. She wudden be here if she could help it, but sure she can't. It's terrible in the winter, an' the win' fit to blow the head off you, an' you with nothin' to do on'y look after a lot of oul' cows an' pigs an' things. I'm goin' to a town as soon as I'm oul' enough!..."

They talked to him of the beauty of the country....

"Och, it's all right for a holiday in the summer," he said.

... and they talked to him of the fineness of a farmer's life, but he would not agree with them. A farmer's life was too hard and too dull. He was set on joining his brother in Glasgow....

"What does your brother do, Jamesey?" Marsh asked.

"He's a barman."

"A barman!" they repeated, a little blankly.

"Aye. That's what I'm goin' to be ... in the same place as him!"

They did not speak for a while. It seemed to both of them to be incredible that any one could wish to exchange the loveliness of the Antrim country for a Glasgow bar....

"What hours does your brother work?" Marsh asked drily.

"He works from eight in the mornin' till eight at night, an' it's later on Saturdays, but he has a half-day a week til himself, an' he has all day Sunday. They don't drink on Sunday in Glasgow!"

Marsh smiled. "Don't they?" he said.

"It's long hours," Jamesey admitted, "but he has great diversion. D'ye know this, Mr. Marsh!" he continued, rolling over on his side and speaking more quickly, "he can go to a music-hall twice on the one night an' hear all the latest songs for tuppence. That's all it costs him. He goes to the gallery an' he hears gran', an' he can go to two music-halls in the one night ... in the one night, mind you ... for fourpence! Where would you bate that? You never get no diversion of that sort in this place ... only an oul' magic-lantern an odd time, or the Band of Hope singin' songs about teetotallers!..."

That was the principal burden of Jamesey's complaint, that there was no diversion in Ballymartin. "If you were to go up the street now," he said, "you'd see the fellas stan'in' at the corner, houl'in' up the wall, an' wonderin' what the hell to do with themselves, an' never gettin' no answer!..."

"You never hear noan of the latest songs here," he complained again. "I got a quare cut from my brother once, me singin' a song that I thought was new, an' he toul' me it was as oul' as the hills. It was more nor a year oul', anyway!..."

4

They came away from the hill in a mood of depression. It seemed to Henry that the Gaelic Movement could never take root in that soil. What was the good of asking Jamesey McKeown to sing Gaelic songs and till the land when his heart was hungering for the tuppeny excitements of a Glasgow music-hall? What would Jamesey McKeown make of Galway's translations? Would

O woman of the gleaming hair (Wild hair that won men's gaze to thee), Weary thou turnest from the common stare, For the Shuiler Christ is calling thee.

bind him to the nurture of the earth when

What ho! she bumps

called him to Glasgow?

"We must think of something!" Marsh was saying, but Henry was busy with his own thoughts and paid no heed to him.

What, after all, had a farm to offer a quick-witted man or woman? That girl, Lizzie McCamley of whom his father had spoken once, she had preferred to go to Belfast and work in a linen mill and live in a slum rather than continue in the country; and Jamesey McKeown, who was so quick and eager and anxious to succeed, had weighed farms and fields and hills and valleys in the balance and found them of less weight and value than a Glasgow bar and a Glasgow music-hall. Henry remembered that his father was more interested in the land than most men—and he resolved to ask for his opinion. What was the good of all this co-operation, this struggle to discover the best way of making the earth yield up the means of life, this effort to increase and multiply, when nothing they could do seemed to make the work attractive to those who did it?...

Marsh was still murmuring to him. "I see," he was saying, "that something must be done. That girl ... what's her name?... Sheila something?..."

"Sheila Morgan!" Henry said.

"Yes. Sheila Morgan ... she said something about dancing classes, didn't she? We'll start a dancing class ... we'll teach them the Gaelic dances!..."

It suddenly seemed funny to Henry that Marsh should propose to solve the Land Problem ... the real Land Problem ... by means of dancing classes.

"They'll want more than that," he said. "They can't always be dancing!"

"No," Marsh answered, "but we can begin with that!"

Marsh's depression swiftly left him. He began to speculate on the future of the countryside when the Gaelic revival was complete. There would be Gaelic games, Gaelic songs, Gaelic dances and a Gaelic literature. "I don't see why we shouldn't have a theatre in every village, with village actors and village plays.... There must be a great deal of talent hidden away in these houses that never comes out because there is no one to bring it out.... I wish you were older, Henry, and were quit of Trinity. You and I ... and Galway ... of course, we must have Galway ... might start the Movement on a swifter course than it has now!..." He broke off and made a gesture of impatience. "Oh, my God, why can't a man do more!" he said.

5

Henry put the question to his father, and Mr. Quinn considered it for a while.

"I don't know," he answered, "what to say. You'd think people would find more to interest them in the land than in anything else ... but they don't. There's so much to do, an' it's so varied, an' you have it all under your own eye ... you begin it an' carry it on and you end it ... an' yet somehow!... An' then the whole family understands it and can take an interest in it. You'd think that that would hold them. There isn't any other trade in the world that'll take up a whole family an' give them all somethin' to talk about an' think over an' join in. But I've never known a bright boy or girl on a farm that wasn't itchin' to get away from it to a town!"

"But something'll have to be done, father!" Henry urged. "We must have farmers!..."

"Aye, something'll have to be done, but I'm damned if I know what. I suppose when they've developed machinery more an' can make transit easier ... but sometimes I half think we'll have to breed people for the land ... thick people, slow-witted people, clods ... an' just let them root an' dig and grub an' ... an' breed!" He got up as he spoke, and paced about the room. "No, Henry, I've got no remedy for you! The Almighty God'll have to think of a plan, I can't!"

6

Sheila Morgan did not know any of the ancient Gaelic dances, nor did any one in Ballymartin. She knew how to waltz and she could dance the polka and the schottishe. "An' that's all you need!" she said. There were two old women in the village who danced a double reel, and Paddy Kane was a great lad at jigs....

"Perhaps later on," Marsh said, "we can get some one to teach them Gaelic dances!"

And so the classes began. Marsh had announced at the Language class that the first of the Dancing Classes would be held on the following Thursday ... and on Thursday every boy and girl and young man and woman in Ballymartin had crowded into the schoolroom where the class was to be held.

"There are more here than come to the Language class," Marsh exclaimed in astonishment when he entered the room.

"Dancing seems to be more popular than Gaelic," Henry replied.

"I don't know how we shall teach them all," Marsh went on. "I can't dance ... and she can't possibly teach them all!"

But there was no need to teach them to dance—they had all learned to dance "from their cradles," as some one said, and in a little while the room was full of dancing couples.

Sheila Morgan had gone smilingly to John Marsh as he entered the room. "We're all ready," she said, and waited.

"Oh, yes!" he replied, a little vaguely.

She looked at him for a few moments, and then went on. "If you were to lead off," she suggested.

"Me? But I can't dance!..."

"You can't dance!"

"No," he continued. "Somehow, I've never learnt to dance!" She looked disappointed. "I thought mebbe you an' me 'ud lead off," she said.

"I'm sorry," he replied. "Perhaps Mr. Quinn can dance!..."

Henry gave his arm to her and they walked off, to begin the slow procession round the room until all the couples were ready.

"I think Mr. Marsh is the only one in the place that can't dance," Sheila said, as she placed her hand on Henry's shoulder.

He put his arm round her waist and they moved off in the dance. "I suppose he is," he answered.

7

He danced with her several times. Her cheeks were glowing and the lustre of her eyes was like the sparkle of the stars. Her lips were slightly parted, and now and then her breath came quickly. As they swung round and round, she sometimes closed her eyes and then slowly opened them again. He became aware of some strange emotion that he had never known before.

"I love dancin'," she murmured, half to herself.

"Yes," he replied, scarcely knowing that he was speaking.

"I love dancin'," she said again, and again he said "Yes" and no more....

He led her to a seat at the side of the room and sat down on the chair next to it. They did not speak, but sat there watching the swift movements of the other dancers. Marsh was somewhere at the other end of the room, looking on ... a little puzzled, a little disturbed ... but pleased, too, because the dancers were pleased. He was wondering why the interest in the Gaelic language was not so strong as the interest in the waltz. "A foreign dance, too ... not Gaelic at all!"

But Henry had forgotten the Gaelic movement, and was conscious only of the girl beside him and her glowing cheeks and her bright eyes and the softness of her.... She was older than he was, a couple of years and he noticed that she had just "put up" her hair. It had been hanging loosely when he first saw her, and he wondered which he liked better, the loose, hanging hair, or the hair bound round her head. Her slender white neck was revealed now that her hair was up, and it was very beautiful, but he thought that after all, his first sight of her, as she stood in the doorway, the raindrops still on her face, and flung back the long, loose strands of dark hair that lay about her shoulders ... he still thought that was the loveliest vision of her he had seen....

Then he remembered Mary Graham. She, too, had long loose hair that lay in dark lengths about her shoulders, and her eyes, too, could shine ... but she was a girl, and Sheila was a woman!... He was engaged to Mary, of course ... well, was it an engagement? They had been sweethearts and he had told her he loved her and she had said that she would marry him ... and all that ... but they were kids when that happened. Ninian had called him a sloppy ass!... This was different. His feeling for Sheila Morgan was different from his feeling for Mary Graham. He had never felt for any one as he felt for Sheila. He seemed unaccountably to be more aware of Sheila than he was of Mary. He could not altogether understand this difference of sensation ... but sometimes when he had been with Mary, he had forgotten that she was a girl ... she was just some one with whom he was playing a game or going for a walk or taking a bathe in the sea. But he could not forget that Sheila was a woman. When he had danced with her and his arm was about her waist and her fingers were in his ... he seemed to grow up. He felt as if something at which he had been gazing uncomprehendingly for a long time, had suddenly become known to him. He recognised something ... understood something which had puzzled him.

"Let's dance again," he said, standing up before her.

"All right," she answered, rising and going to him.

"I love dancing," he said to her.

"Yes," she murmured in reply.

8

When the dance was over, he took her to her uncle's farm. Marsh, overcome by headache, had gone home before the dance was ended, and Henry felt glad of this. He waited in the porch of the schoolhouse while Sheila put on her coat and wrap, and wondered why his feeling for her was so different from his feeling for Mary Graham, and while he wondered, she came to him, gathering up her skirts.

"Isn't the sky lovely?" she said, glancing up at the stars, as they walked out of the school-yard into the road.

He glanced up too, but did not answer.

"Millions an' millions of them," she said. "You'd wonder the sky 'ud hold them all!"

"Yes," he said.

"Many's a time I wonder about the stars," she went on. "Do you ever wonder about them?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you think there's people in them, the same as there is on the earth?"

"I don't know," he answered.

"This is a star, too, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes."

"An' shines just like them does?"

"Yes, I think so!"

"That's quare!" She walked on for a few yards without speaking, and her eyes were fixed steadily on the starry fields. "It's funny," she said, "to think mebbe there's people up there lookin' at us an' them mebbe thinkin' about this place what we're thinkin' of them. Wouldn't you love to be able to fly up to one of them an' just see if it's true?..."

He laughed at her and she laughed in response. "I'm talkin' blether," she said, stumbling over a stone in the road.

"Mind!" he warned her, putting out his hand to steady her.

"I was nearly down that time," she said. "These roads is awful in the dark ... you can't see where you're goin' or what's in the way!"

"No," he replied.

Her arms were crooked because she was holding her skirts about her ankles, and as she stumbled against him a second time, he put out his hand and caught hold of her arm, and this time he did not withdraw it. He slipped his arm inside hers and drew her close to him, and so they walked on in the starlight up the rough road that led to Matthew Hamilton's farm.

"It's quaren late," she said, moving nearer to him.

"Yes," he answered.

There was a rustle in the trees as the night wind blew through the branches, and they could hear the silken murmur of the corn as it bent before the breeze. Now and then there was a flutter of wings in a hedge as they passed by, and the low murmurs of cattle and sheep came from the fields.

"I wish it were next Thursday," he said.

"So do I," she replied.

"I wish we could have two dancing-classes in the week instead of one!"

"So do I," she said.

"But we can't manage that," he continued. "You see we have two nights for the Language class!..."

"You could have one night for the Language class," she said, "and two nights for dancing!"

"I don't think Marsh would like that," he answered.

They walked on for a while, thinking of what Marsh would say, and then she broke the silence.

"I don't see the good of them oul' language classes," she said.

"Don't you?"

"No. I'd rather be dancin' any day!..."

9

He left her at the gate that led into the farmyard.

"Good-night," he said, holding out his hand to her.

"Good-night!" she replied.

But still he did not move away nor did she open the gate and pass into the yard.

"I shall look forward to Thursday," he said.

"So shall I!"

"Good-night!"

"Good-night!"

He still held her hand in his and as she made a movement to draw it away, he suddenly pulled her to him and put his arms about her and kissed her.

"Sheila!" he said.

"Let me go!" she whispered.

She drew away from him, and stood looking at him for a few moments. Then she pushed the gate open and walked into the yard.

"Good-night!" she said.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: Shuiler: a tramp or beggar.]



THE SEVENTH CHAPTER

1

His habit had been to work in the morning with Marsh, and then, after light luncheon, they walked through the country during the afternoon, climbing hills or tramping heavily through the fields or, going off on bicycles, to bathe at Cushendall. Sometimes, Mr. Quinn accompanied them on these expeditions, and then they had fierce arguments about Ireland, but more often Marsh and Henry went off together, leaving Mr. Quinn behind to ponder over some problem of agriculture or to wrangle with William Henry Matier on what was and what was not a fair day's work. But now, Henry began to scheme to be alone. On the day after he had taken Sheila Morgan to her uncle's farm, he had been so restless and inattentive during his morning's work that Marsh had asked him if he were ill.

"I'm rather headachy," he had answered, and had gladly accepted the offer to quit work for the day.

"Would you like to go out for a walk?" Marsh had asked. "The fresh air!..."

And Henry had replied, "No, thanks! I think I'll just go up to my room!"

He had gone to his room and then, listening until he had heard Marsh go out, he had descended the stairs and, almost on tiptoe, had gone out of the house by a side-door, and, slipping through the paddock as if he were anxious not to be seen, had run swiftly through the meadows and cornfields until he reached the road that led to Hamilton's farm. He had not decided what he was going to do when he had reached the farm. Sheila would probably be busy about the house or she might have work to do in the farmyard. Now that her uncle was ill, some of his labour would have to be done by others. But he would be less in the way, he thought, in the morning than he would be in the evening when the cows were being milked ... though he might offer to help her to strain the milk and churn it, if she did that, and he could scald the milk-pans and ... do lots of things! The evening, however, was still a long way off, but the morning was ... now! And he wished very much to be with Sheila ... now ... this moment!

He saw her before she saw him. She had her back to him, and she was bending over her uncle who was sitting at the door of the farmhouse, with a rug wrapped round his legs. Henry, suddenly shy, stood still in the "loanie," looking at her and trying to think of something to say to her which would make his appearance there at that hour natural; but before he had thought of something that was suitable, she turned and saw him, and so he went forward, tongue-tied and awkward.

"Here's Mr. Quinn!" she said to her uncle ... she had never known him as Master Henry, and she had not yet learned to call him by his Christian name alone.

The farmer looked up. "You mane Mr. Henry," he said, and Henry, listening to him, felt that at last he was near manhood, for people were shedding the "Master."

"Good-morning, Hamilton!" he said, holding out his hand to the farmer. "How're you to-day?"

"Middlin', sir ... only middlin'. This is the first I've been out of the house this long while, but the day's that warm, I just thought I'd like to get a heat of the sun, bad or no bad. It's a terrible thing to be helpless like this ... not able to do a han's-turn for yourself!..."

"Ah, quit, Uncle Matt!" Sheila interjected. "Sure, you'll soon be all right an' runnin' about like a two-year oul'!" She turned to Henry. "He's an awful man for wantin' to be doin' things, an' it's sore work tryin' to get him to sit still the way the doctor says he's to sit. Always wantin' to be up an' doin' somethin'! Aren't you, Uncle Matt?"

"Ay, daughter, I am. I was always the lad for work!..."

"You're a terrible oul' provoker, so you are. You're just jealous, that's it, an' you're heart-feard we'll mebbe all learn how to look after the farm better nor you can!"

The old man smiled and took hold of her hand and fondled it. "You're the right wee girl," he said affectionately. "Always doin' your best to keep a man's heart up!"

"Indeed, then," she said briskly, "you gimme enough to do to keep your heart up. You're worse nor a cradleful of childher!... Here, let me wrap this shawl about your shoulders! Aren't you the oul' footer to be lettin' it slip down like that?... There now!"

He lay back in his chair while she folded the shawl about him, and smiled at her. "God content you, daughter!" he murmured.

2

"Well!" she said to Henry as they moved towards the byre.

He had sat with the farmer for a while, talking of the weather and the crops and the prospects of the harvest, and then, seeing Sheila going across the yard, he had followed her.

"Well?" she said, looking at him quizzically.

He did not know what to say, so he stood there smiling at her. Her arms were bare to the bend, and the neck of her blouse was open so that he saw her firm, brown throat.

"Well!" he replied, still smiling, and "Well?" she said again.

She went into the byre, and he followed her to the door, and stood peering into the dark interior where a sick cow lay lowing softly.

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" Sheila called to him.

"I have a whole lot to say," he replied, "but I don't know how to say it!"

She laughed at that, and he liked the strong, quick sound of her laughter. "You're the quare wee fella," she exclaimed.

Wee fellow! He flushed and straightened himself.

"I was passing along the road," he said stiffly, "and I thought I'd come up and see your uncle!..."

"Oh!" she answered.

"Yes. My father was wondering yesterday how he was getting on, so I just thought I'd come over and see him. I suppose you're busy?"

"You suppose right!"

He moved a step or two away from the door of the byre. "Then I won't hinder you in your work," he said.

"You're not hinderin' me," she replied, coming out of the dark byre as she spoke. "It would take the quare man to hinder me! Where's Mr. Marsh this mornin'?"

"Oh, somewhere!"

"I thought you an' him was always thegether. You're always about anyway!"

He felt strangely boyish while she was talking. Last night, when he had drawn her to him and had kissed her soft, moist lips, he had felt suddenly adult. While his arms were about her, he was conscious of manhood, of something new in his life, something that he had been growing to, but until that moment had not yet reached ... and now, standing in the strong sunlight and looking into her firm, laughing eyes, his manhood seemed to have receded from him, and once more he was ... a wee fellow, a schoolboy, a bit of a lad.... His vexation must have been apparent in his expression, for she said "What ails you?" to him.

"Nothing," he replied, turning away.

It was she who was making him feel schoolboyish again. She looked so capable and so assured, standing outside the byre-door, with a small crock in her hands, that he felt that she was many years older than he was, that she knew far more than he could hope to know for a long time....

She put the crock down and came close to him and took hold of his arm. "What ails you?" she said again, peering up into his face and smiling at him.

He looked at her with sulky eyes. "You're making fun of me," he said.

She shook his arm and pushed him. "G'long with you!" she said. "A big lump of a fella like you, actin' the chile!..." She picked up the crock and handed it to him. "Here," she said, "carry that into the house, will you, an' ask me aunt Kate to give you the full of it with yella male, an' then hurry back. I'll be up in the hayloft," she added, moving off.

3

He laid the crock of yellow meal down on a wooden box in the barn, and then climbed up the ladder to the hayloft.

"Wheesht," she said, holding up her hand. "There's a hen sittin' here, an' I don't want her disturbed!" He climbed into the loft as quietly as he could. "They'll soon be out now," she went on, "the lovely wee things!... What did you come here for, the day?"

"To see you!" he answered.

"Then that was a lie about comin' to see my Uncle Matt?"

He nodded his head.

"I thought as much. Sit down here by the side of me!"

He sat down on the hay where she bade him. "Are you angry with me?" he asked, making a wisp of hay.

"What would I be angry for?"

He did not know. Last night, perhaps, when he had kissed her?

"Oh, that!" she said. "Sure, that's nothin'!"

"Nothing?"

Why, then, had she left him so suddenly? She must have known how much he had to say to her....

"Look at the time it was!" she exclaimed. "An' me havin' to get up at five an' let the cows out.... You weren't up at no five, I'll bet!" He had risen at eight. "Eight!" she exclaimed. "That's no hour of the day to be risin'. If you were married to me, I'd make you skip long before that hour!"

Married to her!...

"Sheila," he whispered, taking hold of her arm.

"Well?" she said, thrusting a hay-stalk into his hair.

"I love you, Sheila!" he whispered, coming closer to her.

"Do you, indeed?" she answered.

"I do, Sheila, I do...."

He raised himself so that he was kneeling in front of her. His shyness had left him now, and the words were pouring rapidly out of his mouth.

"The minute I saw you in the door of the schoolroom that night, I was in love with you. I was, indeed!"

"Were you?"

"Yes. I couldn't help it, Sheila, and the worst of it was I didn't know what to say to you. And then, last night ... when we were walking up the 'loanie' together and I was holding your arm ... you know!... like this...." He took hold of her arm as he spoke and pressed it in his.... "I felt like ... like...."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Like anything. You will marry me, Sheila? You do love me?..."

She withdrew her arm from his and struck him lightly with a wisp of hay. "You're in a terrible hurry all of a sudden!" she said. "One minute you hardly know me, an' the next minute you're gettin' ready to be married to me. You're a despert wee fella!"

Wee fellow again!

"I'm not so very young," he said.

"What age are you?" she asked.

"I'm nearly seventeen," he replied.

She jumped up and stood over him. "God save us," she said, "that's the powerful age. You'd nearly bate Methusaleh!"

He stood up beside her. "Now, you're laughing at me again," he complained.

"No, I'm not," she answered.

She laid her hand on his shoulder and gripped it firmly, and stood thus, looking at him intently. Then she drew him into her arms and kissed him. "I like you quaren well," she said, holding him to her.

"Do you, Sheila?"

"Aye, of course I do, or I wouldn't be huggin' you like this, would I? Did you bring the yella male?"

He nodded his head. "It's down below," he said.

"Dear, oh, dear," she sighed. "I've wasted a terrible lot of time on you, Mr. Quinn!..."

"Call me 'Henry,'" he said.

"I'll call you 'Harry,'" she answered.

"You can call me anything you like!..."

She pinched his cheek. "You're a dear wee fella," she said. He did not mind being called a "wee fella" now. "But you're keepin' me from my work," she went on.

He seized her hand impetuously. "Take a day off," he said, "and we'll go for a long walk together!"

She laughed at him. "You quality people is the great ones for talk," she replied. "An' how could I take a day off an' me with my work to do?"

"Well, this evening then," he urged.

"There'll be the cows to milk!..."

"I'll come and help you."

"But sure you can't milk!"

"No, I can't milk, of course, but I can do anything else you want done. I can hold things and ... and run messages ... and just help you. Can't I? And then, when you've finished your work, we'll go and sit in the clover field...."

"An' get our death of cold sittin' on the damp ground. Dear O, but men talks quare blether!"

He tried to persuade her that dew was not damping. ... "Ah, quit!" she exclaimed ... and then he begged for her company in a walk along the Ballymena Road.

"I suppose I'll have to give in to you," she said. "You're a terrible fella for coaxin'!"

She moved towards the trap where the head of the ladder showed, and prepared to descend from the loft.

"What time will I come for you?" he asked, following her.

"Half-seven," she answered, going down the ladder. "I'll be well done my work then!"

He stood above her, looking down through the trap. "We generally have dinner at half-past seven," he said.

"You should have your dinner in the middle of the day, like us," she answered, and added, decisively, "It's half-seven or never!"

"All right," he exclaimed, stooping down carefully and putting his feet on a rung of the ladder. "I'll come for you then. I'll manage it somehow."

4

He told his father that he did not want any dinner. John Marsh had enquired about his headache, and Henry had said that it was better, but that he thought he would like to be quiet that evening. He said, too, that he had made up his mind to go for a long, lonely walk. "But what about your dinner?" Mr. Quinn had said, and he had answered that he did not want any. "If I'm hungry," he added, "I can have something before I go to bed."

He felt vaguely irritated with John Marsh who first pestered him ... that was the word Henry used in his mind ... with sympathy and then lamented that his headache would prevent him from helping that evening at the Gaelic language class. "Still, I suppose well manage," he ended regretfully.

"I don't suppose there'll be many at the class," Henry replied almost sneeringly.

"Why?" said Marsh.

"Oh, well," Henry went on, "after last night!..."

"You mean that they think more of dancing than they do of the language?" Marsh interrupted, and there was so much of anxiety in the tone of his voice that Henry regretted that he had sneered at him.

"Well, that's natural," he said, trying to think of some phrase that would mitigate the unkindness of what he was saying, and failing to think of it. "After all, it is much more fun to dance than to learn grammar...."

"But this is the Irish language," Marsh persisted, as if the Irishness of the tongue transcended the drudgery of learning grammar.

Mr. Quinn crumpled the Northern Whig and threw it at Marsh's head. "You an' your oul' language!" he exclaimed. "What good'll it do anybody but a lot of professors. Here's the world tryin' to get Latin an' Greek out of the universities, an' here's you tryin' to get another dead language into them!"

There followed an argument that developed into a wrangle, in the midst of which Henry, flinging a consolatory speech to Marsh, escaped from the house. "You'll get all the keen ones to-night," he said. "That'll be some consolation to you!"

It was too soon to go up to Hamilton's farm. The dairy work would hardly be done, and there would be the evening meal to prepare, and he knew that he would not be welcome in the middle of that activity. He did not wish to return to the room where his father and John Marsh were arguing about the Irish language, nor did he wish to go and sit in his own room until the time came to go and meet Sheila. If Hannah were to make some sandwiches for him, in case he should feel hungry, he would go to the bottom fields and lie in the long grass by the brook until it was time to meet Sheila. He went downstairs to the kitchen and found Hannah busy with the night's dinner.

"Well, Master Henry!" she said.

He told her of his headache and his desire for a solitary walk, and asked her to cut sandwiches for him.

"I will with a heart an' a half," she said, "when I've strained these potatoes. Sit down there a while an' content yourself till I've done...."

He took the sandwiches from her and went off to the bottom fields. The sky was full of mingled colours and long torn clouds that looked like flights of angels, and hidden in the fold of one great white strip of cloud that stretched up into the heavens, the sickle moon shone faintly, waiting for the setting sun to disappear so that she should shine out with unchallenged refulgence. He stood a while to look at the glory of the sky, and munched his sandwiches while he looked. He had always had a sensuous love of fine shapes and looks; the big bare branches of an old tree showing darkly against a winter sky or the changing colour of clouds at sunset, transfused at one moment to the look of filmy gold as the sun sent his rays shining upwards, darkened at the next, when the sun had vanished, so that they had the colour of smoke and made a stain as if God had drawn a sooty thumb across the sky; but now his sensuousness had developed, and he found himself full of admiration for things which hitherto he had not observed. That evening, when the cart-horses were led home, he had suddenly perceived that their great limbs were beautiful. He had stood still in the lane to watch them going by, and had liked the heavy plunging sound of their hoofs on the rough road, and the faded look of the long hair that hung about their houghs; but more than these he had liked the great round limbs of them, so full of strength. He remembered that once at Boveyhayne, Mary Graham and he had argued about the sea-gulls. She had "just loved" them, but he had qualified his admiration. He liked the long, motionless flight of the gulls as they circled through the air, and the whiteness of their shapely bodies and the grey feathers on their backs, but he disliked the small heads they had and the long yellow beaks and the little black eyes and the harsh cry ... and he had almost sickened when he saw them feeding on the entrails that were thrown to them by the fishermen.... But now, since he had fallen in love with Sheila Morgan, it seemed to him that everything in the world was beautiful; and lying here in the long grass, he yielded himself to the loveliness of the earth. He lay back and closed his eyes and listened to the sounds that filled the air, the noise of pleased, tired things at peace and the subdued songs of roosting birds. He could hear shouts from the labourers in the distant hayfields and, now and then, the slow rattle of a country cart as it moved clumsily along the uneven roads that led from the fields to the farmyards. There was a drowsy buzz of insects that mingled oddly with the burble of the stream and the lowing of the cattle.... He lay there and listened to a lark as it flew up from the ground with a queer, agitated flutter of wings, watching it as it ascended high and higher until it became a tiny speck, and then he sat up and watched it as it descended again, still flying with that queer, agitated flutter of wings, until it came near the earth, when its song suddenly ceased and it changed its flight and fell swiftly to its nest.