Boveyhayne Bay is a little bay within the very large bay that is guarded at one end by Portland Bill and at the other end by Start Point. It lies in the shelter of two white cliffs which keep its water quiet even when the sea outside is rough, and so it is a fine home for fishermen though there is no harbour and the trawlers have to be hauled up the shingly beach every night. Nowhere else on that coast are chalk cliffs to be found, and the sudden whiteness of Boveyhayne Head and the White Cliff shining out of the red clay of the adjoining cliffs is a sign to sailors, passing down the Channel on their homeward beat, that they are off the coast of Devonshire. Mrs. Graham talked to Henry about the fishermen as they drove down Bovey Lane towards the village.
"I love Boveyhayne," she said, "because the people are so fine. They rely on themselves far more than any other people I know. That's because they're fishermen, I suppose, and have no employers. They work for themselves ... and it's frightfully hard work too. People come to Boveyhayne in the summer, but they can't spoil it because the villagers don't depend on visitors for a living: they depend on themselves ... and the sea. There isn't a man in Boveyhayne who is pretending to be a fisherman and is really a cadger on summer visitors. Some of them won't be bothered to take people out in rowing-boats—they feel that that is work for the old. I used to wonder," she went on, "why it was that I didn't really like the villagers in other places, but I never found out why until I came to Boveyhayne, and it was simply because I felt instinctively that they were spongers ... those other people ... that they hadn't any real work to do, and that they were living on us like ... like ticks on a sheep. The Boveyhayne men are splendid men. It wouldn't make any difference ... much difference, anyhow ... to them if another visitor never came to the place. And that is how it ought to be in every village in England!"
Henry was not quite certain that he understood all that she was saying, but he liked to listen to her, and so he did not interrupt her, except to say "Yes" and "I suppose so" when it seemed that she was waiting for him to say something.
"Do you like being in England?" she asked him suddenly.
"Oh, yes," he answered.
"Would you rather be in England than in Ireland?"
He did not know. He liked being at home with his father, but he also liked being at Rumpell's with Gilbert and Roger and Ninian, and now he felt that he would like to be at Boveyhayne with Mrs. Graham and Mary.
"Perhaps you like people better than you like places," Mrs. Graham said.
"I don't know," he replied. "I hadn't thought about that."
"You must come again to Boveyhayne. Perhaps, in the summer, Gilbert and Roger will come, too!"
Henry thought that that would be awf'lly jolly....
They turned down the village street and left Peggy at the foot of it while they went down the slope leading on to the beach where the trawlers were now being hauled up by the aid of hand winches. Henry could see Mary and Ninian in the group of fishermen who were working the nearest winch. They had hold of one of the wooden bars and were helping to push it round.
"We'll go down to the boats," said Mrs. Graham, "and see the fish!"
She put her hand on his shoulder, and he helped to steady her as they walked across the shingle to where the boats were slowly climbing out of the sea over wooden runners on to the high stones.
One of the boats had already been hauled up, and the fishermen, having thrown out their gear, were now getting ready to sell their fish. They threw out a heap of skate and dun-cows,[1]and auctioned them to the dealers standing by.
"They're still alive," Henry whispered to Mrs. Graham as he watched the dun-cows curling their bodies and the skate gasping in the air. He looked over the side of the trawler and saw baskets of dabs and plaice and some soles and turbot and a couple of crabs. A plaice flapped helplessly and fell off the heap in the basket on to the bottom of the boat, and one of the fishermen trod on it.... "They'reallalive," Henry said, turning again to Mrs. Graham.
"Yes," she answered.
"But ... isn't it cruel? Oughtn't they to kill them?"
"It would take a long time to kill all those fish," she said. "Most of them are dead already, and the others will be dead soon...."
But he could not rid himself of the feeling that the fish were suffering agonies, and he began to feel sick with pity.
"I think I'll go and see Mary and Ninian," he said to Mrs. Graham, edging away from the boat.
"All right," she replied.
But Ninian and Mary were on their way down to the boats, and so he did not get far.
"Come and see them cutting up the skate and dun-cows!" said Ninian, catching hold of Henry's arm and pulling him back.
"Yes, let's," Mary added.
The sick feeling was growing stronger in Henry. He hated the sight of blood. Once he had been ill in the street because William Henry Matier had shown a dead rabbit to him, the blood dribbling from its mouth ... and the sight of a butcher's shop always filled him with nausea. He did not wish to see the skate cut up, but he felt that Mary would despise him if he did not go with Ninian and her, so he followed after them.
The fishermen were sharpening their knives on the stones when they came up to them, and then one of them seized a dun-cow and struck its head on the shingle and cut it open, while another fisherman inserted his knife into the quivering body of a skate and cut out the entrails and the head in circular pieces.
"But they're alive," said Henry.
"Of course, they're alive," said Ninian, seizing a dun-cow and smacking its head against the beach. "Here you are, Jim," he added, passing the dun-cow to a fisherman. "Here's another one!"
Henry could not stay any longer. He turned away quickly and almost ran up the beach. "Hilloa," Ninian shouted after him, "where are you going?"
He stopped for a moment and looked back, wondering what excuse he should make for his running away. "I ... I'm just going to see if ... if Peggy's all right!"
"She'sall right," Ninian replied.
"I think I'll just go all the same," said Henry.
"But you'll miss it all," Mary called to him.
"I'll ... I'll come back presently," he answered.
He had finished a game of cards with Mary and then Mary had gone off to bed. She had kissed her mother and Ninian, and then she held out her hand to him and said "Good-night, Quinny!" and he said "Good-night, Mary!" and held the door open for her so that she might pass out.
"Let's go out in a boat to-morrow," she said. "We'll go to the Smugglers' Cave...."
"Yes, let's," he answered.
When she had gone, Mrs. Graham called him to her. "Come and sit here," she said, pointing to a footstool at her feet. Ninian was trying to solve a chess problem and was deaf to the whole world....
"I suppose you didn't like to see the fish being gutted, Henry?" Mrs. Graham said.
He glanced up at her quickly. He had not spoken of his feeling to any of them because he was ashamed of it. "It's namby-pamby of me," he had said to himself. He flushed as he looked up, fearing that she must despise him for his weakness, and he almost denied that he had had any feeling at all about it; but he did not deny it. "I couldn't bear it, Mrs. Graham," he said quickly in a low voice. "I felt I should be ill if I stayed there any longer!"
"I used to feel like that," she said, patting his shoulder, "but you soon get used to it. The fishermen aren't really cruel. They are the kindest men I know!"
Ninian, having failed to solve his chess problem, got up from the table and stretched himself and yawned.
"I'm going to bed, Quinny," he said. "Are you coming?"
Henry rose and shook hands with Mrs. Graham. "Good-night," he said.
"Good-night, Henry!" she replied. "I hope you'll sleep well." And then she turned to kiss Ninian, who pushed a sleepy face against hers.
In the morning, there were fried plaice for breakfast, and Henry ate two of them.
"These are some of the fish you saw on the beach last night," said Mrs. Graham.
"Oh, yes," said Henry, reaching for the toast, and swallowing a mouthful of the fish. "And jolly nice, too!"
He stayed at Boveyhayne until the time came to return to Rumpell's, and the holiday passed so quickly that he could not believe that it was really over. They had picnicked in the Smugglers' Cave and on Boveyhayne Common where the gorse was in bloom, and Henry had plucked whinblossoms to dye Easter eggs when he found that the Grahams did not know that whinblossoms could be used in this way. "You boil the blossoms and the eggs together, and the eggs come out a lovely browny-yellow colour. We always dye our eggs like that in the north of Ireland!" And on the day they picnicked on Boveyhayne Common, Mrs. Graham took them down the side of the hill to the big farm at Franscombe and treated them to a Devonshire tea: bread and butter and raspberry jam and cream, cream piled thick on the jam, and cake. (But they ate so much of the bread and butter and jam and cream that they could not eat the cake.) And they swam every day.... Mary was like a sea-bird: she seemed to swim on the crest of every wave as lightly as a feather, and was only submerged when she chose to thrust her head into the body of some wave swelling higher and higher until its curled top could stay no longer and it pitched forward and fell in a white, spumy pile on the shore. She would climb over the stern of a rowing-boat and then plunge from it into the sea again, and come up laughing with the water streaming from her face and hair, or dive beneath Ninian and pull his feet until he kicked out....
And then the last evening of his visit came. The vicar of Boveyhayne and his wife were to dine at the Manorthat night, and so they were bidden to put on their company manners and their evening clothes. Ninian grumbled lustily when he heard the news, for he had made arrangements with a fisherman to "clean" a skate that evening when the trawlers came home. "I bet him thruppence I could do it as good as he could, and now I'll have to pay up. Beastly swizz, that's what it is!" he said to Henry in the stable where he was busy rubbing down Peggy, although Peggy did not need or wish to be rubbed down. "I think Mother ought to give me the thruppence anyhow!..."
After dinner, Ninian and Henry and Mary had contrived to miss the drawing-room, whither Mrs. Graham led the Vicar and his wife, and they went to the room which had been the nursery and was now a work-room, and lit the fire and sat round it, talking and telling tales and reading until the time came for Mary to go to bed.
"We're going soon, too!" said Ninian. "We've got to get up jolly early to-morrow, blow it! I hate getting up early!"
Henry yawned and stretched out his hands to the fire. "I wish I weren't going to-morrow," he said, half reflectively.
"So do I," Mary exclaimed.
She was sitting on the floor beside him and he turned to look at her, a little startled by the suddenness of her speech.
"I wish you weren't going," she said, sitting up and leaning against him as she was accustomed to lean against Ninian. "It's been great fun this Easter!"
Ninian caught hold of her hair and pulled it. "He isn't a bad chap, old Quinny," he said. "Soft-hearted, a bit!"
"Shut up, Ninian!" Henry shouted, punching him in the ribs.
But Ninian would not shut up. "Blubs like anything if you kill a rabbit or anything. He eats them all the same!"
Mary put her hands over Ninian's mouth. "Leave Quinny alone, Ninian," she said. "He's much nicer than you, and I do think it's horrid of you to go gutting fish just for fun. The fishermen have to do it, else we wouldn't get any breakfast, and of course plaice are very nice for breakfast...."
"Yahhh!" yelled Ninian.
"Well, anyhow," she continued, "Quinny's much nicer than you are. Aren't you, Quinny?"
"No, he isn't," Ninian asserted stoutly. "I'm ten times nicer than he is!"
"No, you're not...."
Henry, embarrassed at first by Mary's admiration, plucked up his spirits and joined in.
"Of course, I'm nicer than you are, Ninian," he said. "Anybody could see that with half an eye in his head!"
"All right, then, I'll fight you for it," Ninian replied, squaring up at him in mock rage.
"I'll box your ears for you, Ninian Graham!" said Mary, "and I won't let Quinny fight you, and Quinny, if you dare to fight him, I shan't like you any more...."
"Then I won't fight him, Mary. She's saved your life, Ninian," he said, turning to his friend.
"Yahhh!" Ninian shouted.
"I'll get up very early to-morrow morning," said Mary, as she prepared to leave them, "and perhaps mother'll let me drive to Whitcombe with you to see you off!"
"No," Ninian objected, "we don't want you blubbing all over the platform!..."
"I shan't blub, Ninian. I never blub!..."
"Yes, you do. You always blub. You blubbed the last time and made me feel an awful ass!" he persisted.
"Well, I shan't blub this time, or if I do, it won't be about you.... Anyhow, I shall get up early and see Quinny off. IlikeQuinny!..."
Ninian pointed at Henry, and burst out laughing. "Oh! Oh, he's blushing! Look at him! Oh! Oh!!"
"Shut up, Ninian, you ass!" said Henry, turning away.
Mary went over to him and took hold of his arm. "Never mind, Quinny," she said, "Idolike you. Good-night!"
Then she went out and left him alone with Ninian.
"I suppose," said Ninian when she had gone, "we ought to go down and say something to the Vicar!"
That night, Henry went to bed in the knowledge that he loved Mary Graham. "I'll marry her," he said, as he stripped his clothes off. "That's what I'll do. I'll jolly well marry her!"
In the excitement of his love, he forgot to wash his hands and face and clean his teeth, and he climbed into bed and lay there thinking about Mary. "I suppose," he said, "I ought to tell her about it. That ass, Ninian'll be sure to laugh if I tell him!" He sat up suddenly in bed. "Lord," he exclaimed, "I forgot to wash!" He got out of bed and washed himself. "Beastly fag, cleaning your teeth," he murmured, and then went back to bed.
"I know," he said, as he blew out the candle and hauled the clothes well about his neck. "I'll make Ninian look after the luggage and stuff, and then I'll tell her. On the platform! I hope she won't be cross about it!" And then he fell asleep.
In the morning, they went off, Mary with them, and they stood up in the carriage and waved their hands to Mrs. Graham until the dip in the road hid her from their view. Ninian, who had been so disdainful of "blubbers" the night before, sat down in a corner of the carriage and looked miserable, but neither Mary nor Henry said anything to him. They drove slowly down the Lane becauseit was difficult to do otherwise, but when they had come into the road that leads to Franscombe, Widger whipped up the horse, and the carriage moved quickly through the village, past the schools, until they came to the long hill out of the village ... and there Jim Rattenbury was waiting for them.
"I brought 'ee a li'l bit o' fish, Mas'er Ninyan," he said, putting a basket into the carriage.
"I say, Jim!" Ninian exclaimed, forgetting his misery for a while. They thanked him for the gift and enquired about the baby Rattenbury and wished him good-luck in the mackerel fishing, and were about to go on when Ninian recollected his failure to keep his appointment with Tom Yeo on the previous evening. "Oh, Jim," he said, "I bet Tom Yeo thruppence I'd 'clean' a skate as good as he can, but I couldn't come ... so here's the thruppence. You might give it to Tom for me, will you!"
Jim Rattenbury waved the money away. "Ah, that be all right, Mas'er Ninyan," he exclaimed. "You can try your 'and at it nex' time you comes 'ome. I'll tell Tom. 'Er'll be glad to 'ave longer to get ready for it, 'er will!" He laughed at his own joke, and they laughed, too. "Good luck to 'ee, Mas'er Ninyan," Jim went on, "an' to 'ee too, sir!" he added, turning to Henry.
"And me, Jim,andme!" Mary said impetuously.
"Why, of course, Miss Mary, an' to 'ee, too!"
They drove on up the hill, from which they could look down on the village, tucked snugly in the hollow of the rising lands, and along the top of the ridge, gaining glimpses of the blue Channel, dotted far out with the sails of trawlers, and down the hair-pin road where the pine trees stand like black sentinels, through Whitcombe to the station....
"I wish we weren't going!..." one or other of them said as they drove on.
"I'd love to have another swim," said Ninian.
"Or go out in a boat," said Henry.
The carriage entered the station-yard and they got out and walked towards the platform. There were very few people travelling by that early train, and Henry was glad because, if he could dispose of Ninian for a few moments, he thought he could settle his affairs with Mary.
"Ninian," he said, trying to speak very casually, "you and Widger can look after the luggage and tickets, can't you!"
Ninian, who had already induced one of the porters to describe a thrilling fox-hunt in which the fox took to the river and was killed, after a hard struggle, in the water, nodded his head and said "Righto!"
"Let's walk up and down," Henry said to Mary, and they walked towards the end of the platform. "It's been awf'lly nice here!" he added.
"Yes, hasn't it?" she replied. "You'll come again, won't you?"
"Ra-ther!" he exclaimed.
"How long will it be before you can come again?"
"I don't know. You see, my father'll expect me to go home in the summer...."
"Oh!"
"But I might come for part of the hols. I'd like to!"
"Yes," she said, sliding one of her feet in front of her and regarding the tip of her shoe intently.
They did not speak for a few moments until he remembered that time was fleeting. "It's an awf'lly nice day," he said, and licked his lips.
"Yes, isn't it?..."
"Awf'lly nice," he continued and broke off lamely.
They could see the train coming into Coly station, and a sense of despair seized Henry when he thought that it would soon come into Whitcombe station and then go back again to the junction, carrying Ninian and him with it. He could feel his nervousness mounting up his legs until it began to gallop through his body.... He felt frightfully dry, and when he tried to speak, he could not do anythingbut cough. The train had started now from Coly station. He could see the white smoke rising from the engine's funnel almost in a straight line, so little wind was there in the valley.... "Oh, Lord!" he said to himself....
"What age are you?" he suddenly demanded of her.
"Fourteen," she replied.
"I'm sixteen ... nearly!" he continued.
"Ninian's over sixteen," Mary said, and added, "I wish I were sixteen!"
"Why!"
"Oh, I don't know. I just wish I were. When I'm sixteen, you'll be eighteen ... nearly!"
"So I shall. I say, Mary!..."
"Yes, Quinny?"
He could hear the rattle of the train on the railway lines, and, turning towards the other end of the platform, he saw that Ninian, having settled about the luggage and finished listening to the story of the fox hunt, was approaching them. "Come on," he said, catching hold of Mary's arm and drawing her to the other end of the platform.
"But that's the wrong end," she protested.
"I say, Mary!..."
"Yes, Quinny?"
"Oh, I say, Mary!..."
"Yes?..."
"I'd like to marry you awf'lly, if you don't mind!"
It was out ... oh, Lord, it was out!...
"Oh, I should love it, Quinny," said Mary, looking up at him and smiling.
"Would you really!"
"Yes. Of course, I would. Let's tell Ninian and Widger!..."
Her suggestion alarmed him. Ninian would be sure to chaff him about it.... "Oh, not yet!..." he began, but he was too late. Ninian had come up to them, grumbling, "I thought you two'd started to leg it to Rumpell's...."
Mary seized his arm and pressed it tightly. "Quinny and me are going to get married," she said.
"Silly asses," said Ninian. "Come on, here's the train in!"
They climbed into their carriage a few seconds before the train steamed out of the station again, and jammed themselves in the window to look out. Ninian was full of instructions to Widger about his terrier and his ferrets and a blind mouse that was supposed to recognise him with miraculous ease. There was also some point about the fox-hunt which required explanation....
"Good-bye, Mary!" Henry said, taking hold of her hand and pressing it. "I suppose," he whispered, "I ought to give you a ring or something. Chaps always do that!..."
Mary shook her head. "I don't think mother would like that," she replied.
"Well, anyhow, we're engaged, aren't we?"
"Oh, of course, Quinny!"
"It's most awf'lly nice of you to have me, Mary!"
"But I like you!"
"Do you really?"
The guard blew his whistle and waved his flag and the train began to move out of the station. He stood at the window looking back at Mary standing on the platform, waving her hands to him, until he could see her no longer.
"What are you looking at?" Ninian asked, taking down the basket of fish which Jim Rattenbury had given him and preparing to open it.
"I'm looking at Mary," he answered.
"Sloppy ass!" said Ninian, and then he added excitedly, "Oh, I say, plaice and dabs and a lobster ... a whopping big lobster! It's berried, too!" He pointed to the redseeds in the lobster's body. "My Heavenly Father, Quinny!" he exclaimed, "what a tuck-in we'll have to-night!"
"Eh?" Henry replied vaguely.
Gilbert summoned Roger and Henry and Ninian to a solemn council. "Look here," he said, "I've made up my mind about myself!"
"Oh!" they exclaimed.
"Yes. I'm going to be a dramatist and write plays!"
"Why?" Ninian asked.
"I dunno! I went to see a play in the hols, and I thought I'd like to write one, too. It seems easy enough. You just make up a lot of talk, and then you get some actors to say it...."
"I see," said Ninian.
"And when I was a kid," Gilbert continued, "I used to make up plays for parties. Jolly good, they were ... at least I thought so!"
Gilbert, having settled what his own career was to be, was eager that his friends should settle what their careers were to be. "Roger, of course," he said, "has made up his mind to be a barrister, so that's him, but what about you, Ninian, and what about Quinny?"
Ninian said that he did not know what he should do. Mrs. Graham was anxious that he should become a member of parliament and lead the life of a country gentleman who takes an intelligent interest in his estate and his country. His Uncle George, the Dean of Exebury, oscillated between two opinions: one that Ninian should become a parson....
Gilbert suddenly proposed a resolution, sternly forbidding their young friend, Ninian Graham, to become a parson on any conditions whatever. The resolution was seconded by Henry Quinn, and passed unanimously.
... and the other that he should enter the Diplomatic Service. The Dean had talked largely to Ninian on the subject of his career. On the whole he had inclined towards the Diplomatic Service. He had stood in front of the fire, his hands thrust through the belt of his apron and talked magnificently of the glories of diplomacy. "How splendid it would be, Ninian," he said in that rich, flowing voice which caused ladies to admire his sermons so much, "if you were to become an ambassador!" Ninian, feeling that he ought to say something, had murmured that he supposed it would be rather jolly. "An ambassador!" the Dean continued. "His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador to the Imperial Court of ... of Vienna!" He liked the sound of the title so much that he repeated it: "His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador!..."
But Ninian had interrupted him. "I don't think I'd like that job very much, Uncle George!" he said. "You're supposed to have an awful lot of tact if you're an ambassador, and I'm rather an ass at tact!"
"Well, then, the Church!" the Dean suggested. "After all, the Church is still the profession of a gentleman!..."
But Ninian had as little desire to be a priest as he had to be an ambassador. He wished to be an engineer!
"A what?" the Dean had exclaimed in horror.
"An engineer, uncle!"
The Dean could not rid himself of the notion that Ninian was a small boy, and so he imagined that when Ninian said an "engineer" he meant a man who drives a railway engine.... The Dean was not insensible to the value of engineers to the community ... in fact, whenever he travelled by train, he invariably handed any newspapers he might have with him to the engine-driver at the end of the journey, "because," he said, "I wish to show my appreciation of the fact that without his care and skill I might—er—have been—well involved in a collision or something of the sort!" But, while the occupation of an engine-driver was a very admirable one ... very admirable one,indeed ... for a member of the working-class, it could hardly be described as a suitable occupation for a gentleman. "I think," he said, "that engine-drivers get thirty-eight shillings per week, or some such amount!" He adjusted his glasses and beamed pleasantly at Ninian. "My dear boy," he said, "thirty-eight shillings per week is hardly ... hardly an adequate income for a Graham!"
Ninian did not like to ask his uncle George to "chuck it," nor did he care to tell him that he was making a frightful ass of himself, and so he did not answer, and the beaming old gentleman felt that he had impressed the lad.... It was Mrs. Graham who reminded him of the larger functions of an engineer.
"I think," she said, "that Ninian wishes to build bridges and railways and ... and things like that!"
"Oh!" said the Dean, and his countenance altered swiftly. "Oh, yes, yes, yes! I was forgetting about bridges. Dear me, yes! I remember meeting Sir John Aird once. Remarkable man! Very remarkable man! He built the Assouan Dam, of course. Well, that would be a very nice occupation, Ninian. Rather different, of course, from the Diplomatic Service ... or the Church ... but still, very nice,verynice! And profitable, I'm told!..."
"Anyhow," said Ninian, when he had related the story of his uncle's views, "I'm going to be an engineer, no matter what Uncle George says, and I'm not going to be a parson and I'm not going to be a blooming ambassador, and I'm not going into parliament to make an ass of myself!..."
Ninian's chief horror was of "making an ass" of himself. It seemed that there was less likelihood of him doing this at engineering than at anything else.
"And a very good engineer you'll be," Gilbert saidencouragingly. "You're always messing about with the insides of things, and I can't see what good that habit would be to an ambassador, or a parson, and anyhow you can't speak French for toffee, and that's the principal thing an ambassador has to do! Well, Quinny," he continued, turning to Henry, "what about you?"
"I used to think I'd like to be a clergyman," Henry answered.
"Oh, did you?..."
"And then," he went on rapidly, "I thought I'd like to be an actor!..."
They rose at him simultaneously. "A what?" they shouted.
"An actor," he repeated.
They gaped at him for a few moments without speaking. Then Ninian expressed their views. "You're balmy!" he said.
"Clean off your chump!" Gilbert added.
"It seems an odd choice," Roger said, quietly.
Henry blushed. "Of course," he hurried to say, "I've given up the idea. It was just a notion that came into my head!"
He went on to say that as Gilbert had resolved to be a writer, he did not see any reason why he should not become one too. "I've read an awful lot of books," he said, "so I daresay I could write one. I used to write things when I was a youngster, just like you, Gilbert!"
They gazed dubiously at Henry. A fellow who could make such choices of profession ... a parson or an actor ... was a rum bird, in their opinion, and they told him so. Gilbert said that the conjunction ofactorwithparsonshowed that all Henry cared about was the chance to show off. "All you want is to get yourself up," he said. "If you were a parson, you could get yourself up in a surplice!..."
"He'd turn High Churchman," Roger interrupted, "and trot about in chasubles and copes!..."
"And if he were an actor, he could get himself up in terrific style!..." Gilbert continued.
Henry got up and walked away from them. "It isn't fair," he said, as he went, "to chip me like that. I'm not going to be a parson and I'm not going to be an actor!..."
Gilbert followed him and brought him back to the council.
"All right, Quinny," he said, "we won't chip you any more. Only, don't talk like a soppy ass again, will you? Sit down and listen to me!..."
He forced Henry to sit beside him and then he proceeded to plan their lives for them.
"We'll all go to Cambridge," he said. "That's settled. I arranged that before, didn't I? Well, we all go to the same college, and we all promise to swot hard. We've got to Do Well, d'ye hear?" He said "do well" as if each word had a capital letter. "We've got to be the Pride of our College, d'ye hear, and work so that the dons will shed tears of joy when they hear our names mentioned. I draw the particular attention of Ninian Graham to what I am saying, and I warn him that if he goes on whittling a stick while I'm talking, I shall clout his fat head for him. I also trust that our young friend, Quinny, will make up his mind to work hard. He's Irish, of course, and we must make allowances for him!..."
There was almost a row when Gilbert said that, and it was not completely averted until Gilbert had admitted that the English had their faults.
"I need not say anything on the subject of hard work to our young friend, Roger," Gilbert continued, when the peace was restored, "beyond warning him of the danger of getting brain-fever. That's all I have to say about that. We're friends, we four, and we've got to do each other credit. Now, when we come down from Cambridge, my proposal is that we all live together in London. We can take a house and get some old girl to look after us. I knowone who'll do. She lives in Cornwall, and she can cook ... like anything. Is that agreed?"
"Carried unanimous," said Ninian.
"Good egg!" Gilbert said.
But the plan was not carried out as Gilbert had made it. He and Ninian and Roger Carey went to Cambridge, but Henry did not go with them. It was Mr. Quinn who upset the plan. He suddenly gave notice to Rumpell's that Henry would not return to the school.
You're getting to be too English in your ways, Henry,he wrote to his son,and I want you at home for a while. There's a young fellow called Marsh who can tutor you until you go to the University. I met him in Dublin a while since, and I like him. He's a bit cranky, but he's clever and he'll teach you a lot about Ireland. He's up to his neck in Irish things, and speaks Gaelic and wears an Irish kilt. At least he used to wear one, but he's left it off now, partly because he gets cold in his knees and partly because he's not sure now that the ancient Irish ever wore kilts. I think you'll like him!...
"My God," said Gilbert when Henry read this letter to him, "fancy being tutored by a chap who wears petticoats!"
"You ought to talk pretty plainly to your guv'nor, Quinny!" Ninian said. "I don't think you ought to let him do that sort of thing. Here we've settled that we're all going to Cambridge together, and your guv'nor simply lumps in and upsets everything!"
Henry declared that he would talk to his father and compel him to be sensible, but his attempt at compulsion was ineffective. Mr. Quinn had made up his mind that Henry was to spend several months at home, under the tutelage of John Marsh, and then proceed to Trinity College, Dublin.
"Trinity College, Dublin!" Henry exclaimed. "But I want to go to Cambridge!..."
"Well, you can't go then. You'll go to T.C.D. or you'll go nowhere. I'm a T.C.D. man, an' your gran'da was a T.C.D. man, an' so was his da before him, an' a damned good college it is, too!" Mr. Quinn had always called his father his "da" when Mrs. Quinn was alive because she disliked the word and tried to insist on "papa"; and now he used the word as a matter of habit. "What do you want to go to an English college for?" he demanded. "You might as well want to go to that Presbyterian hole in Belfast!"
"I want to go to Cambridge," Henry replied a little angrily and therefore a little precisely, "because all my friends are going there. They're going up next year, and I want to go with them. They're my best friends!..."
"Make friends in Ireland, then!" Mr. Quinn interrupted. "You don't make friends with Englishmen ... you make money out of them. That's all they're fit for!"
He began to laugh when he said that, but Henry still scowled. "I hate to hear you talking like that, father!" he said. "I know you don't mean it...."
"Don't I, begod?..."
"No, you don't, but even in fun, I hate to hear you saying it. I like English people. I'm very fond of Gilbert Farlow!..."
"A nice fellow!" Mr. Quinn murmured, remembering how he had liked Gilbert when he had visited Rumpell's once to see Henry.
"And Ninian Graham and Roger Carey, I like them, too, and so do you. You liked them, didn't you?"
"Very nice fellows, both of them, very nice ... for all they're English!"
Henry wanted to go on ... to talk of Mrs. Graham and of Mary ... but shyness held his tongue for him.
"It's a habit I've got into," Mr. Quinn said, talking of his denunciation of the English, "but don't mind me, Henry. Sure, I'm like all the Ulstermen: my tongue'smore bitter nor my behaviour. All the same, my son, you're goin' to T.C.D., an' that's an end of it. T.C.D.'ll make a man of you, but Oxford 'ud only make a snivellin' High Church curate of you ... crawlin' on your belly to an imitation altar an' lettin' on to be a Catholic!..."
"But I don't want to go to Oxford, father. I want to go to Cambridge!"
"It's all the same, Henry. Oxford'll make a snivellin' parson out of you, an' Cambridge'll turn you into a snivellin' atheist. I know them places well, Henry. I'm acquainted with people from both of them. All the Belfast mill-owners send their sons there, so's they can be made into imitation Englishmen. An' I tell you there's no differs between Cambridge an' Oxford. You crawl on your belly to the reredos at Oxford, an' you crawl on your belly to Darwin an' John Stuart Mill at Cambridge. They can't do without a priest of some sort at them places, an' I'm a Protestant, Henry, an' I want no priest at all. Now, at Trinity you'll crawl on your belly to no one but your God, an' you'll do damn little of that if you're any sort of man at all!"
Henry had reminded his father of the history and tradition of T.C.D., an ungracious institution which had taught men to despise Ireland.
"Well, you needn't pay any heed to the Provost, need you," Mr. Quinn retorted. "Is a man to run away from his country because a fool of a schoolmaster hasn't the guts to be proud of it? Talk sense, son! We want education in Ireland, don't we, far more nor any other people want it, an' how are we goin' to get it if all the young lads go off to Englan' an' let the schoolmasters starve in Ireland!"
Henry still maintained his position. "But, father," he said, "you yourself have often told me that Dr. Daniell is an imitation Englishman...." Dr. Daniell was the Provost of Trinity.
"He is, and so is his whole family. I know them well ... lick-spittles, the lot of them, an' the lad that's comin'after him, oul' Beattie, is no better ... a half-baked snob ... I'll tell you a story about him in a minute ... but all the same, it's not them that matter ... it's the place and the tradition an' the feel of it all ... do you make me out?"
"Yes, father, I know what you mean!"
"You'd be like a foreigner at Cambridge ... like one of them fellows that come from India or Germany or places like that ... but at Trinity you'd be at home, in your own country, Henry, where people with brains are badly needed!"
He went on like that until he wore down Henry's desire to go to Cambridge. "I'd rather you didn't go to a university at all," he said, "than not have you go to T.C.D."
"Very well, father!" said Henry, consenting.
"That's right, my son," the old man said, patting his son on the back. "An' now I'll tell you that yarn about Beattie. It'll make you split your sides!"
It appeared that Mr. Quinn had dined at a house in Dublin where Dr. Beattie was also a guest, and the don was telling tales as was his custom, of his acquaintances in high places. The poor old clergyman had a weakness for the company of kings and queens, and liked to tell people of what he had said to an emperor or of what a prince had said to him.
"I was talking to my friend, the Queen of Spain, a short time ago," Dr. Beattie had said, "and I made a joke which pleased her majesty. It was about my friend, the Kaiser, who was present at the time. The Kaiser heard us laughing, her majesty and me, and he came over to ask us why we were laughing so heartily, the Queen and me. The Queen was very embarrassed because, of course, I had been making fun of the Kaiser, but I did not lose my self-possession. I turned to the Emperor and said, 'Sir, the Queen and I have known each other for a few moments only, but already we have a secret between us!'" TheKaiser was very tickled by my retort ... very tickled ... and the Queen told me afterwards that it was very adroit of me to get out of it like that. She said it was my Irish wit!...
It was at this point that Mr. Quinn had interrupted. "An' what did your friend God say?" he had demanded innocently.
Mr. Quinn sat back in his chair, when he had finished telling the story, and roared loudly with laughter. "You ought to have seen the oul' snob turnin' red, white an' blue with rage," he shouted at Henry. "Such a take-down! My God, what a take-down! There he was, the oul' wind-bag, bletherin' about his friend, the Queen of Spain, an' his friend, the Emperor of Germany, an' there was me, just waitin' for him, just waitin', Henry, an' the minute he shut his gob, I jumped in, an' says I to him, 'An' what did your friend God say?' By the Holy O, that was a good one! I never enjoyed myself so much as I did that night, an' everybody else that was there was nearin' burstin' with tryin' not to laugh. Do you mind Lady Galduff?"
"Yes, father!"
"You mind her rightly, don't you? Well, when you go up to Dublin, you're to call on her, do you hear? Never mind about her manners. Ask her to tell you about me an' Dr. Beattie ... the way I asked him about his friend God. Oh, Holy O!..."
He could proceed no further, for his sides were shaking with laughter and the tears were streaming down his cheeks and his cheeks were the colour of beetroot.
"You'll hurt yourself, father," said Henry, "if you laugh like that!"
"Of course," said Mr. Quinn, after a while, "the man's a great scholar, an' I mebbe did wrong to take him downlike that. But I couldn't help it, Henry. You see, he's always makin' little of Irish things, an' I have no use for a man like that. Not but what some people think too much of Ireland an' too little of other places. Many's a time I get ragin' mad when I hear some of the Nationalists bleatin' about Ireland as if a bit of bog in the Atlantic were worth the rest of the world put together. Do you know what, I'm goin' to say somethin' that'll surprise you. I don't believe Irishmen'll think properly about Ireland 'til they stop thinkin' about it altogether. We're too self-conscious. We haven't enough pride an' we've too much conceit. That's the truth. You daren't say a word of criticism about Ireland for fear you'd have the people jumpin' down your throat—an' that's a sign of weakness, Henry. Do you know why the English are as strong as they are? It's because they'll let you criticise them as much as you like, an' never lose their temper with you. The only time I ever knew them to be flabby and spineless was when the Boer War was on ... an' they'd scream in your face if you didn't say they were actin' like angels. They were only like thatthen, but we're like itallthe time. The fools don't know that the best patriot is the man that has the courage to own up when his country's in the wrong!..."
Mr. Quinn suddenly sat up stiffly in his seat and gaped at his son for a few moments.
"Begod, Henry," he said, "I'm preachin' to you!"
"Yes, father, you are," Henry replied. "But I don't mind. It's rather interesting!"
But the force had gone out of Mr. Quinn. The thought that he had been preaching a sermon, delivering a speech, filled him with self-reproach.
"I never meant to start off like that," he said. "I only meant to tell you what was in my mind. You see, Henry, I love Ireland an' I want to see her as fine as ever she was ... but she'll never be fine again 'til she gets backher pride an' her self-respect. The English people have stolen that from us ... yes, they have, Henry! I knew Arthur Balfour when he was a young man ... I liked him too ... but I'll never forget that it was him that turned us into a nation of cadgers. I'm not much of a thinker, Henry, but the bit of brain I have'll be used for Ireland, whatever happens. You've got more brains than I have, an' I'd like you to use them for Ireland, too."
"This is the way I look at things," Mr. Quinn said later on. "The British people are the best people in the world, an' the Irish people are the best people in the British Empire, an' the Ulster people are the best people in Ireland!" He glanced about him for a few moments as if he were cogitating, and then he gave a chuckle and winked at his son. "An' begod," he said, "I sometimes think I'm the best man in Ulster!" He burst out laughing when he had finished. "Ah," he said, half to himself, as he stroked his fine beard, "I'm the quare oul' cod, so I am!"
"All the same," he went on, speaking soberly, "I'm not coddin' entirely. The Irish have plenty of brains, but they haven't any discipline, an' brains are no good unless you can control them. We need knowledge and experience, Henry, more nor anything else, an' the more knowledge we bring into the country, the better it'll be for us all. Too much imagination an' not enough knowledge ... that's what's the matter with us. The English have knowledge, but they've small imagination!... I declare to my goodness, the best thing that could happen to the two of us, the English and the Irish, would be for some one to pass a law compellin' every Irishwoman to marry an Englishman, an' every Englishwoman to marry an Irishman. We'd get some stability into Ireland then ... an' mebbe we'd get some intelligence into England."
Henry acquiesced in his father's wishes, but he did so reluctantly. Gilbert's plan for their future had attracted him greatly. He saw himself passing pleasant years at Cambridge in learning and in argument. There was to be scholarship and company and curiosity and enquiry. They were to furnish their minds with knowledge and then they were to seek adventures in the world: a new order of Musketeers: Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan.... He let the names of the Musketeers slide through his mind in order, wondering which of them was his prototype ... but he could not find a resemblance to himself in any of them. He felt that he would shrink from the deeds which they sought.... His mind went back again to thoughts of Cambridge. At all events, in the tourneys of the mind his part would be valiant. He would never shrink from combat with an intellect.... He supposed it would be possible to do at T.C.D. some of what he had proposed to do at Cambridge, but somehow T.C.D. did not interest him. It mattered as little to him as a Welsh University. It had no hold whatever on his mind. He knew that it was on the level of Oxford and Cambridge, but that knowledge did not console him. "It doesn't matter in the way that they do," he said to himself, and then he remembered something that Gilbert Farlow had said. "T.C.D. isn't Irish in the way that Oxford and Cambridge are English. It'sinIreland, but it isn'tofIreland!" Gilbert could always get at the centre of a thing. "Oxford and Cambridge have lots of faults," Gilbert had said, "but they're English faults. T.C.D. has lots of faults, but they're not Irish faults. Do you see what I mean, Quinny? It's ... it's like a garrison in an unfriendly country ... like ... what d'ye call it? ... that thing in Irish history ... the Pale! That's it! It's the Pale still going on being a Pale long after the need for it had ceased. I don't think that kind ofplace is much good to Irishmen. You'd better come to Cambridge!..."
"I can't, Gilbert. My father's set his heart on my going to Trinity, and I must go. I'd give the world to go with you and Ninian and Roger, but I'll have to do what he wants. Anyhow, I can join you in London when you come down, and we can spend our holidays together. I'll get my father to ask you all to Ireland the first vac. after you've gone up, and perhaps Mrs. Graham'll ask us all to Boveyhayne...."
Remembering what he had said to Gilbert about Boveyhayne, he remembered Mary Graham. He had not seen her since he had been to Boveyhayne at Easter, but he had written several times to her, lengthy letters, and had received short, shy replies from her; and sometimes he had tried to induce Ninian to talk about her. But "She isn't a bad little flapper!" was all that Ninian would say of his sister, and there was little comfort to be derived from that speech. Now, standing here in this window-corner, looking over the fields that stretched away to the Antrim mountains, Henry felt that Mary was slipping swiftly out of his life. It might be a very long time before he saw her again. ... How beautiful she had looked that day when she stood on Whitcombe platform and waved her hand to him as the train steamed out of the station! Hemustmarry her. Mrs. Grahammustask him to spend the next summer at Boveyhayne so that he could meet Mary again. Anyhow he would write to her. He would tell her all he was doing. He would describe his life at Trinity to her. He would remind her continually of himself, and perhaps she would not forget him. Girls, of course, were very odd and they changed their minds an awful lot. Ninian might invite some chap from Cambridge to Boveyhayne.... Thatwould be like Ninian, to go and spoil everything without thinking for a moment of what he was doing.... If only Mary and he were a few years older, they could become formally engaged, and then everything would be all right, but Mary was so young ...
Soon after Henry had returned to Ballymartin, John Marsh came to Mr. Quinn's house to prepare him for Trinity. "He'll put you in the way of knowin' more about Ireland nor I can tell you, Henry," Mr. Quinn said to his son on the evening before Marsh arrived, "an' a lot more nor you'll learn at Rumpell's, or, for that matter, at Trinity."
"Then why do you want me to go to Trinity?" Henry asked, still unable to conceal his disappointment at not being sent to Cambridge with his friends.
"I've told you that already," Mr. Quinn replied firmly, closing his lips down tightly. "I want you to have Irish friends as well as English friends, and I've learned this much from livin', that a man seldom makes friends ...friends,mind you ... after he's twenty-five. You only make acquaintances after that age. I'd like well to think there were people in Ireland that had as tight a hold on your friendship, Henry, as Gilbert Farlow and them other lads have.... An' there's another thing," he went on, leaning forward as he spoke and wagging his forefinger at Henry. "If you go to Trinity with a kindly feelin' for Ireland, it'll be something to think there's one man in the place that has a decent thought for his country an' isn't an imitation Englishman. Who knows what good you might do there?" He let his speculations consume him. "You might change the character of the whole college. You ... you might make it Irish. You ... you might be the means of turnin' the Provost into an Irishman an' start him takin' an interest in his country. The oul' lad might turn Fenian an' get transported or hung!..."
When he had ceased to speculate on what might happenif Henry began an Irish crusade in Trinity, he spoke again of Marsh.
"You'll like him," he said. "I know you will. He's a bit off his head, of course, but that's neither here nor there. The man's a scholar an' I think he writes bits of poetry. I've never seen any of his pieces, but somebody told me he wrote things. I'd like well to have a poet in the house!"
"Is he a Catholic?" Henry asked.
His father nodded his head. "An' very religious, too, I believe," he said. "Still, that's neither here nor there. I met him up in Dublin. Ernest Harper told me about him!"
Ernest Harper was the painter-poet who had influenced so many young men in Ireland, and Mr. Quinn had come into the circle of his friends through the Irish co-operative movement. He had made a special visit to Dublin to consult Harper about the education of his son, telling him of his desire that Henry should have a strong national sense ... "but none of your damned theosophy, mind!..." and Harper had recommended John Marsh to him. Marsh had lately taken his B.A. degree and he was anxious to earn money in circumstances that would enable him to proceed to his M.A.
"That lad'll do rightly," said Mr. Quinn, and he arranged to meet Marsh in the queer, untidy room in Merrion Square where Harper edited his weekly paper. "He has the walls of the place covered with pictures of big women with breasts like balloons," Mr. Quinn said afterwards when he tried to describe Ernest Harper's office, "an' he talks to you about fairies 'til you'd near believe a leprechaun 'ud hop out of the coalscuttle if you lifted the lid!"
Soon afterwards, they met, and Mr. Quinn explained his purpose to Marsh. "I'm not a Nationalist, thank God, nor a Catholic, thank God again, but I'm Irish an' I want my son to know about Ireland an' to feel as Irish as I do myself!"
Marsh talked about Nationalism and Freedom and English Misrule, but Mr. Quinn waved his hands before his face and made a wry expression at him. "All your talk about the freedom of Ireland is twaddle, John Marsh ... if you don't mind, I'll begin callin' you John Marsh this minute ... an' I may as well tell you I don't believe in the tyranny of England. The English aren't cruel—they're stupid. That's what they are—Thick! As thick as they can be, an' that's as thick as God thinks it's decent to let any man be! But they're not cruel. They do cruel things sometimes because they don't know any better, an' they think they're doin' the right things when they're only doin' the stupid thing. That's where we come in! Our job is to teach the English how to do the right thing." They smiled at him. "An' I'm not coddin,'" he went on. "I mean every word I say. It's not Home Rule for Ireland that's needed—it's Irish Rule for England; an' I'll maintain that 'til my dyin' day.... But that's neither here nor there. I think you're a fool, John Marsh, to go about dreamin' of an Irish Republic ... you don't mind me callin' you a fool, do you? ... but you love Ireland, and I'd forgive a man a great deal for that, so if you'll come an' be tutor to my son, I'll be obliged to you!"
And John Marsh, smiling at Mr. Quinn, had consented.
"That's right," Mr. Quinn said, gripping the young man's hand and wringing it heartily. "I like him," he added, turning to Ernest Harper, "an' he'll be good for Henry, an' I daresay I'll be good for him. You've an awful lot of slummage in your skull," he continued, addressing Marsh again, "but begod I'll clear that out!"
"Slummage?" Marsh asked questioningly.
"Aye. Do you not know what slummage is?"
He described it as a heap of steamy, flabby grain that is rejected by distillers after the spirit has been extracted from it. "An' it's only fit to feed pigs with," he said, ending his description. "An' the kind of stuff you're lettin' out ofyou now is only fit for pub-patriots. How soon can you come to Ballymartin. The sooner the better!"
He tried to drop the discussion of politics, but was so fond of it himself that before he had settled the date of Marsh's appearance at Ballymartin, he was in the middle of another discussion. His head was full of theories about Ireland and about the world, and he loved to let his theories out of his head for an airing. He very earnestly desired to keep Ireland different from England. "Ireland's the 'country' of this kingdom, an' England's the 'town,'" he sometimes said, or when his mood was bitter, he would say that he wished to preserve Ireland as a place in which gentlemen could live in comfort, leaving England to be the natural home of manufacturers and mill-owners.
"But it's no good talkin' of separatin' the two countries," he said to Marsh, "an' it's no good talkin' of drivin' the English out of Ireland because you can't tell these times who is English an' who is Irish. We've mingled our blood too closely for any one to be able to tell who's what. If you started clearin' out the English, you'd mebbe clear me out, for my family was planted here by William of Orange ... an' the damnedest set of scoundrels they were, too, by all accounts!... an' mebbe, Marsh, you yourself 'ud be cleared out!... Aye, an' you, too, Ernest Harper, for all you're waggin' your oul' red beard at me. You're Scotch, man, Scotch, to the backbone!..."
Harper rose at him, wagging his red beard, and filling the air with terrible prophecies!...
"Ah, quit, man!" said Mr. Quinn, and he turned and winked at Marsh. "Do you know what religion he is?" he said, pointing his finger at Harper. "He's a Nonconformin' Theosophist!" And he roared at his own joke.
"You can no more separate the destinies of England an' Ireland in the world," he went on, "nor you can separate the waters of the Liffey an' the Mersey in the Irish Sea. Bedam, if you can!"
Mr. Quinn liked to throw out these aphorisms, and hespent a great deal of time in inventing them. Once he flung a company of Dublin gossips into a rage because he declared that Dublin was called "the whispering gallery" and "the city of dreadful whispers" because it was populated by the descendants of informers and spies. That, he declared, was why Dublin people were so fond of tittle-tattle and tale-bearing and scandal-mongering. "The English hanged or transported every decent-minded man in the town, an' left only the spies an' informers, an' the whole of you are descended from that breed. That's why you can't keep anything to yourselves, but have to run abut the town tellin' everybody all the secrets you know!" And he charged them with constantly giving each other away. He repeated this generalisation about the Dublin people to John Marsh. "An' I tell you what'll happen to you, young fellow, one of these days. You'll be hanged or shot or transported or somethin', an' half the people of this place'll be runnin' like lightnin' to swear an information against you, as sure as Fate. If ever you think of startin' a rebellion, John Marsh, go up to Belfast an' start it. People'll be loyal to you there, but in this place they'd sell you for a pint of Guinness!"
He was half serious in his warning to Marsh, but ... "I should be glad to die for Ireland," Marsh replied, and it was said so simply that there was no priggishness in it. "I can think of no finer fate for an Irishman."
Mr. Quinn made a gesture of impatience. "It 'ud be a damn sight better to live for Ireland," he exclaimed angrily.