Changing Winds Part 87

"All right, Henry, all right!"

He was silent for a few minutes, and then he began again, in a quieter voice. "I'd have put the men that made it, the whole lot of them, in the front rank, and let them blow themselves to blazes. Old men sittin' in offices, an' makin' wars, an' then biddin' young men to pay the price of them! By G.o.d, that's mean! By G.o.d, that's low!..."

"But old men couldn't bear the strain of it, father!" Henry interjected, and he recalled some of the horrors of the trenches where the soldiers had stood with the water reaching to their waists; but Mr. Quinn insisted that the old men should have fought the war they made.

"Who cares a d.a.m.n whether they can bear it or not," he said. "Let 'em die, d.a.m.n 'em! They're no good!" He turned quickly to Henry, and demanded, "What good are they? Tell me that now!" but before Henry could make an answer to him, he went off insistently, "They're no good, I tell you. I know well what they're like ... sittin' in their clubs, yappin'

an' yappin' an' demandin' this an' demandin' that, an' gettin' on one another's nerves; an' whatever happens it's not them that suffers for it: it's the young lads that pays for everything. Look at the way the old fellows go on in Parliament, Henry! By G.o.d, I want to vomit when I read about them! Yappin' an' yappin' when they should be down on their knees beggin' G.o.d's forgiveness...."

He spoke as if he were not himself an old man, and it did not seem strange to Henry that he should speak in that fashion, for Mr. Quinn's spirit had always been a young spirit.

"An' these wee b.i.t.c.hes with their white feathers," he went on, "ought to be well skelped. If I had a daughter, an' she did a thing like that, by G.o.d, I'd break her skull for her!"

"I suppose they think they're doing their duty, father, and they're young!..."

"There's women at it, too. I read in the paper yesterday mornin' that there was grown women doin' it. There's n.o.body has any right to bid a man go to that except them that's been to it themselves. If the women an' the parsons an' the old men can't fight for their country, they can hold their tongues for it, an' by G.o.d they ought to be made to hold them...."

He asked continually after Gilbert.

"He's a sergeant now, father. He's been offered a commission, but he won't take it!..."

"Why?"

"Oh, one of his whimsy-whamsies, I suppose. He says the non-commissioned officers are the backbone of the Army, and he prefers to be part of the backbone. You remember Ninian Graham, father?"

"I do, rightly!..."

"He's come home to join. He's in the Engineers!"

Mr. Quinn did not make any answer to Henry. He slipped a little further into the bed, and lay for a long while with his eyes closed, so long that Henry thought he had fallen asleep; but, just when Henry began to tiptoe from the room, he opened his eyes again, and suddenly they were full of tears.

"The fine young fellows," he said. "The fine young lads!"

2

And at Christmas, he died. He had called Henry to him that morning, and had enquired about "The Fennels," which had lately been published after a postponement and much hesitation, and about the new book on which Henry was now working.

"That's right," he said, when he heard that Henry was working steadily on it. "It'll keep your mind from broodin'. How's the Ulster book goin'?"

"'The Fennels'?"

"Ay. You had hard luck, son, in bringing out your best book at a time like this, but never matter, never matter!..."

"I don't know how it's doing. It's too soon to tell yet. The reviews have been good, but I don't suppose people are buying books at present!"

"You've done a good few now, Henry!"

"Five, father."

"Ay, I have the lot there on that ledge so's I can take them down easily an' look at them. I feel proud of you, son ... proud of you!"

He began to remind Henry of things that had happened when he was a boy.

His mind became flooded with memories. "Do you mind Bridget Fallon?" he would say, and then he would recall many incidents that were connected with her. "Do you mind the way you wanted to go to Cambridge, an' I wouldn't let you," and "Do you mind the time you took the woollen b.a.l.l.s from Mr. Maginn's house?...."

Henry remembered. Mr. Maginn, the vicar of Ballymartin, had invited Henry to spend the afternoon with his nephew and niece and some other children. They had played a game with b.a.l.l.s made of coloured wool, and while they were playing, Henry, liking the pattern of one of them, had put it into his pocket. It had been missed, and there had been a search for it, in which Henry had joined. He was miserable, and he wanted to confess that he had the ball, but every time he opened his lips to say that he had it, he felt afraid, and so he had refrained from speaking.

He felt, too, that every one knew that he had taken it, but still he could not confess that he had it, and when they said, "Isn't it queer? I wonder where it's gone!" he had answered, "Yes, isn't it queer?" They had abandoned the search, and had played another game, but all the pleasure of the party was lost for Henry. He kept saying to himself, "You've got it. _You've_ got it!..."

He had hurried home after the party was over, and when he reached the shrubbery, he dug a hole and buried the ball in it. He had closed his eyes as he took it out of his pocket, so that he should not see the bright colours of it, and had heaped the earth on to it as if he could not conceal it quickly enough ... but burying it had not quieted his mind. He felt, whenever he met Mr. Maginn, that the vicar looked at him as if he were saying to himself, "You stole the woollen ball!...." At the end of the month, he had gone to his father and told him of it, and Mr. Quinn had c.o.c.ked his eye at him for a moment and considered the subject.

"If I were you, Henry," he had said, "I'd dig up that ball and take it back to Mr. Maginn and just tell him about it!"

Henry could remember how hard it had been to do that, how he had loitered outside the gates of the vicarage for an hour, trying to force himself to go up to the door and ask for the vicar ... and how kind Mr.

Maginn had been when, at last, he had made his confession!

Oh, yes, he remembered!...

"You were a funny wee lad, Henry," Mr. Quinn said, taking his son's hand in his. "Always imaginin' things!" He thought for a second or two. "I suppose," he went on, "that's what makes you able to write books ...

imaginin' things! Ay, that's it!"

They sat in quietness for a while, and then Mr. Quinn fell asleep, and Henry went down to the library and worked again on his new novel, for which he had not yet found a t.i.tle; and in his sleep, Mr. Quinn died.

3

Henry had finished a chapter of the book, and he put down his pen, and yawned. He was tired, and he thought gratefully of tea. Hannah would bring a tray to his father's room. There would be little soda farls and toasted barn-brack, and perhaps she would have made "slim-jim," and there would be newly-churned b.u.t.ter and home-made jam, which Hannah, in her Ulster way, would call "Preserve." ...

He got up from the table and went into the hall.

"Will tea be long, Hannah?" he called down the stairs, leading to the kitchens.

"Haven't I it near ready?" she answered.

He had gone up the staircase at a run, and had entered his father's room, expecting to see him sitting up....

"Hilloa," he said, stopping sharply, "still asleep!" and he went out of the room and called softly to Hannah, now coming up the stairs, to take the tray to the library. "He's asleep, Hannah!" he said almost in a whisper.

"He's never asleep at this hour," she answered.

And somehow, as she said that, he knew. He went back into the room and leant over his father, listening....

"Is he dead, Master Henry?" Hannah said, as she came into the room. She had left the tray on a table on the landing.

Henry straightened himself and turned to her. "Yes, Hannah!" he said quietly.

The old woman threw her ap.r.o.n over her head and let a great cry out of her. "Och, ochanee!" she moaned, "Och, och, ochanee!..."

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