Chapter 6

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!"