Chapter 8

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.

He rose up from the grass and walked over to the stream and dipped his hands into it, splashing the water on to the grass beside him. The sunlight shone on his hand and made the wet hairs shine like golden threads....

5

He was kneeling there at the side of the stream, looking at the wet glow of his hand when the fear of death came to him, and instantly he was terrified when he thought that he might die. The consciousness of life was in him and the desire to continue and to experience and to know were quickening and increasing. It seemed to him then that if he were to die at that moment, he would have been cheated of his inheritance, that he would have a grievance against God for all eternity.... He moved away from the brook and sank back into the grass, shaken and disconcerted. Until that moment, he had never thought of death except as a vague, inevitable thing that came to all creatures some time ... generally when they were old and had lost the savour of life. He had never seen a dead man or woman and he was unfamiliar with the rites of burial. He knew, indeed, that people die before they grow old, that children die, but until that moment, death had not become a personal thing, a thing that might descend on _him_....

He shut his eyes and tried to dose the thought of death out of his mind, but it would not go away. He began to sing disconnected staves of songs in the hope that he would forget that he was mortal.... There was a song that Bridget Fallon had taught him when he was a child, and now after many years, he was singing it again:

There were three lords came out of Spain, They came to court my daughter Jane. My daughter Jane, she is too young, And cannot bear your flatt'ring tongue. So fare you well, make no delay, But come again another day....

But the thought of death still lay heavy on his mind, and so he got up and left the field and hurried along the road that led to Hamilton's farm.

"Oh, my God," he cried to himself, "if I were to die now, just when I'm beginning to know things!..."

He began to run, as if he would run away from his own thoughts. The torn strips of clouds, that had looked like molten gold, were now darkening, and their darkness seemed ominous to him. The steepness of the "loanie" made him pant and presently he slackened his pace and slowed-down to walking. His eyes felt hot and stiff in their sockets and when he put his hand on his forehead, he felt that it was wet with sweat.

"I'm frightened," he said to himself. "Scared!..."

He wiped his forehead and then crumpled his handkerchief in his hot palms.

"I'm rattled," he went on to himself. "That's what I am. Oh, my God, I _am_ scared!..."

He looked about him helplessly. He could see a man tossing hay in a field near by, and he watched the rhythmical movement of his fork as it rose and fell.

"I couldn't die now," he thought. "I _couldn't_. It wouldn't be fair. I wouldn't let myself die ... I wouldn't!"

And as suddenly as the fear of death had fallen on him, it left him.

"Good Lord!" he said aloud, "what an ass I am!"

6

Sheila was sitting on a stool in front of the door. Her uncle had gone to bed, and her aunt, tired after her day's work and her attendance on the sick man, was lying on the sofa, dosing.

"I wondered were you comin'," Sheila said as he came up to her.

"You knew I'd come," he answered.

"I didn't know anything of the sort," she exclaimed, getting up from the stool. "Fellas has disappointed me before this."

"Have you had other sweethearts?" he asked, frowning.

She laughed at him. "I've had boys since I was that high," she replied, holding out her hand to indicate her height when she first had a sweetheart. "What are you lookin' so sore about? D'ye think no one never looked at me 'til you came along? For dear sake!"

She rallied him. Was she the first girl he had ever loved? Was she? Ah, he was afraid to answer. As if she did not know! Of course, she was not the first, and dear knows she might not be the last....

"I'll never love any one but you, Sheila!..."

"Wheesht will you, or my aunt'll hear you!"

"I don't care who hears me!..."

"Well, I do then. Come on down the loanie a piece, an' you can say what you like. I love the way you talk ... you've got the quare nice English accent!"

He followed her across the farmyard and through the gate into the "loanie."

"My father wouldn't like to hear you saying that," he said.

"Why?" she asked. "Does he not like the English way of talkin'?"

"Indeed, he does not. He loves the way you talk, the way all the Ulster people talk!..."

"What! Broad an' coarse like me?" she interrupted.

Henry nodded his head. "He doesn't think it's coarse," he said. "He thinks it's fine!"

Sheila pondered on this for a few moments. "He must be a quare man, your da!" she said.

They walked to the foot of the "loanie" and then turned along the Ballymena road.

"Does he know you come out with me?" she said.

"Who?" he answered.

"Your da."

"No. You see!..." He did not know what to say. It had not occurred to him to talk about Sheila to his father, and he realised now that if it had, he probably would not have done so.

"But if you're goin' to marry me?..." Sheila was saying.

"Oh, of course," he replied. "Of course, I shall have to tell him about you, won't I? I just didn't think of it.... Then you're going to marry me, Sheila?" he demanded, turning to her quickly.

"Och, I don't know," she answered. "I'm too young to be married yet, an' you're younger nor me, an' mebbe we'd change our minds, an' anyway there's a quare differs atween us."

"What difference is there between us?" he said, indignantly.

"Aw, there's a quare deal of differs," she maintained. "A quare deal. You're a quality-man!..."

"As if that matters," he interrupted.

"It matters a quare lot," she said.

They sat down on a bank by the roadside and he took hold of her hand and pressed it, and then he put his arm about her and drew her head down on to his shoulder.

"Somebody'll see you," she whispered.

"There's no one in sight," he replied.

"Do you love me an awful lot?" she asked, looking up at him.

"You know I do."

"More nor anybody in the world?"

He bent over and kissed her. "More than anybody in the world," he answered.

"You're not just lettin' on?" she continued.

"Letting on!"

"Aye. Makin' out you love me, an' you on'y passin' the time, divertin' yourself?"

He was angry with her. How could she imagine that he would pretend to love her?...

"I do love you," he insisted, "and I'll always love you. I feel that ... that!..."

He fumbled for words to express his love for her, but could not find any.

"Ah, well," she said, "it doesn't matter whether you're pretendin' or not. I'm quaren happy anyway!"

She struggled out of his embrace and put her arms round his neck and kissed him. She remained thus with her arms round him and her face close to his, gazing into his eyes as if she were searching for something....

"What are you thinkin', Sheila?" he asked.

"Nothin'," she said, and she drew him to her and kissed him again.

"I wish I was older," he exclaimed presently.

"Why?"

"Because I could marry you, then, and we'd go away and see all the places in the world...."

"I'd rather go to Portrush for my honeymoon," she said. "I went there for a trip once!"

"We'd go to Portrush too. We'd go to all the places. I'd take you to England and Scotland and Wales, and then we'd go to France and Spain and Italy and Africa and India and all the places."

"I'd be quaren tired goin' to all them places," she murmured.

"And then when we'd seen everything, we'd come back to Ireland and start a farm...."

She sat up and smiled at him. "An' keep cows an' horses," she said.

"Yes, and pigs and sheep and hens and ... all the things they have. Ducks and things!"

"I'd love that," she said, delighted.

"We'd go up to Belfast every now and then, and look at the shops and buy things!...."

"An' go to the theatre an' have our tea at an eatin'-house?"

"We'd go to an hotel for our tea," he said.

"Oh, no, I'd be near afeard of them places. I wasn't reared up to that sort of place, an' I wouldn't know what to do, an' all the people lookin' at me, an' the waiters watchin' every bite you put in your mouth, 'til you'd near think they'd grudged you your food!"

They made plans over which they laughed, and they mocked each other, teasing and pretending to anger, and he pulled her hair and kissed her, and she slapped his cheeks and kissed him.

"I'd give the world," she said, "to have my photograph took in a low-neck dress. Abernethy does them grand!..." She stopped suddenly and turned her head slightly from him in a listening attitude.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Wheesht!" she replied, and then added, "D'ye hear anything?"

He listened for a moment or two, and then said, "Yes, it sounds like a horse gallopin'...." They listened again, and then she proceeded. "You'd near think it was runnin' away," she said.

The sound of hooves rapidly beating the ground and the noise of quickly-revolving wheels came nearer.

"It _is_ runnin' away," she said, getting up from the bank and moving into the middle of the road where she stood looking in the direction from which the sound came.

"Don't stand in the road," Henry shouted to her. "You might get hurt."

She did not move nor did she appear to hear what he was saying. He had a strange sensation of shrinking, a desire not to be there, but he subdued it and went to join her in the middle of the road.

"Here it is," she said, turning to him and pointing to where the road made a sudden swerve.

He looked and saw a galloping horse, head down, coming rapidly towards them. There was a light cart behind it, bumping and swaying so that it seemed likely to be overturned, but there was no driver. It was still some way off, and he had time to think that he ought to stop the frightened animal. If it were allowed to go on, it might kill some one in the village. There would be children playing about in the street....

"I'll stop it," he said to himself, and half-consciously he buttoned his coat.

He tried to remember just what he ought to do. William Henry Matier had told, him not to stand right in front of a runaway horse, but to move to the side so that he could run with it. He would do that, and then he would spring at its head and haul the reins so tightly that the bit would slip back into the horse's mouth.... He moved from the middle of the road, and was conscious that Sheila had moved, too. His breath was coming quickly, and he felt again that sense of shrinking, that curious desire to run away. He saw a wheel of the cart lurch up as it passed over a stone in the road, and instantly panic seized him. "My God," he thought, "if that had been me!... He saw himself flung to the ground by the maddened horse and the wheel passing over his body, crunching his flesh and bones. He had the sensation of blood gushing from his mouth, and for a moment or two he felt as if he had actually suffered the physical shock of being broken beneath the cart wheel....

"I can't!" he muttered, and then he turned and ran swiftly to the side of the road and climbed on to the bank, struggling to break through the thorn hedge at the top of it. His hands were torn and bleeding and once he slipped and fell forward and his face was scratched by the thorns....

7

He had thrown himself over the hedge and had lain there, with his eyes closed, trembling. He was crying now, not with fright, but with remorse. He had failed in courage, and perhaps the horse had dashed into the village and killed a child.... He wondered what Sheila would say, and then he started up, his eyes wide with horror, thinking that perhaps Sheila had been killed. He climbed up the bank, and jumped over the low hedge into the roadway. There were some men approaching him, coming from the direction in which the horse had come, but he did not pay any heed to them. He began to run towards the village. A little distance from the place where he and Sheila had stood to watch the oncoming animal, the road made another bend, and when he had reached this bend, he met Sheila.

"You needn't hurry _now_," she said.

He did not hear the emphasis she laid on the word "now." "Are you all right?" he asked anxiously.

She did not answer, but strode on past him.

"Are you all right?" he repeated, following after her.

"It's a bit late to ask that," she said, turning and facing him. "I might 'a' been killed for all you cared, so long as you were safe yourself!"

He shrank back from her, unable to answer, and the men came up, before she could say anything else to him.

"Did ye see the horse runnin' away?" one of them said to her.

"You'll find it down the road a piece," she replied. "It's leg's broke. It tum'led an' fell. Yous'll have to shoot it, I s'pose!"

They supposed they would. The driver had been drinking and in his drunkenness he had thrashed the poor beast. ... "But he'll never thrash another horse, the same lad," said the man who told them of the circumstances. "He was pitched out on his head, an' he wasn't worth picking up when they lifted him. Killed dead, an' him as drunk as a fiddler! Begod, I wouldn't like to die that way! It 'ud be a quare thing to go afore your Maker an' you stinkin' wi' drink!"

The men went on, leaving Sheila and Henry together. She stood watching the men, oblivious seemingly of Henry's presence, until he put out his hand and touched hers.

"Sheila!" he said.

She snatched her hand away from him. "Lave me alone!" she exclaimed, and moved to the side of the road further from him.

"I meant to try and stop it," he said, "but somehow I couldn't I ... I did my best!"

He had followed her and was standing before her, pleading with her, but she would not look at him. He stood for a while, thinking of something to say, and then put out his hand again and touched hers. "Sheila," he said.

She swung round swiftly and struck him in the face with her clenched fist.

"How dare you touch me!" she cried and her eyes were full of fury.

"Sheila!"

"Don't lay a finger on me ... you ... you coward you! You were afeard to stop it, an' you run away, cryin' like a wee ba!" He tried to come to her again, but she shrunk away from him. "Don't come a-near me," she shouted at him. "I couldn't thole you near me. I'd be sick!..."

She stopped in her speech and walked away from him. He stared after her, unable to think or move. He could feel the smart of her blow tingling in his face, and he put his hand up mechanically to his cheek, and as he did so, he saw that his hand was still trembling. He could see her walking quickly on, her head erect and her hands clenched tightly by her side. He wanted to run after her, but he could not move. He tried to call to her, but his lips would not open....

The light was fading out of the sky, and the night was covering up the hills and fields, but still he stood there, staring up the road along which she had passed out of his sight. People passed him in the dusk and greeted him, but he did not answer, nor was he aware when they turned to look at him. Once, he was conscious of a loud report and a clatter of feet, but he did not think of it or of what it meant. In his mind, smashing like the blows of a hammer, came ceaselessly the sound of Sheila's voice, calling him a coward....

8

It was quite dark when he moved away. His mouth was very dry and his eyes were hot and sore, and his legs dragged as he walked. He was tired and miserable and he had a frightful sense of age. That morning he had wakened to manhood, full of pleasure in the beauty of living and growing things; now, he was like an old man, longing for death but afraid to lose his life. There were stars above him, but no moon, and the tall trunks of the trees stood up like black phantoms before him, moaning and crying in the wind. He could hear the screech-owls hooting in the dark, and the lonely yelp of a dog on a farm.

He began to hurry, walking quickly and then running, afraid to look back, almost afraid to look forward ... and as he ran, suddenly he fell on something soft. His hands slipped on wetness that smelt....

In the darkness he had fallen over the body of the horse which had been shot while he was standing where Sheila had left him. He gaped at it with distended eyes, and then, with a loud cry, he jumped up and fled home, with fear raging in his heart.

THE EIGHTH CHAPTER

1

He fell asleep, after a long, wakeful night, and did not hear the maid who called him. Mr. Quinn, when he was told of the heaviness of Henry's slumber, said "Let him lie on!" and so it was that he did not rise until noon. He came down heavy-eyed and irritable, and wandered about the garden in which he took no pleasure. Marsh came to him while he was there, full of enthusiasm because more pupils had attended the Language class than he had anticipated.

"That girl, Sheila Morgan, wasn't there!"

"Oh!" said Henry.

"I thought she'd be certain to come. She seemed so anxious to join the class. Perhaps she was prevented. I hope you'll be able to come to-night, Henry!..."

Henry turned away impatiently. "I don't think I shall go again," he said in a surly voice.

Marsh stared at him. "Not go again!" he exclaimed.

"No."

"But!..."

"Oh, I'm sick of the class. I'm sick of the whole thing. I'm sick of Irish!..."

Marsh walked away from him, walked so quickly that Henry knew that he was trying to subdue the sudden rage that rose in him when people spoke slightingly of Irish things, and for a few moments he felt sorry and ready to follow him and apologise for what he had said; but the sorrow passed as quickly as it came.

"It's absurd of him to behave like that," he said to himself, and went on his way about the garden.

Presently he saw Marsh approaching him, and he stood still and waited for him.

"I'm sorry, Henry," Marsh said when he had come up to him.

"It was my fault," Henry replied.

"I ought not to have walked off like that ... but I can't bear to hear any one talking!..."

"I know you can't," Henry interrupted. "That's why I ought not to have said what I did!"

But Marsh insisted on bearing the blame. "I ought to have remembered that you're not feeling well," he said, reproaching himself. "I get so interested in Ireland that I forget about people's feelings. That's my chief fault. I know it is. I must try to remember.... I suppose you didn't really mean what you said?"