Changing Winds Part 17

"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. "G.o.d 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 cla.s.s. "Still, I suppose well manage," he ended regretfully.

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

"Why?" said Marsh.

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