Henry was in the garden when John Marsh arrived, accompanied by Mr. Quinn. Two letters had come to him that morning from England—one from Gilbert Farlow and the other from Mary Graham, and he was reading them again for the seventh or eighth time when the dogcart drove up to the house.
My dear old ass,Gilbert wrote,why grizzle and grouse at the Bally Awful! That's my name now for things which can't be helped. I've taught it to Ninian, but he persists in calling it the Bloody Awful, which is low. He says that doesn't matter because he is low. Roger and I have had to clout his head rather severely lately ... it took two of us to do it.... Roger held his arms while I clouted him ... because he has become fearfully democratic, meaning by that, that anybody who knows more than his alphabet is an enemy of the poor. Roger and I are dead nuts on aristocracy at present. We go about saying, "My God, I'm a superman!" and try to look like Bernard Shaw. Roger only succeeds in looking like Little Lord Fauntleroy. But all this is away from the point, which is, why grizzle and grouse at the Bally Awful. If your papa will send you to T.C.D., you must just grin and bear it, my lad. I've never met anybody from Trinity.... I suppose people do come out of it after they get into it ... but if you're careful and remember the example of your little friends, Gilbert and Ninian and Roger, you'll come to no harm. And when you do come to London, we'll try to improve what's left of your poor mind. It would be splendid to go to Ballymartin for the summer. Tell your papa that Ninian and Roger and I solemnly cursed him three times for preventing you from coming to Cambridge, and then gave him three cheers for asking us to Ireland. The top of the morning to you, my broth of a boy, and the heavens be your bed, bedad and bejabers, as you say in your country, according to Punch. Yours ever, Gilbert.P.S. What about that two bob you owe me?
My dear old ass,Gilbert wrote,why grizzle and grouse at the Bally Awful! That's my name now for things which can't be helped. I've taught it to Ninian, but he persists in calling it the Bloody Awful, which is low. He says that doesn't matter because he is low. Roger and I have had to clout his head rather severely lately ... it took two of us to do it.... Roger held his arms while I clouted him ... because he has become fearfully democratic, meaning by that, that anybody who knows more than his alphabet is an enemy of the poor. Roger and I are dead nuts on aristocracy at present. We go about saying, "My God, I'm a superman!" and try to look like Bernard Shaw. Roger only succeeds in looking like Little Lord Fauntleroy. But all this is away from the point, which is, why grizzle and grouse at the Bally Awful. If your papa will send you to T.C.D., you must just grin and bear it, my lad. I've never met anybody from Trinity.... I suppose people do come out of it after they get into it ... but if you're careful and remember the example of your little friends, Gilbert and Ninian and Roger, you'll come to no harm. And when you do come to London, we'll try to improve what's left of your poor mind. It would be splendid to go to Ballymartin for the summer. Tell your papa that Ninian and Roger and I solemnly cursed him three times for preventing you from coming to Cambridge, and then gave him three cheers for asking us to Ireland. The top of the morning to you, my broth of a boy, and the heavens be your bed, bedad and bejabers, as you say in your country, according to Punch. Yours ever, Gilbert.
P.S. What about that two bob you owe me?
Mary's letter was shorter than Gilbert's.
I think it's awfully horrid of your father not to let you go to Cambridge with Ninian and the others. I was so looking forward to going up in May Week and so was Mother. Of course, we shall go anyhow, but it wouldhave been much nicer if you had been there. You would love Boveyhayne if you were here now. The hedges are full of wild roses and hazelnuts and there is a lovely lot of valaria on our wall. Old Widger says there will be a lovely lot of blackberries in September if everything goes well. I went out in a boat yesterday with Tom Yeo and I caught six dozen mackerel. You would have blubbed if you'd seen them flopping about in the bottom of the boat and looking so nice, and they were nice to eat. I love mackerel, don't you? Mother sends her love. Do write soon. I love getting letters and you write such nice ones. Your affectionate friend, Mary Graham. P.S. Love.
I think it's awfully horrid of your father not to let you go to Cambridge with Ninian and the others. I was so looking forward to going up in May Week and so was Mother. Of course, we shall go anyhow, but it wouldhave been much nicer if you had been there. You would love Boveyhayne if you were here now. The hedges are full of wild roses and hazelnuts and there is a lovely lot of valaria on our wall. Old Widger says there will be a lovely lot of blackberries in September if everything goes well. I went out in a boat yesterday with Tom Yeo and I caught six dozen mackerel. You would have blubbed if you'd seen them flopping about in the bottom of the boat and looking so nice, and they were nice to eat. I love mackerel, don't you? Mother sends her love. Do write soon. I love getting letters and you write such nice ones. Your affectionate friend, Mary Graham. P.S. Love.
Mary always signed herself his affectionate friend. He had tried to make her sign herself his loving sweetheart, but she said she did not like to do that.
He hurriedly put the letters away, and rose to greet John Marsh who came across the lawn to him, talking to Mr. Quinn.
"This is John Marsh, Henry," Mr. Quinn said when he came up to him, and Henry and Marsh shook hands and murmured greetings to each other. "I'll leave you both here to get acquainted with each other," Mr. Quinn continued. "I've a few things to do about the house!" He went off at once, leaving them together, but before he had gone far he turned and shouted to Henry, "You can show him through the grounds! He'll want to stretch his legs after bein' so long in the train!"
"Very well, father!" Henry answered, and turned to Marsh.
His first impression of his tutor was one of insignificance. Marsh's clothes were cheap and ready-made, and they seemed to be a size too large for him. That, indeed, was characteristic of him, that he should always seem to bewearing things which were too big for him. His tie, too, was rising over the top of his collar.... But the sense of insignificance disappeared from Henry's mind almost immediately after Marsh had offered his hand to him and had smiled; and following the sense of insignificance came a feeling of personal shame that was incomprehensible to him until he discovered that his shame was caused because he had thought slightingly of Marsh, even though he had done so only for a few moments, and had allowed his mind to be concerned about the trivialities of clothes when it should have been concerned with the nature of the man who wore them. Henry's mind was oddly perverse; he had been as fierce in his denunciation of convention as ever Gilbert Farlow had been, but nevertheless he clung to conventional things with something like desperation. It was characteristic of him that he should palliate his submission to the conventional thing by inventing a sensible excuse for it. He would say that such things were too trivial to be worth the trouble of a fight or a revolt, and declare that one should save one's energies for bigger battles; but the truth was that he had not the moral courage to flout a convention, and he had a queer, instinctive dislike of people who had the courage to do so.... He knew that this habit of his was likely to distort his judgments and make him shrink from ordeals of faith, and very often in his mind he tried to subdue his cowardly fear of conventional disapproval ... without success. But John Marsh had the power to conquer people. The gentleness of him, the kindly smile and the look of high intent, made men of meaner motive feel unaccountably ashamed.
He was a man of middle height and slender build. His high, broad brow was covered by heavy, rough, tufty hair that was brushed cleanly from his forehead and cut tidily about the neck so that he did not look unkempt. His long, straight nose was as large as the nose of a successful business man, but it was not bulbous nor were the nostrils wide and distended. It was a delicately-shaped and pointednose, with narrow nostrils that were as sensitive as the nostrils of a racehorse: an adventurous, pointing nose that would lead its owner to valiant lengths, but would never lead him into low enterprises. He had grey eyes that were quick to perceive, so that he understood things speedily, and the kindly, forbearing look in them promised that his understanding would not be stiffened by harshness, that it would be accompanied by sympathy so keen that, were it not for the hint of humour which they also held, he might almost have been mawkish, a sentimentalist too easily dissolved in tears. His thick eyebrows clung closely to his eyes, and gave him a look of introspection that mitigated the shrewdness of his pointing nose. There was some weakness, but not much, in the full, projecting lower lip and the slightly receding chin that caused his short, tightened upper lip to look indrawn and strained; and the big, ungainly, jutting ears consorted oddly with the serious look of high purpose that marked his face in repose. It was as though Puck had turned poet and then had turned preacher. One looked at the fleshy lower lip and the jutting ears, and thought of a careless, impish creature; one looked at the shapely, pointing nose and the kindly, unflinching eyes, and thought of a man reckless of himself in the pursuit of some fine purpose. One saw immediately that he was a man who could be moved easily when his sympathies were touched ... but that he could hardly be dissuaded from the fulfilment of his good intent. His Nationalism was like a cleansing fire; it consumed every impure thing that might penetrate his life. It was so potent that he did ridiculous things in asserting it.... It was typical of him that he should gaelicise his name, and equally typical of him that he should be undecided about the correct spelling of "John" in the ancient Irish tongue. He had called himself "Sean" Marsh, and then had called himself "Shane" and "Shaun" and "Shawn." Once, for a while, he transformed "John" into "Eoin" and then, tiring of it, had reverted to "Sean." But this restlessnessover his name was not a sign of general instability of purpose. He might vary in the expression of his belief, but the belief itself was as immovable as the mountains.
It was said of him that on one occasion he had taken a cheque to a bank in Dublin to be cashed. An English editor had printed one of his poems and had paid for it ... and he was not accustomed to receiving money for his poems, which were printed mostly in little Irish propaganda journals! He had endorsed the cheque in Gaelic, and the puzzled bank manager had demanded that it should be endorsed in English.... Marsh had given him a lecture on Irish history that lasted for the better part of half-an-hour ... and then, because the manager looked so frightened, he had consented to sign his name in English.
They left the garden and walked slowly to the top of an ascending field where an old farm-horse, quit now of work, grazed in peace. It raised its head as they walked towards it, and gazed at them with blurred eyes, and then ambled to them. They stood beside it for a few moments while Marsh patted its neck with one hand and allowed it to nuzzle in the palm of the other. "I love beasts," he said, "Dogs and cats and birds and horses and cows ... I think I love cows best because they've got such big, soft eyes and look so stupid and reproachful ... except that dogs are very nice and companionable and faithful ... but so are cats...."
"Faithful? Cats?" Henry asked.
"Oh, yes ... quite faithful if they like you. Why should they be faithful if they don't? Poor, old chap! Poor, old chap!" he murmured, thrusting his fingers through the horse's worn mane. "Of course, horses arevery nice, too," he went on. "And birds! ... I suppose one loves all animals. One has to be very brutal to hurt an animal; hasn't one?"
Henry laughed. "The Irish are cruel to animals," he said, "but the English aren't!"
Marsh flushed. "I've never been in England," he replied, looking away.
"Never?" Henry exclaimed.
"No, and I shall never go there!"
There was a sudden ferocity in his voice that startled Henry. "But why?" he asked.
"Why?..." Marsh's voice changed its note and became quiet again. "I'm Irish," he said. "That's why! I don't think that any Irishman ought to put his foot in England until Ireland is free!"
Henry snapped at him impatiently. "I hate all that kind of talk," he said.
Marsh looked at him in astonishment. "You hate all ... what talk?" he asked.
"All that talk about Ireland being free!"
"But don't you want Ireland to be free?" Marsh asked.
They had walked on across the field until they came to a barred gate, and Marsh climbed on to the top bar and perched himself there while Henry stood with his back against the gate and fondled the muzzle of the horse which had followed after them.
"I don't know what you mean when you say you want Ireland to be free!" Henry exclaimed.
"Don't know what I mean!..." Marsh's voice became very tense again, and he slipped down from the gate and turned quickly to explain his meaning to Henry, but Henry did not wait for the explanation. "No," he interrupted quickly. "Of course, I don't know much about these things, but I've read some books that father gave me, and I've talked to my friends ... one of them, Gilbert Farlow, is rather clever and he knows a lot about politics ... he argues with his father about them ... and I can'tsee that there's much difference between England and Ireland. People here don't seem to me to be any worse off than people over there!"
"It isn't a question of being worse off or better off," Marsh replied. "It's a question of beingfree.The English are governed by the English. The Irish aren't governed by the Irish. That's the difference between us. What does it matter what your condition is so long as you know that you are governed by a man of your own breed and blood, and that at any minute you may be in his place and he in yours, and yet you'll be men of the same breed and blood? I'd rather be governed badly by men of my own breed than be governed well by another breed...."
Henry remembered Ulster and his father and all his kinsmen scattered about the North who had sworn to die in the last ditch rather than be governed by Nationalists. "That's all very well," he said, "but there are plenty of people in Ireland who don't want to be governed by your breed, well or bad!"
"They'd consent if they thought we had the ability to govern well," Marsh went on. "Anyhow, we couldn't govern Ireland worse than the English have governed it!"
"Some people think you could!..."
But Marsh was in no mood to listen to objections. "You can't be free until you are equal with other people, and we aren't equal with the English. We aren't equal with anybody but subject people. And they look down on us, the English do. We're lazy and dirty and ignorant and superstitious and priest-ridden and impractical and ... and comic!... My God,comic! Whenever I see an Englishman in Ireland, running round and feeling superior, I want to wring his damned neck ... and I should hate to wring any one's neck."
Henry tried to interject a remark, but Marsh hurried on, disregarding his attempt to speak.
"How would they like it if we went over to their country and made remarks about them?" he exclaimed. "Mybrother went to London once and he saw people making love in public ... fellows and girls hugging each other in the street and sprawling about in the parks ... all over each other ... and no one took any notice. It wasn't decent.... How would they like it if we went over there and made remarks aboutthat?..."
Henry insisted on speaking. "But why should you hate the English?" he demanded, and added, "I don't hate them. I like them!"
"I didn't say I hated the English," Marsh replied. "I don't. I don't hate any race. That would be ridiculous. But I hate the belief that the English are fit to govern us, when they're not, and that we're not fit to govern ourselves, when we are. I'd rather be governed by Germans than be governed by the English!..." Henry moved away impatiently. "Yes, I would," Marsh continued. "At all events, the Germans would govern us well...."
"You'd hate to be governed by Germans!"
"I'd hate to be governed by any but Irishmen; but the Germans wouldn't make the muddles and messes that the English make!..."
"You don't know that," Henry said.
But Marsh would not take up the point. He swung off on a generalisation. "There won't be any peace or happiness in Ireland," he said, "until the English are driven out of it. Even the Orangemen don't like them. They're always making fun of them!..."
Henry repeated his assertion that he liked the English, conscious that there was something feeble in merely repeating it. He wished that he could say something as forceful as Marsh's statement of his dislike of England, but he was unable to think of anything adequate to say. "I like the English," he said again, and when he thought over that talk, there seemed to be nothing else to say. How could he feel about the English as John Marsh, who had never lived in England, felt? How could he dislike them when he remembered Gilbert Farlow and Roger Carey andNinian Graham and Mrs. Graham and Old Widger and Tom Yeo and Jim Rattenbury ... and Mary Graham. His father had always spoken contemptuously of Englishmen, but he had never been moved by this violent antipathy to them which moved Marsh ... and most of his talk against England was only talk, intended to sting the English out of their complacency ... and he was eager to preserve the Union between the two countries. But Marsh wished to be totally separate from England. He was vague, very vague, about points of defence, and he boggled badly when Henry, trying to think like a statesman, talked of an Army and a Navy ... his mind wandered into the mists of Tolstoyianism and then he ended by suggesting that England would attend to these matters in self-defence. He could not satisfy Henry's superficial enquiries about the possibilities of trade conducted in Gaelic ... but he was positive about the need for separation, complete and irremediable separation, from England.
"We're separated from them physically," he said, "and I want us to be separated from them politically and spiritually. They're a debased people!..." Henry muttered angrily at that, for his mind was still full of Mary Graham. "They're a debased people ... that's why I want to get free of them ... and all the debasing things in Ireland are part of the English taint. We've nothing in common with them. They're a race of factory-hands and manufacturers; we're a race of farmers and poets; and you can never reconcile us. All you can do is to make us like them ... or worse!"
Henry remembered how his father had fulminated against the smooth Englishman who had proposed to turn Glendalough into a place like the Potteries or Wigan.
"But isn't there some middle course?" he said weakly. "Isn't there some way of getting at the minerals of Wicklow without making Glendalough a place like Wigan?"
"Not if the English have anything to do with it," Marsh answered. "I don't know what Wigan is like.... I suppose it's horrible ... but it's natural to Englishmen. They trail that sort of place behind them wherever they go. Slums and sickness and fat, rich men! If they had anything to do with developing Wicklow they'd make it stink!..."
"Well, I don't know," Henry said wearily, for he soon grew tired of arguments in which he was an unequal participator. "I like the English and I can't see any good in just hating them!"
"They found a decent, generous race in Ireland," Marsh exclaimed, "and they've turned it into a race of cadgers. Your father admits that. Ask him what he thinks of Arthur Balfour and his Congested Districts Board!..."
They went back to the house, and as they went, they talked of books, and as they talked of books, Marsh's mind became assuaged. He had lately published a little volume of poems and he spoke of it to Henry in a shy fashion, though his eyes brightened and gleamed as he repeated something that Ernest Harper had said of them ... but then Ernest Harper always spoke kindly of the work of young, sincere men.
"I'll give you a copy if you like," Marsh said to Henry.
"Oh, thank you!" Henry exclaimed. "I should love to have it. I suppose," he went on, "it's very exciting to have a book published."
"I cried when I first saw my book," Marsh answered very simply. "I suppose women do that when they first see their babies!..."
But Henry did not know what women do when they first see their babies.
All through the summer, Henry and John Marsh worked together, making Irishry, as Marsh called it. They studied the conventional subjects in preparation for T. C. D. but their chief studies were of the Irish tongue and Irish history. Marsh was a Gaelic scholar, and he had made many translations of Gaelic poems and stories, some of which seemed to Henry to be of extraordinary beauty, but most of which seemed to him to be so thoughtless that they were merely lengths of words. There appeared to be no connexion between these poems and tales and the life he himself led—and Marsh's point was that the connexion was vital. One evening, Henry, who had been reading "The Trojan Women" of Euripides, turned to Marsh and said that the Greek tragedy seemed nearer to him than any of the Gaelic stories and poems. He expressed his meaning badly, but what it came to was this, that the continuity of life was not broken in the Euripidean plays: the life of which Henry was part flowed directly from the life of which Euripides was part; he had not got the sensation that he was a stranger looking on at alien things when he had read "The Trojan Women," "I can imagine all that happening now," he said, "but I can't imagine any of that Gaelic life recurring. I don't feel any life in it. It's like something ... something odd suddenly butting into things ... and then suddenly butting out again ... and leaving no explanation behind it!"
He tried again, with greater success, to explain what he meant. "It's like reading topical references in old books,"he said. "They mean nothing to us even when there are footnotes to explain them!"
Marsh had listened patiently to him, though there was anger in his heart. "You think that all that life is over!" he said, and Henry nodded his head.
"Listen," said Marsh, taking a letter from his pocket, "here is a poem, translated from Irish, that was sent to me by a friend of mine in Dublin. His name is Galway, and I'd like you to know him. Listen! It's called 'A Song for Mary Magdalene.'"
He read the poem in a slow, crooning voice that seemed always on the point of becoming ridiculous, but never did become so.
O woman of the gleaming hair(Wild hair that won men's gaze to thee),Weary thou turnest from the common stare,For the Shuiler[2]Christ is calling thee.O woman with the wild thing's heart,Old sin hath set a snare for thee:In the forest ways forespent thou art,But the hunter Christ shall pity thee.O woman spendthrift of thyself,Spendthrift of all the love in thee,Sold unto sin for little pelf,The captain Christ shall ransom thee.O woman that no lover's kiss(Tho' many a kiss was given thee)Could slake thy love, is it not for thisThe hero Christ shall die for thee?
They were quiet for a while, and then Marsh turned to Henry and said, "Is that alien to you?"
"No," he answered, "but I did not say that it was all alien!..."
"Or this?" Marsh interrupted, taking up the manuscriptagain. "Galway sent these translations to me so that I might be the first to see them. He always does that. This one is called 'Lullaby of a Woman of the Mountain.'"
Little gold head, my house's candle,You will guide all wayfarers that walk this country.Little soft mouth that my breast has known,Mary will kiss you as she passes.Little round cheek, O smoother than satin,Iosa will lay His hand upon you.Mary's kiss on my baby's mouth,Christ's little hand on my darling's cheek!House, be still, and ye little grey mice,Lie close to-night in your hidden lairs.Moths on the window, fold your wings,Little black chafers, silence your humming.Plover and curlew fly not over my house,Do not speak, wild barnacle, passing over this mountain.Things of the mountain that wake in the night time,Do not stir to-night till the daylight whitens.
"That's alive, isn't it?" Marsh, now openly angry, demanded. "Do you think that song doesn't kindle the hearts of mothers all over the world?... I can imagine Eve crooning it to little Cain and Abel, and I can imagine a woman in the Combe crooning it to her child!..." The Combe was a tract of slum in Dublin. "It's universal and everlasting. You can't kill that!"
"Then why has it got lost?"
"It isn't lost—it's only covered up. Our task is to dig it out. It's worth digging out, isn't it? The people in the West still sing songs like that. Isn't it worth while to try and get all our people to sing them instead of singing English music-hall stuff?..."
It was in that spirit that Marsh started the Gaelic class in Ballymartin. "And the Gaelic games," he said to Henry, "we'll revive them too!" Twice a week, he taught the rudiments of the Irish language to a mixed class of boys and girls, and every Saturday he led the Ballymartin hurley team into one of Mr. Quinn's fields....
There had been difficulty in establishing the mixed classes. The farmers and the villagers, having first declared that Gaelic was useless to them—"they'd be a lot better learnin' shorthand!" said John McCracken—then declared that they did not care to have their daughters "trapesin' about the loanies, lettin' on to be learnin' Irish, an' them only up to devilment with the lads!" But Marsh overcame that difficulty, as he overcame most of his difficulties, by persistent attack; and in the end, the Gaelic class was established, and the Ballymartin boys and girls were set to the study of O'Growney's primer. Henry was employed as Marsh's monitor. His duty was to supervise the elementary pupils, leaving the more advanced ones to the care of Marsh. It was while he was teaching the Gaelic alphabet to his class, that Henry first met Sheila Morgan.
She came into the schoolroom one night out of a drift of rain, and as she stood in the doorway, laughing because the wind had caught her umbrella and almost torn it out of her hands, he could see the raindrops glistening on her cheeks. She put the umbrella in a corner of the room, leaving it open so that it might dry more quickly, and then she shook her long dark hair back and wiped the rain from her face. He waited until she had taken off her mackintosh and hung it up in the cloakroom, and then he went forward to her.
"Have you come to join the class?" he asked, and she smiled and nodded her head. "It's a coarse sort of a night," she added, coming into the classroom.
He did not know her name, and he wondered where herhome was. He knew everybody in Ballymartin, and many of the people in the country outside it, but he had never seen Sheila Morgan before.
"I thought I might as well come," she said, "but I'm only here for a while!"
Then she did not belong to the village. "Yes?..." he said.
"It's quaren dull in the country," she continued, "an' the classes'll help to pass the time. I wish it was dancin', but!"
Dancing! They had not made any arrangements for dancing, though the Gaels were very nimble on their feet. He glanced at Marsh reproachfully. Why had Marsh omitted to revive the Gaelic dances?
"Perhaps," he said to Sheila, "we can have dancing classes later on...."
"I'll mebbe be gone before you have them," she answered.
"How long are you staying for?" he asked.
"I don't know. I'm stopping with my uncle Matthew ... it's him has Hamilton's farm ... an' I'm stoppin' 'til he knows how his health'll be. He's bad...."
He remembered Matthew Hamilton. "Is he ill?" he said.
"Aye. He's been sick this while past, an' now he's worse, an' my aunt Kate asked me to come an' stop with them to help them in the house. He's not near himself at all. You'd think a pity of him if you seen the way he's failed next to nothin'.... Is it hard to learn Irish?"
"You'd better come an' try for yourself," he replied, and then he led her up to Marsh and told him that a new pupil had come to join the class. There was some awkwardness about names.... "Och, I never told you my name," she said, laughing as she spoke. "Sheila Morgan!" she continued. "I live in County Down, but I'm stayin' with my uncle Matthew," she explained to Marsh.
"Do you know any Gaelic at all?" Marsh asked.
"No," she replied. "I never learned it. Are you goin' to have any dancin' classes?"
Henry insisted that they ought to have had dancing classes as well as a hurley team. "The hurley's all right for the boys," he said, "but we've nothing for the girls...."
"But you'd want boys at the dancin' as well," Sheila interrupted. "I can't bear dancin' with girls!"
"No, of course not," said Henry.
Marsh considered. "Who's to teach the dancing?" he asked, adding, "I can't!"
"I'd be willin' to do that," Sheila said. "Mebbe you'd join the class yourself, Mr. Marsh?"
Marsh laughed, but did not answer.
"It'll be great value," she went on. "There's nothin' to do in the evenin's ... nothin' at all ... an' it's despert dull at night with nothin' to do!..."
"I'll think about it," said Marsh. "You can begin your Gaelic study now," he added. "Mr. Quinn'll give you a lesson!..."
It was Jamesey McKeown who caused the decision to hold the dancing classes to be made as quickly as it was. Jamesey was one of the pupils in the advanced section of the Gaelic class ... a bright-witted boy of thirteen, with a quick, sharp way. One day, Marsh and Henry had climbed a steep hill outside the village, and when they reached the top of it, they found Jamesey lying there, looking down on the fields beneath. His chin was resting in the cup of his upturned palms.
"God save you, Jamesey!" said Marsh, and "God save you kindly!" Jamesey answered.
The greeting and the reply are not native to Ulster, but Marsh had made them part of the Gaelic studies, and whenever he encountered friends he always saluted them so.His pupils, falling in with his whim, replied to his salute as he wished them to reply, but the older people merely nodded their heads or said "It's a soft day!" or "It's a brave day!" or, more abruptly, "Morra, Mr. Marsh!" The Protestants among them suspected that the Gaelic salutation was a form of furtive Popery....
They sat down beside the boy. "I suppose you'll be leaving school soon, Jamesey?" Marsh asked.
"Aye, I will in a while," Jamesey answered.
"What class are you in?"
"I'm a monitor, Mr. Marsh. I'm in my first year!..."
Henry sat up and joined in the conversation. "Then you're going to be a teacher?" he said.
"No, I'm not," Jamesey replied. "My ma put me in for the monitor to get the bit of extra education. That's all!"
"What are you going to be, Jamesey? A farmer?" said Marsh.
"No. I wouldn't be a farmer for the world!..."
"But why?"
The boy changed his position and faced round to them. "Sure, there's nothin' to do but work from the dawn till the dark," he said, "an' you never get no diversion at all. I'm quaren tired of this place, I can tell you, an' my ma's tired of it too. She wudden be here if she could help it, but sure she can't. It's terrible in the winter, an' the win' fit to blow the head off you, an' you with nothin' to do on'y look after a lot of oul' cows an' pigs an' things. I'm goin' to a town as soon as I'm oul' enough!..."
They talked to him of the beauty of the country....
"Och, it's all right for a holiday in the summer," he said.
... and they talked to him of the fineness of a farmer's life, but he would not agree with them. A farmer's life was too hard and too dull. He was set on joining his brother in Glasgow....
"What does your brother do, Jamesey?" Marsh asked.
"He's a barman."
"A barman!" they repeated, a little blankly.
"Aye. That's what I'm goin' to be ... in the same place as him!"
They did not speak for a while. It seemed to both of them to be incredible that any one could wish to exchange the loveliness of the Antrim country for a Glasgow bar....
"What hours does your brother work?" Marsh asked drily.
"He works from eight in the mornin' till eight at night, an' it's later on Saturdays, but he has a half-day a week til himself, an' he has all day Sunday. They don't drink on Sunday in Glasgow!"
Marsh smiled. "Don't they?" he said.
"It's long hours," Jamesey admitted, "but he has great diversion. D'ye know this, Mr. Marsh!" he continued, rolling over on his side and speaking more quickly, "he can go to a music-hall twice on the one night an' hear all the latest songs for tuppence. That's all it costs him. He goes to the gallery an' he hears gran', an' he can go to two music-halls in the one night ...in the one night, mind you ... for fourpence! Where would you bate that? You never get no diversion of that sort in this place ... only an oul' magic-lantern an odd time, or the Band of Hope singin' songs about teetotallers!..."
That was the principal burden of Jamesey's complaint, that there was no diversion in Ballymartin. "If you were to go up the street now," he said, "you'd see the fellas stan'in' at the corner, houl'in' up the wall, an' wonderin' what the hell to do with themselves, an' never gettin' no answer!..."
"You never hear noan of the latest songs here," he complained again. "I got a quare cut from my brother once, me singin' a song that I thought was new, an' he toul' me it was as oul' as the hills. It was more nor a year oul', anyway!..."
They came away from the hill in a mood of depression. It seemed to Henry that the Gaelic Movement could never take root in that soil. What was the good of asking Jamesey McKeown to sing Gaelic songs and till the land when his heart was hungering for the tuppeny excitements of a Glasgow music-hall? What would Jamesey McKeown make of Galway's translations? Would
O woman of the gleaming hair(Wild hair that won men's gaze to thee),Weary thou turnest from the common stare,For the Shuiler Christ is calling thee.
bind him to the nurture of the earth when
What ho! she bumps
called him to Glasgow?
"We must think of something!" Marsh was saying, but Henry was busy with his own thoughts and paid no heed to him.
What, after all, had a farm to offer a quick-witted man or woman? That girl, Lizzie McCamley of whom his father had spoken once, she had preferred to go to Belfast and work in a linen mill and live in a slum rather than continue in the country; and Jamesey McKeown, who was so quick and eager and anxious to succeed, had weighed farms and fields and hills and valleys in the balance and found them of less weight and value than a Glasgow bar and a Glasgow music-hall. Henry remembered that his father was more interested in the land than most men—and he resolved to ask for his opinion. What was the good of all this co-operation, this struggle to discover the best way of making the earth yield up the means of life, this effort to increase and multiply, when nothing they could do seemed to make the work attractive to those who did it?...
Marsh was still murmuring to him. "I see," he was saying, "that something must be done. That girl ... what's her name?... Sheila something?..."
"Sheila Morgan!" Henry said.
"Yes. Sheila Morgan ... she said something about dancing classes, didn't she? We'll start a dancing class ... we'll teach them the Gaelic dances!..."
It suddenly seemed funny to Henry that Marsh should propose to solve the Land Problem ... the real Land Problem ... by means of dancing classes.
"They'll want more than that," he said. "They can't always be dancing!"
"No," Marsh answered, "but we can begin with that!"
Marsh's depression swiftly left him. He began to speculate on the future of the countryside when the Gaelic revival was complete. There would be Gaelic games, Gaelic songs, Gaelic dances and a Gaelic literature. "I don't see why we shouldn't have a theatre in every village, with village actors and village plays.... There must be a great deal of talent hidden away in these houses that never comes out because there is no one to bring it out.... I wish you were older, Henry, and were quit of Trinity. You and I ... and Galway ... of course, we must have Galway ... might start the Movement on a swifter course than it has now!..." He broke off and made a gesture of impatience. "Oh, my God, why can't a man do more!" he said.
Henry put the question to his father, and Mr. Quinn considered it for a while.
"I don't know," he answered, "what to say. You'd think people would find more to interest them in the land than in anything else ... but they don't. There's so much to do, an' it's so varied, an' you have it all under your own eye ... you begin it an' carry it on and you end it ... an' yet somehow!... An' then the wholefamily understands it and can take an interest in it. You'd think that that would hold them. There isn't any other trade in the world that'll take up a whole family an' give them all somethin' to talk about an' think over an' join in. But I've never known a bright boy or girl on a farm that wasn't itchin' to get away from it to a town!"
"But something'll have to be done, father!" Henry urged. "We must have farmers!..."
"Aye, something'll have to be done, but I'm damned if I know what. I suppose when they've developed machinery more an' can make transit easier ... but sometimes I half think we'll have to breed people for the land ... thick people, slow-witted people, clods ... an' just let them root an' dig and grub an' ... an' breed!" He got up as he spoke, and paced about the room. "No, Henry, I've got no remedy for you! The Almighty God'll have to think of a plan,Ican't!"
Sheila Morgan did not know any of the ancient Gaelic dances, nor did any one in Ballymartin. She knew how to waltz and she could dance the polka and the schottishe. "An' that's all you need!" she said. There were two old women in the village who danced a double reel, and Paddy Kane was a great lad at jigs....
"Perhaps later on," Marsh said, "we can get some one to teach them Gaelic dances!"
And so the classes began. Marsh had announced at the Language class that the first of the Dancing Classes would be held on the following Thursday ... and on Thursday every boy and girl and young man and woman in Ballymartin had crowded into the schoolroom where the class was to be held.
"There are more here than come to the Language class," Marsh exclaimed in astonishment when he entered the room.
"Dancing seems to be more popular than Gaelic," Henry replied.
"I don't know how we shall teach them all," Marsh went on. "I can't dance ... and she can't possibly teach them all!"
But there was no need to teach them to dance—they had all learned to dance "from their cradles," as some one said, and in a little while the room was full of dancing couples.
Sheila Morgan had gone smilingly to John Marsh as he entered the room. "We're all ready," she said, and waited.
"Oh, yes!" he replied, a little vaguely.
She looked at him for a few moments, and then went on. "If you were to lead off," she suggested.
"Me? But I can't dance!..."
"You can't dance!"
"No," he continued. "Somehow, I've never learnt to dance!" She looked disappointed. "I thought mebbe you an' me 'ud lead off," she said.
"I'm sorry," he replied. "Perhaps Mr. Quinn can dance!..."
Henry gave his arm to her and they walked off, to begin the slow procession round the room until all the couples were ready.
"I think Mr. Marsh is the only one in the place that can't dance," Sheila said, as she placed her hand on Henry's shoulder.
He put his arm round her waist and they moved off in the dance. "I suppose he is," he answered.
He danced with her several times. Her cheeks were glowing and the lustre of her eyes was like the sparkle of the stars. Her lips were slightly parted, and now and then her breath came quickly. As they swung round and round, she sometimes closed her eyes and then slowly opened themagain. He became aware of some strange emotion that he had never known before.
"I love dancin'," she murmured, half to herself.
"Yes," he replied, scarcely knowing that he was speaking.
"I love dancin'," she said again, and again he said "Yes" and no more....
He led her to a seat at the side of the room and sat down on the chair next to it. They did not speak, but sat there watching the swift movements of the other dancers. Marsh was somewhere at the other end of the room, looking on ... a little puzzled, a little disturbed ... but pleased, too, because the dancers were pleased. He was wondering why the interest in the Gaelic language was not so strong as the interest in the waltz. "A foreign dance, too ... not Gaelic at all!"
But Henry had forgotten the Gaelic movement, and was conscious only of the girl beside him and her glowing cheeks and her bright eyes and the softness of her.... She was older than he was, a couple of years and he noticed that she had just "put up" her hair. It had been hanging loosely when he first saw her, and he wondered which he liked better, the loose, hanging hair, or the hair bound round her head. Her slender white neck was revealed now that her hair was up, and it was very beautiful, but he thought that after all, his first sight of her, as she stood in the doorway, the raindrops still on her face, and flung back the long, loose strands of dark hair that lay about her shoulders ... he still thought that was the loveliest vision of her he had seen....
Then he remembered Mary Graham. She, too, had long loose hair that lay in dark lengths about her shoulders, and her eyes, too, could shine ... but she was a girl, and Sheila was a woman!... He was engaged to Mary, of course ... well, was it an engagement? They had been sweethearts and he had told her he loved her and she had said that she would marry him ... and all that ... butthey were kids when that happened. Ninian had called him a sloppy ass!... This was different. His feeling for Sheila Morgan was different from his feeling for Mary Graham. He had never felt for any one as he felt for Sheila. He seemed unaccountably to be more aware of Sheila than he was of Mary. He could not altogether understand this difference of sensation ... but sometimes when he had been with Mary, he had forgotten that she was a girl ... she was just some one with whom he was playing a game or going for a walk or taking a bathe in the sea. But he could not forget that Sheila was a woman. When he had danced with her and his arm was about her waist and her fingers were in his ... he seemed to grow up. He felt as if something at which he had been gazing uncomprehendingly for a long time, had suddenly become known to him. He recognised something ... understood something which had puzzled him.
"Let's dance again," he said, standing up before her.
"All right," she answered, rising and going to him.
"I love dancing," he said to her.
"Yes," she murmured in reply.
When the dance was over, he took her to her uncle's farm. Marsh, overcome by headache, had gone home before the dance was ended, and Henry felt glad of this. He waited in the porch of the schoolhouse while Sheila put on her coat and wrap, and wondered why his feeling for her was so different from his feeling for Mary Graham, and while he wondered, she came to him, gathering up her skirts.
"Isn't the sky lovely?" she said, glancing up at the stars, as they walked out of the school-yard into the road.
He glanced up too, but did not answer.
"Millions an' millions of them," she said. "You'd wonder the sky 'ud hold them all!"
"Yes," he said.
"Many's a time I wonder about the stars," she went on. "Do you ever wonder about them?"
"Sometimes."
"Do you think there's people in them, the same as there is on the earth?"
"I don't know," he answered.
"This is a star, too, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes."
"An' shines just like them does?"
"Yes, I think so!"
"That's quare!" She walked on for a few yards without speaking, and her eyes were fixed steadily on the starry fields. "It's funny," she said, "to think mebbe there's people up there lookin' at us an' them mebbe thinkin' about this place what we're thinkin' of them. Wouldn't you love to be able to fly up to one of them an' just see if it's true?..."
He laughed at her and she laughed in response. "I'm talkin' blether," she said, stumbling over a stone in the road.
"Mind!" he warned her, putting out his hand to steady her.
"I was nearly down that time," she said. "These roads is awful in the dark ... you can't see where you're goin' or what's in the way!"
"No," he replied.
Her arms were crooked because she was holding her skirts about her ankles, and as she stumbled against him a second time, he put out his hand and caught hold of her arm, and this time he did not withdraw it. He slipped his arm inside hers and drew her close to him, and so they walked on in the starlight up the rough road that led to Matthew Hamilton's farm.
"It's quaren late," she said, moving nearer to him.
"Yes," he answered.
There was a rustle in the trees as the night wind blewthrough the branches, and they could hear the silken murmur of the corn as it bent before the breeze. Now and then there was a flutter of wings in a hedge as they passed by, and the low murmurs of cattle and sheep came from the fields.
"I wish it were next Thursday," he said.
"So do I," she replied.
"I wish we could have two dancing-classes in the week instead of one!"
"So do I," she said.
"But we can't manage that," he continued. "You see we have two nights for the Language class!..."
"You could have one night for the Language class," she said, "and two nights for dancing!"
"I don't think Marsh would like that," he answered.
They walked on for a while, thinking of what Marsh would say, and then she broke the silence.
"I don't see the good of them oul' language classes," she said.
"Don't you?"
"No. I'd rather be dancin' any day!..."
He left her at the gate that led into the farmyard.
"Good-night," he said, holding out his hand to her.
"Good-night!" she replied.
But still he did not move away nor did she open the gate and pass into the yard.
"I shall look forward to Thursday," he said.
"So shall I!"
"Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
He still held her hand in his and as she made a movement to draw it away, he suddenly pulled her to him and put his arms about her and kissed her.
"Sheila!" he said.
"Let me go!" she whispered.
She drew away from him, and stood looking at him for a few moments. Then she pushed the gate open and walked into the yard.
"Good-night!" she said.
His habit had been to work in the morning with Marsh, and then, after light luncheon, they walked through the country during the afternoon, climbing hills or tramping heavily through the fields or, going off on bicycles, to bathe at Cushendall. Sometimes, Mr. Quinn accompanied them on these expeditions, and then they had fierce arguments about Ireland, but more often Marsh and Henry went off together, leaving Mr. Quinn behind to ponder over some problem of agriculture or to wrangle with William Henry Matier on what was and what was not a fair day's work. But now, Henry began to scheme to be alone. On the day after he had taken Sheila Morgan to her uncle's farm, he had been so restless and inattentive during his morning's work that Marsh had asked him if he were ill.
"I'm rather headachy," he had answered, and had gladly accepted the offer to quit work for the day.
"Would you like to go out for a walk?" Marsh had asked. "The fresh air!..."
And Henry had replied, "No, thanks! I think I'll just go up to my room!"
He had gone to his room and then, listening until he had heard Marsh go out, he had descended the stairs and, almost on tiptoe, had gone out of the house by a side-door, and, slipping through the paddock as if he were anxious not to be seen, had run swiftly through the meadows and cornfields until he reached the road that led to Hamilton's farm. He had not decided what he was going to do when he had reached the farm. Sheila would probably be busy about the house or she might have work to do in the farmyard. Now that her uncle was ill, some of his labour would have to be done by others. But he would be less in the way, he thought, in the morning than he would be in the evening when the cows were being milked ... though he might offer to help her to strain the milk and churn it, if she did that, and he could scald the milk-pans and ... do lots of things! The evening, however, was still a long way off, but the morning was ...now!And he wished very much to be with Sheila ... now ... this moment!
He saw her before she saw him. She had her back to him, and she was bending over her uncle who was sitting at the door of the farmhouse, with a rug wrapped round his legs. Henry, suddenly shy, stood still in the "loanie," looking at her and trying to think of something to say to her which would make his appearance there at that hour natural; but before he had thought of something that was suitable, she turned and saw him, and so he went forward, tongue-tied and awkward.
"Here's Mr. Quinn!" she said to her uncle ... she had never known him as Master Henry, and she had not yet learned to call him by his Christian name alone.
The farmer looked up. "You mane Mr. Henry," he said, and Henry, listening to him, felt that at last he was near manhood, for people were shedding the "Master."
"Good-morning, Hamilton!" he said, holding out his hand to the farmer. "How're you to-day?"
"Middlin', sir ... only middlin'. This is the first I've been out of the house this long while, but the day's that warm, I just thought I'd like to get a heat of the sun, bad or no bad. It's a terrible thing to be helpless like this ... not able to do a han's-turn for yourself!..."
"Ah, quit, Uncle Matt!" Sheila interjected. "Sure, you'll soon be all right an' runnin' about like a two-year oul'!" She turned to Henry. "He's an awful man for wantin' to be doin' things, an' it's sore work tryin' to get him to sit still the way the doctor says he's to sit. Alwayswantin' to be up an' doin' somethin'! Aren't you, Uncle Matt?"
"Ay, daughter, I am. I was always the lad for work!..."
"You're a terrible oul' provoker, so you are. You're just jealous, that's it, an' you're heart-feard we'll mebbe all learn how to look after the farm better nor you can!"
The old man smiled and took hold of her hand and fondled it. "You're the right wee girl," he said affectionately. "Always doin' your best to keep a man's heart up!"
"Indeed, then," she said briskly, "you gimme enough to do to keep your heart up. You're worse nor a cradleful of childher!... Here, let me wrap this shawl about your shoulders! Aren't you the oul' footer to be lettin' it slip down like that?... There now!"
He lay back in his chair while she folded the shawl about him, and smiled at her. "God content you, daughter!" he murmured.
"Well!" she said to Henry as they moved towards the byre.
He had sat with the farmer for a while, talking of the weather and the crops and the prospects of the harvest, and then, seeing Sheila going across the yard, he had followed her.
"Well?" she said, looking at him quizzically.
He did not know what to say, so he stood there smiling at her. Her arms were bare to the bend, and the neck of her blouse was open so that he saw her firm, brown throat.
"Well!" he replied, still smiling, and "Well?" she said again.
She went into the byre, and he followed her to the door, and stood peering into the dark interior where a sick cow lay lowing softly.
"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" Sheila called to him.
"I have a whole lot to say," he replied, "but I don't know how to say it!"
She laughed at that, and he liked the strong, quick sound of her laughter. "You're the quare wee fella," she exclaimed.
Wee fellow!He flushed and straightened himself.
"I was passing along the road," he said stiffly, "and I thought I'd come up and see your uncle!..."
"Oh!" she answered.
"Yes. My father was wondering yesterday how he was getting on, so I just thought I'd come over and see him. I suppose you're busy?"
"You suppose right!"
He moved a step or two away from the door of the byre. "Then I won't hinder you in your work," he said.
"You're not hinderin' me," she replied, coming out of the dark byre as she spoke. "It would take the quare man to hinderme! Where's Mr. Marsh this mornin'?"
"Oh, somewhere!"
"I thought you an' him was always thegether. You're always about anyway!"
He felt strangely boyish while she was talking. Last night, when he had drawn her to him and had kissed her soft, moist lips, he had felt suddenly adult. While his arms were about her, he was conscious of manhood, of something new in his life, something that he had been growing to, but until that moment had not yet reached ... and now, standing in the strong sunlight and looking into her firm, laughing eyes, his manhood seemed to have receded from him, and once more he was ... a wee fellow, a schoolboy, a bit of a lad.... His vexation must have been apparent in his expression, for she said "What ails you?" to him.
"Nothing," he replied, turning away.
It was she who was making him feel schoolboyish again.She looked so capable and so assured, standing outside the byre-door, with a small crock in her hands, that he felt that she was many years older than he was, that she knew far more than he could hope to know for a long time....
She put the crock down and came close to him and took hold of his arm. "What ails you?" she said again, peering up into his face and smiling at him.
He looked at her with sulky eyes. "You're making fun of me," he said.
She shook his arm and pushed him. "G'long with you!" she said. "A big lump of a fella like you, actin' the chile!..." She picked up the crock and handed it to him. "Here," she said, "carry that into the house, will you, an' ask me aunt Kate to give you the full of it with yella male, an' then hurry back. I'll be up in the hayloft," she added, moving off.
He laid the crock of yellow meal down on a wooden box in the barn, and then climbed up the ladder to the hayloft.
"Wheesht," she said, holding up her hand. "There's a hen sittin' here, an' I don't want her disturbed!" He climbed into the loft as quietly as he could. "They'll soon be out now," she went on, "the lovely wee things!... What did you come here for, the day?"
"To see you!" he answered.
"Then that was a lie about comin' to see my Uncle Matt?"
He nodded his head.
"I thought as much. Sit down here by the side of me!"
He sat down on the hay where she bade him. "Are you angry with me?" he asked, making a wisp of hay.
"What would I be angry for?"
He did not know. Last night, perhaps, when he had kissed her?
"Oh, that!" she said. "Sure, that's nothin'!"
"Nothing?"
Why, then, had she left him so suddenly? She must have known how much he had to say to her....
"Look at the time it was!" she exclaimed. "An' me havin' to get up at five an' let the cows out....Youweren't up at no five, I'll bet!" He had risen at eight. "Eight!" she exclaimed. "That's no hour of the day to be risin'. If you were married to me, I'd make you skip long before that hour!"
Married to her!...
"Sheila," he whispered, taking hold of her arm.
"Well?" she said, thrusting a hay-stalk into his hair.
"I love you, Sheila!" he whispered, coming closer to her.
"Do you, indeed?" she answered.
"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. Youwillmarry me, Sheila? Youdolove 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 fellowagain!
"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. "God 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."