Changing Winds Part 18

"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 gra.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 gra.s.s, 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 gra.s.s and walked over to the stream and dipped his hands into it, splashing the water on to the gra.s.s 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 G.o.d for all eternity.... He moved away from the brook and sank back into the gra.s.s, 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 G.o.d," 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.s 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' coa.r.s.e like me?" she interrupted.

Henry nodded his head. "He doesn't think it's coa.r.s.e," 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.