SCHOOLING.
“Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
How went he under him?”
“This is the prettiest low-born lass----”
“And so she gave you a great fright? Well, now, wasn’t that too bad? I
wish I’d caught her at her tricks, and I’d soon have packed her about
her business. You know, they say she was the best step-dancer in the
country when she was a girl; and to think of her going dancing under
your window, and you taking her for a ghost!”
Willy’s amusement overcame his sympathy, and he laughed loud and long.
I had been impelled to confide my alarm of Sunday night to him when we
were on our way round to the stables to see the horses, on the following
morning, and I now rather resented his refusal to see anything but the
ludicrous side of the incident.
“You are very unsympathetic. I am sure you would have been just as
frightened as I was,” I said. “She looked exactly like a ghost; and in
any case I should like to know why she selected _my_ window to dance
under?”
“She meant it for a compliment, of course. I suppose she thought you’d
be a good audience. _I_’ve seen her now and again jack-acting there in
front of the house, but I’m afraid all I said was to tell her go home.
But then, I’m not sympathetic like you!”
We had stopped to discuss the point at the spot whence I had seen Moll
emerge, and now walked on past the untidy old flower-garden to the yard.
It was a large square, of which three sides were formed by stables and
cowhouses, the house itself being the fourth, and was only redeemed from
absolute ugliness by a row of four great horse-chestnut trees, which
grew out of a grassy mound in the middle. We arrived in time to surprise
the two little fox terriers, Pat and Jinny, in the clandestine enjoyment
of a meal with the pig, whose trough was conveniently placed by the
scullery door. On seeing us, they at once endeavoured to dissemble their
guilty confusion by an unworthy attack on their late entertainer. This
histrionic display did not, however, deceive Willy in the least. The
dogs were ignominiously called off, and the pig was left master of the
situation.
I wondered, as I looked round, if all Irish yards were like this one.
Certainly I had never before seen anything like the mixture of
prosperity and dilapidation in these solid stone buildings, with their
ricketty doors and broken windows. Through the open coach-house door I
saw an unusual amount of carriages, foremost among them the landau in
which I had driven from Moycullen, with a bucket placed on its coach-box
in order to catch a drip from the roof. A donkey and a couple of calves
were roaming placidly about, and, though there was evidently no lack of
stable-helpers and hangers-on, everything was inconceivably dirty and
untidy.
The horses were, however, well housed and cared for. My future mount,
“Blackthorn,” was the first to be displayed. He was a big black horse,
with an arched back and an ugly head; but he had a look of power and
intelligence which provided me with materials for a sufficiently
laudatory criticism. In the next box, the bay mare Willy had bought in
Cork was pushing her nose through the bars over the door to attract our
attention.
“That’s the one kept me from going to meet you at Queenstown,” said
Willy, opening the door, and catching the mare by the head. “She’s a
nice little thing, but I’ll know better another time than to throw you
over for her. Stand, mare!”--as that animal made a vigorous remonstrance
at being deprived of her sheet.
“She looks as if she knows how to go,” I said. “What are you going to
call her?”
“Don’t you think you might christen her for me?” Willy answered, with an
insinuating glance at me from under his black eyelashes. “Just to show
you don’t bear malice for my leaving you to cross Cork all alone.”
Notwithstanding the access of brogue with which this was said, there was
something in the look which accompanied it at which, to my extreme
annoyance, I felt my colour rise.
“Of course I don’t bear malice. I never even expected you to meet me,” I
said, turning to stroke the mare’s shoulder. “If you really want a name
for her, suppose you call her ‘Alaska.’ That was the steamer I came over
in, and they say she’s the fastest on the line.”
Willy received this moderate suggestion with enthusiasm. “If she turns
out half as good as she looks,” he said, as we walked out of the yard,
“you shall have her for yourself to ride.”
“I think you are very rash to put me up on your horses when you don’t
in the least know how I can ride.”
“Ah! well, I’ll trust you; though, indeed, after the funk you were put
into by poor old Moll, I suppose I may expect to see you turning back at
the first fence.”
To this sally I vouchsafed no reply.
“I must take the mare out this afternoon,” he continued, “to try can she
jump. Blackthorn wants shoeing, or you should ride him; but I thought
perhaps you’d like to walk up to the farm to see me schooling the mare.
It’s only as far as those fields opposite the lodge that I’ll go.”
This was, I thought, a very good suggestion. A prospective day with the
hounds made me anxious to see what Irish fences were like, and we
settled to start early in the afternoon.
At lunch Uncle Dominick was more conversational than I had yet seen
him.
“What have you been doing with yourself this morning, Theo, my
dear?”--for the first time adopting the more familiar form of my name.
“The roses in your cheeks do credit to our Irish air.”
Uncle Dominick’s faded gallantry always had the effect of making me shy
and constrained. I laughed nervously, and before I could reply Willy
struck in--
“She was round to the stables with me, sir.”
“Oho! so that was it, was it?” said my uncle, with the smile I disliked
so much; and I felt that at that moment my cheeks more resembled peonies
than roses.
“I was showing her the new mare,” said Willy, “and we’re going to call
her ‘Alaska,’ because that’s the ship that”--here he stopped--“because
that’s the fastest ship between this and America.”
“Why, is not that the vessel that brought you to us from America?” said
Uncle Dominick, pursuing his advantage with unexpected facetiousness. “I
think it is an admirable name, and will always have pleasant
associations for you and me, eh, Willy?”
Willy made no reply, and my uncle rose from the table, apparently well
satisfied with himself, and left the room humming a tune.
It was a softly brilliant afternoon. I thought, as I started for the
farm where I was to see Alaska put through her paces, that I had never,
even in America, seen anything like the glow of the yellow leaves
against the blue sky--a blue so intense that it seemed to press through
the half-stripped branches. The thick drifts of fallen leaves rustled
like water about my feet, and floated on the surface of the pools which
the rain of yesterday had formed in the low swampy ground under the
clump of elms at the bend of the avenue. Just here a deep dyke ran
parallel with the drive, separating it from the turf bog which I had
seen from my bedroom window. Across it was a rough bridge of logs, from
which a raised cart-track wound over the bog like a long brown serpent.
I crossed the bridge and leaned upon the rusty iron gate that closed the
approach to the bog road. The keen scent of the sea came to me across
the heathery expanse, mingled with the pure perfume of the peat, and I
regretted that my promise to Willy prevented me from following the
meandering course of the cart-track over the headland, to where I heard
the hollow draw of the sea on the rocks at the other side.
Retracing my steps, I went up the avenue, and found Willy with the two
dogs waiting for me outside the gate. In the fence on the other side of
the road was an opening partially filled by a low wall of loose
stones--locally called a gap.
“I’ll take her in at this gap,” Willy said, turning the mare to give her
room, and then putting her at the gap. Alaska, however, had probably her
own reasons for preferring the road, for she refused with a vicious
swerve, and a lively contest between her and her rider ensued.
The latter’s difficulties were considerably complicated by Pat and
Jinny, who, with ostentatious activity, insisted on crossing and
recrossing the gap at the most critical moments. When Jinny at length
took up a commanding position on its top-most stone, in order to watch,
with palpitating interest and ejaculatory yelps, Alaska’s misbehaviour,
Willy’s temper gave way.
“Theo,” he said, with suppressed fury, “will you for goodness’ sake
take that--that _infernal_ dog out of my way?”
I captured Jinny, and held her wriggling in my arms, until at length
Alaska, with a bound that would have cleared a five-barred gate, went
into the field.
I climbed on to a gate-post, from whence I could conveniently see the
schooling process. Willy was a fine rider, and Alaska acquitted herself
very creditably; but after a quarter of an hour spent on my gate-post, I
began to find it rather cold, and, Willy having gone to more distant
fields in search of further educational difficulties, I decided to go
home without him. Outside the gates was a large gravel sweep, with high
flanking walls, forming a semicircular approach, and in these, at some
height from the ground, several niches had been made, large enough to
hold life-sized figures. As I turned to get down, I saw that a young
girl was standing in one of the niches. She was leaning slightly
forward, steadying herself with one hand on the wall, while with the
other she shaded her eyes, as if looking after Willy’s departing figure.
On seeing me, she jumped quickly down, and ran to open one of the small
gates. I recognized the shy, pretty face of Anstey Brian, and stopped
inside the gate to speak to her.
“If Mr. Sarsfield comes, will you tell him I have gone home?” I said;
and was turning away, when Anstey, with a nervous blush, said, in a
soft, deprecating voice--
“Oh, miss, I beg your pardon! I was very sorry to hear you got anny sort
of a fright from my mother last night. It’s just a little restless she
is, those last few nights, and my father’d be greatly vexed if he
thought you got anny annoyance by her.”
I assured her that my alarm had only been momentary, wondering vaguely
how she had heard anything about it.
“Indeed, miss, she’d hurt no one. She’s this way, foolish-like, this
long time.”
“How long is it since it began?” I said, with interest.
“I never remember her anny other way, miss, though my father says she
was once a fine, handsome girl, and as sensible as yourself, miss.”
“Did her mind go from an accident?” I asked.
“Why, then, indeed, miss, I don’t rightly know. She had some strange
turn in her always, and afther I was born she got quare altogether; and
that’s the way she is ever since. Dumb, like she couldn’t spake, and
silly in her mind.”
I was looking in the direction of the lodge while she spoke, half
unconsciously noting how thickly the ivy trails hung over its small
windows, when I became aware of a face looking out at me through one of
them.
I could distinguish little of it beyond the wide-open, pale eyes, which
were fixed upon me with a concentrated, half-terrified intentness; but
with a momentary return of last night’s unreasoning panic, I knew it to
be the face of the woman of whom we were speaking. Something of this
must have been shown in my expression, for Anstey, following the
direction of my eyes, said--
“Don’t be frightened at all, miss. Sure that’s only poor mother. Will I
bring her out here for your honour to see?”
But I had no wish for any close acquaintance, so hastily saying that, as
it was already dark, I had no time to stay, I wished Anstey good night.
I must confess that, as I walked away from the lodge, I was haunted by
the frightened glare of Moll Hourihane’s eyes. There had been something
in their expression which, beneath the oblivion of insanity, seemed
almost to struggle into recognition. At the remembrance of them, I felt
the same unconquerable dread creep over me again, and I hurried along
the avenue towards home. To my imagination, the patches of grey lichen
on the trees repeated in the growing twilight the effect of the grey
face at the darkened window. The dead leaves awoke as I trod on them,
and followed me with whisperings and cracklings. It was a relief to
leave the little wood behind, and to see in the library windows the
flickering glow which told of a good fire, and suggested tea.
I was surprised and annoyed by the unwonted nervousness which had
lately affected me. I prided myself upon being a singularly practical,
unimaginative person; and yet now, for the third time since my arrival
at Durrus, my self-possession had been disturbed by a trivial event,
which I should formerly have laughed at. I walked rapidly to the house,
determined for the future to give no toleration to my foolish fancy, and
to----
“Here you are!” said Willy’s voice from the hall door. “Come on and have
some tea.”
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