The Disentanglers Part 55

'_Sans purr_,' answered Blake; 'the Celtic wild cat has not the servile accomplishment of purring. The words, a little altered, are the motto of the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders. This is the country of the wild cat.'

'I thought the "wild cat" was a peculiarly American financial animal,'

said Merton.

Miss Macrae laughed, and, the gong sounding (by electricity, the wire being connected with the Greenwich Observatory), she ran lightly up the central staircase. Lady Bude had hurried to rejoin her lord; Merton and Blake sauntered out to their rooms in the observatory, Blake with an air of fatigue and languor.

'Learning ping-pong easily?' asked Merton.

'I have more hopes of teaching Miss Macrae the essential and intimate elements of Celtic poetry,' said Blake. 'One box of books I brought with me, another arrived to-day. I am about to begin on my Celtic drama of "Con of the Hundred Battles."'

'Have you the works of the ancient Sennachie, Macfootle?' asked Merton.

He was jealous, and his usual urbanity was sorely tried by the Irish bard. In short, he was rude; stupid, too.

However, Blake had his revenge after dinner, on the roof of the observatory, where the ladies gathered round him in the faint silver light, looking over the sleeping sea. 'Far away to the west,' he said, 'lies the Celtic paradise, the Isle of Apples!'

'American apples are excellent,' said Merton, but the beauty of the scene and natural courtesy caused Miss Macrae to whisper 'Hush!'

The poet went on, 'May I speak to you the words of the emissary from the lovely land?'

'The mysterious female?' said Merton brutally. 'Dr. Hyde calls her "a mysterious female." It is in his _Literary History of Ireland_.'

'Pray let us hear the poem, Mr. Merton,' said Miss Macrae, attuned to the charm of the hour and the scene.

'She came to Bran's Court,' said Blake, 'from the Isle of Apples, and no man knew whence she came, and she chanted to them.'

'Twenty-eight quatrains, no less, a hundred and twelve lines,' said the insufferable Merton. 'Could you give us them in Gaelic?'

The bard went on, not noticing the interruption, 'I shall translate

'There is a distant isle Around which sea horses glisten, A fair course against the white swelling surge, Four feet uphold it.'

'Feet of white bronze under it.'

'White bronze, what's that, eh?' asked the practical Mr. Macrae.

'Glittering through beautiful ages!

Lovely land through the world's age, On which the white blossoms drop.'

'Beautiful!' said Miss Macrae.

'There are twenty-six more quatrains,' said Merton.

The bard went on,

'A beautiful game, most delightful They play--'

'Ping-pong?' murmured Merton.

'Hush!' said Lady Bude.

Miss Macrae turned to the poet.

'They play, sitting at the luxurious wine, Men and gentle women under a bush, Without sin, without crime.'

'They are playing still,' Blake added. 'Unbeheld, undisturbed! I verily believe there is no Gael even now who would not in his heart of hearts let drift by him the Elysiums of Virgil, Dante, and Milton, to grasp at the Moy Mell, the Apple Isle, of the unknown Irish pagan! And then to play sitting at the luxurious wine,

'Men and gentle women under a bush!'

'It really cannot have been ping-pong that they played at, _sitting_.

Bridge, more likely,' said Merton. 'And "good wine needs no bush!"'

The bard moved away, accompanied by his young hostess, who resented Merton's cynicism

'Tell me more of that lovely poem, Mr. Blake,' she said.

'I am jangled and out of tune,' said Blake wildly. 'The Sa.s.senach is my torture! Let me take your hand, it is cool as the hands of the foam-footed maidens of--of--what's the name of the place?'

'Was it Clonmell?' asked Miss Macrae, letting him take her hand.

He pressed it against his burning brow.

'Though you laugh at me,' said Blake, 'sometimes you are kind! I am upset--I hardly know myself. What is yonder shape skirting the lawn? Is it the Daoine Sidh?'

'Why do you call her "the downy she"? She is no more artful than other people. She is my maid, Elspeth Mackay,' answered Miss Macrae, puzzled.

They were alone, separated from the others by the breadth of the roof.

'I said the _Daoine Sidh_,' replied the poet, spelling the words. 'It means the People of Peace.'

'Quakers?'

'No, the fairies,' groaned the misunderstood bard. 'Do you know nothing of your ancestral tongue? Do you call yourself a Gael?'

'Of course I call myself a girl,' answered Miss Macrae. 'Do you want me to call myself a young lady?'

The poet sighed. 'I thought _you_ understood me,' he said. 'Ah, how to escape, how to reach the undiscovered West!'

'But Columbus discovered it,' said Miss Macrae.

'The undiscovered West of the Celtic heart's desire,' explained the bard; 'the West below the waters! Thither could we twain sail in the magic boat of Bran! Ah see, the sky opens like a flower!'

Indeed, there was a sudden glow of summer lightning.

'That looks more like rain,' said Merton, who was standing with the Budes at an opposite corner of the roof.

'I say, Merton,' asked Bude, 'how can you be so uncivil to that man? He took it very well.'

'A rotter,' said Merton. 'He has just got that stuff by heart, the verse and a lot of the prose, out of a book that I brought down myself, and left in the smoking-room. I can show you the place if you like.'

'Do, Mr. Merton. But how foolish you are! _do_ be civil to the man,'