Christian was in the kennels, in their innermost depths. She was, in
fact, seated on the bench of "the ladies" lodging-house, on the dry
and rustling cushion of bracken on which Major Talbot-Lowry bedded his
pack.
Yearning to her, sitting all over her, covering her with their
ponderous affection, were the hounds. Two large ladies had each a head
on each of her shoulders; two more had laid their chins on her knees,
and were gazing raptly into her face. The less favoured stood, and
squeezed, and pushed, and panted, with glowing eyes and waving sterns,
in as close a circle round her as it was possible to form.
"Dearest things!" apostrophised Christian, "I feel like Nero--I wish
you had only one lovely head, so that I might kiss you all at once!"
"Rot!" said Larry, who was leaning against the wall, facing her, and
saying: "Down, you brute!" at intervals, to hounds, who, having failed
to force their way to Christian, were directing their attention to
him, to the detriment of his grey flannel trousers. "And look at your
dress from their filthy paws!"
"Good Gawd, Mr. Larry Sir! Don't say paws! 'Ounds 'ave _feet_"
responded Christian, whose imitation of Cottingham was no less
accurate now than it had been some eight years earlier; "and I don't
care a pin for this old skirt anyway--"
"I'm as fond of hounds as anyone," said Larry, reprovingly, "but I
must say I should draw the line at their licking my face!"
"They don't!" said Christian, indignantly; "that's the beauty of them,
They never lick--except perhaps my darling Nancy, because I nursed her
when she had pneumonia."
"If I were you, Cottingham, I wouldn't let Miss Christian into the
kennels," said Larry, with severity, "she makes lap-dogs of the
hounds!"
Cottingham had joined the party, and was leaning on the half-door of
the kennel, watching his hounds with the never-failing interest of a
good kennel-huntsman.
"I couldn't be too 'ard on Miss Christeen, sir," replied Cottingham;
"her's the best walk I have. That there Nancy was a sickly little
thing enough when I sent 'er to Miss Christeen, and look at 'er now! A
slapping fine bitch!"
Christian turned a slow and expressionless eye upon her accuser,
indicating triumph.
"It's like this with that Nancy," continued Cottingham, with whom the
preaching habit, fostered by years of laying down the law on
subservient fields, was inveterate. "Her got that fond of Miss
Christeen, her follered 'er about, the way the ole lamb followed Mary,
as they say. And that artful she got! Wouldn't try a yard! An' she 'ad
the 'ole o' the young entry like 'erself. Any sort of a check, and
back they all comes an' looks at me, wi' their 'eads a one side, and
their sterns agoin' like this," he wagged a stubby fore-finger to and
fro in so precisely the right rhythm, that, stubby as it was, no magic
wand could evolve more instantly the scene to be presented; "an'
that's 'ow it'd be, th' old 'ounds workin' 'ard, and the young uns
lookin' like they 'as nothin' to do only admire of me!"
"Quite right, too!" truckled Christian.
"Ah, Miss Christeen, I'm too used to soft soap, I am!"
"Well, you know, Cottingham, it was _I_ cured Nancy when she took
to following _me_ about." She turned to Larry. "Luckily, I broke
my wrist, and by the time I was able to ride again she had given me up
and taken to hunting."
"That's what you says, Miss," said Cottingham; "but I reckon what her
wanted was what her got from _me_--a good 'idin'!"
Having made his point, Cottingham, a true artist, departed at the
little toddling run that in kennels indicates devotion to duty,
combined with a slippery floor.
"I had forgotten about your breaking your wrist--I remember about my
own, right enough!" said Larry. "What rotten luck!"
"Oh, it's dead sound now," said Christian. "Look!" She stood up, and
held out both her slender hands to him across the intervening hounds'
backs. "I bet you don't know which is which!"
Larry took a hand in each of his, and flexed the wrists. "The left,
wasn't it?" he said, without releasing them. "Not that I see any
difference, only I remember now that I heard you had smashed the same
one that I did."
"It did hurt--horribly! I expect you know. It hurts still a little,
sometimes." She looked at him for sympathy. She was nearly eighteen
now, and had caught him up in height, so that her brown eyes looked
straight into his blue ones.
"Poor little paw!" said Larry patronizingly; he was going to be
twenty-one in a week, and felt immeasurably older than Christian. "Oh,
by the way, I forgot! I mustn't say paw. Must I call it 'foot'? I'll
make it well, anyhow!" he ended, and, in what he felt to be the manner
of a kind uncle, he kissed the injured wrist.
"_Quite_ well now, thank you!" said Christian, mockingly,
withdrawing her hands. "If I had only thought of it, I could have got
Nancy to lick it! It might have done just as well!" Her colour had
risen a little. "Let's come out; it's rather stuffy in here."
At a little distance from the kennel precincts were waiting two small,
smooth, white dogs, daughters of the adored companions of Christian's
childhood, themselves scarcely less adored than were their parents.
Seated, as was their practice, in a well-chosen position, that
combined seclusion with a commanding view of the detested hounds, they
had not ceased (as was also their practice) from loud and desolate
barking, an exercise that in the case of Dooley, the younger and more
highly-strung of the couple, was accustomed to develop into a
sustained contralto wail. As Christian and Larry left the kennel yard,
this moment had been reached. Dooley's nose was in the air, her mouth
was as round as the neck of a bottle, her white throat looked as long
as a swan's throat, and the bark was softening into sobs. Christian
flung herself down, and gathered her and her sister, the second Rinka,
into her arms.
"Let's sit down here," she said, sending her hat spinning down the
grassy slope; "it's too lovely to go in, and I want a cigarette."
"Haven't got one," said Larry. "Sorry. I gave them up in Lent, and now
I'm doing as well without 'em."
"Nerve gone already," said Christian. "That's what comes of missing a
season!" She laughed up at him.
"Don't know," said Larry, dropping down beside her on the dry, sun-hot
grass; "quite likely; but it wasn't that. The fact was"--he
hesitated--"I met a very decent Padre at Mürren. We used to talk a lot
about--oh, no end of things! When he found I was Irish he was awfully
pleased. He congratulated me on belonging to the Old Faith--he's Irish
himself, but he's never lived over here. He said it was such a
wonderful link with the people and the past--such a romantic religion!
And so it is, you know. It hadn't struck me, somehow, till Father
Nugent talked of it. I'm sorry for you, Christian! Don't you feel
being a Protestant is a bit--well--stodgy--and respectable--no sort of
poetry?"
"I like stodge," said Christian, serenely.
Larry paid this frivolity no attention. He had only recently
discovered that he possessed a soul, and he was as much pleased with
it as he had been with his first watch, and he found much the same
enjoyment in producing and examining it, that had been afforded to him
by the watch.
"It was Father Nugent's suggestion to give up smoking," he said,
unable to eliminate from his voice a touch of pride, "I knocked off
whiskies and sodas, too--but that was off my own bat."
"'Smite them by the merit of the Lenten Fast!'" murmured Christian.
Unlike Larry, she evaded personalities and especially those that
involved a discussion of religion. "Larry do you remember the awful
rags we used to have over that hymn! What ages it is since you were at
home! Not since I've had my hair up!"
"By Jove, I hardly knew you when I saw you first!" responded Larry,
his sails filling on a fresh tack with characteristic speed. "It's not
as light as it used to be. I'm not sure that I like it up."
He looked at her critically. Her hair, thick and waving lay darkly on
her forehead, and was stacked in masses upon her small head on a
system known only to herself.
"That's a pity," said Christian, coolly, "and I hate it, too. But
unluckily, whether you and I hate it or not, it's got to stay up
now--that's to say, when it will. I am supposed to be 'out.' I'm
nearly eighteen, you know. I never thought I'd live to such an age."
"Oh, wait till you're 'of age,' like me!" said Larry, impressively.
"Then you'll know the horrors of longevity. I've got to take over the
show--the tenants and all the rest of it--from your father, and Aunt
Freddy, next week! An awful job it's going to be! Cousin Dick says
that these revisions of rent have played the deuce all round. I shall
make old Barty Mangan my agent. He's a solicitor now all right. He can
run the show. I like old Barty, don't you?"
"I hardly ever see him," said Christian, cautiously. "He has rather
nice looks--more like a poet than a solicitor."
"You see, I want to go abroad, and do some music, and paint," said
Larry, pressing on with his own subject. "Take painting on seriously,
you know--"
"I know," said Christian, thoughtfully, "I don't envy Barty Mangan! I
know Papa's having botheration with our people--"
"All the more reason for me to earn my living by painting!" responded
Larry cheerfully.
They were sitting at the edge of a patch of plantation. It was the
middle of May, and the young larches behind them were clad in a cloud
of pale emerald; the clumps of hawthorn, that were dotted about the
park, between the kennels and the river, were sending forth the
fragrance of their whiteness; the new green had come into the grass,
though it was almost smothered in the snow of daisies; primroses and
wild hyacinths had strayed from the little wood, and straggling down
the hillside, had joined hands and agreed, the first, to linger, the
latter, to hasten into blow, and so to share the month between them.
Just below, on the turn of the hill, was a big thicket of furze
bushes, more golden than gold, sweeter also than honey and the
honeycomb. From Larry's woods across the Ownashee, the cuckoo's voice
came, as melodiously monotonous and as full of associations as the
bell of a village church. Silvery clouds were sailing very high in a
sky of thinnest, sweetest blue; little jets of sparkling sound, rising
and falling in it, bespoke the invisible, rapturous larks, tireless as
a playing fountain; and the sun blazed down on the boy and the girl
and the two little dogs seated there in the full of it.
Larry rolled over and over on the grass like a young colt.
"Oh, murder-in-Irish!" he groaned, in sheer ecstasy, "isn't it
gorgeous! I always forget how entirely stunning Ireland is, till I
come back to it!"
He could say no more, as both dogs had sprung from Christian's arms,
and were feverishly licking his face.
"Your own fault!" said Christian, answering his expostulations. "Kind
little things, they thought you asked for it."
"I repeat," said Larry, lying on his back, and holding off his
assailants with difficulty, "eliminating badly brought-up dogs, that
Ireland is the finest country in the world, and--listen to this,
Christian!--the Irish are the finest people, _and_ the worst
governed!"
"'The foinest pisanthry in Europe'!" said Christian, in gibing
exaggeration. "Larry, you've got awfully English!" Larry rolled over
and came into play again, sitting bolt upright; "I'm a Home Ruler!"
"Don't be absurd," said Christian, tranquilly.
"I'm not the least absurd," returned Larry. "I _mean_ it. If not
a Republican!" he added, ostentatiously, and began to chant:
"And Ireland shall be free,
From the centre to the sea,
And huzza for Libertee,
Says the Shan Van Voght!"
"I say, you remember the old companions of Finn? Well they're rolling
up again! I've started them at Oxford. Six members already! Two men in
my college, and--"
"English, of course!" interrupted Christian, with an effective tone of
elderly superiority. "People like yourself, who know nothing about
it!"
This was an insult not easily to be tolerated; the gage of battle did
not lie long at Larry's feet, and it may be admitted that the
challenger would have been ill pleased had it been ignored.
In the five years that had passed since the curtain of this narrative
went down on Christian, she had changed more than had Larry. It was as
though that extra-worldly endowment of her childhood having ceased to
manifest in external ways, had turned its light inwards. The power of
hearing what others could not hear, had faded, but a subtlety of mind,
a clarity, a sort of pondering, intellectual self-consciousness (that
had no kinship with that other form of self-consciousness that is only
inverted self-conceit) had taken the place of those voices that she
had once refused to deny to the inquisitorial John.
The battle, with regard to the resurrected Companions of Finn, having
waxed and waned in a course that need not here be followed, the
argument took on another phase.
"You know, Larry," Christian said, half-absently twisting and
arranging Dooley's little tan ears, in order to express, on Dooley's
behalf, with them, various emotions, "it seems to me that all these
political revolutions that you are so anxious to start, for the good
of Ireland, are like putting the cart before the horse."
"What do you mean?" asked Larry, eyeing her with undisguised surprise.
"Well," said Christian, slowly, gazing across the valley with eyes
more than ever like the clearest brown stream, "you've got to begin
with the individual. After all, Ireland is made up of individuals, and
each of them contributes in some way to the big result. It seems to me
that the real Spirit of the Nation is--is--"
Her gaze at the far woods became fixed, and her hands ceased to play
with the soft, tan ears.
"Is what?" said Larry, rather impatiently. He was bewildered by this
grave, young debater, and was trying to reconcile her with the child
he had left behind him last year, or even with the child who, five
minutes ago, had wished to impress a comprehensive kiss on all the
hounds at once. Moreover, a young gentleman on the imminent verge of
official manhood, is justified in resenting ideas, in opposition to
his own, being offered to him by a little girl, with her hair only
just "up," whom he regards as no more than a niece, or thereabouts.
"Well," said Christian, still more slowly, her eyes lifting from the
woods and resting on a shining snowball of a cloud, "it's Religious
Intolerance, I think! That seems to me the Spirit of the Nation--my
side as bad as yours, and yours as bad as mine--"
"Oh, the parsons and the priests," said Larry, airily. "Oh you wait,
Christian! You don't know! You've been stuck down here in a hole. If
you met Father Nugent--"
"But I don't mean them only," said Christian, standing to her guns; "I
mean the individual--you and me! Just anybody--we're all the same. The
Shan van Voght has got to free us from each other before she takes on
England!" She looked at Larry; the seriousness left her face, and she
shook back the dark hair from her forehead with just the same gay,
mutinous toss of the head that a young horse will give when the rider
picks up the reins. "I may have been stuck down here in a hole!" said
Christian, mocking him; "but anyhow, I haven't lived in England and
lost my eye!"
"What about seeing from a distance, and seeing the whole and not the
part?" retorted Larry. "What about a bird's eye view?" He had risen to
his feet and was looking down at her, feeling the moral support of
physical elevation.
"That depends on the bird!" said Christian. "Now, if it were a goose,
for example! Like--Hi! Dogs! Look, Larry! Look! Down by the furze
bushes! A _huge_ rabbit!"
The discussion closed abruptly, as such discussions will, when the
disputants are at the golden age, and views and opinions are winged,
and have not yet become ballast, or, which is worse, turned to
mooring-stones.