1
Mr. Quinn's horror of the English people was neither consistent nor
rigid. When the Armagh schoolmaster was found wanting, Mr. Quinn
instantly decided to send Henry to Rumpell's, a famous English school,
and here Henry soon made friends of Ninian Graham and Roger Carey and
Gilbert Farlow. Gilbert Farlow was the friend for whom he cared most,
but his affection for Ninian Graham and Roger Carey was very strong.
Henry's soft nature was naturally affectionate, but there had been
little opportunity in his life for a display of affection. His mother
was not even a memory to him, for she had died while he was still a
baby. Old Cassie Arnott had nursed him, but Cassie, at an age when it
seemed impossible for her to feel any emotion for men, had suddenly
married and had gone off to Belfast. His memory of her speedily faded.
Cassie was succeeded by Matilda Turnbull, who drank, and was dismissed
by Mr. Quinn at the end of a fortnight; and then came Bridget Fallon....
Bridget had the longest hold on his memory, but she, too, disappeared
and was seen no more; for Mr. Quinn came on her suddenly one day and
found her teaching "Master Henry" to say prayers to the Virgin Mary! She
had put a scapular about his neck and had taught him to make the sign of
the cross....
"Take that damned rag off my child's neck," Mr. Quinn had roared at her,
"an' take yourself off as soon as you can pack your box!"
And Bridget, poor, kindly, devout, gentle Bridget, was sent weeping
away.
Long afterwards, Henry had talked to his father about Bridget, and Mr.
Quinn had expressed regret for what he had said about the scapular. "I
had no call to say it was a damned rag," he said, "though that's all it
was. It meant a lot to her, of course, an' I suppose she was right to
try an' make a Catholic of you. But I'd hate to have a son of mine a
Catholic, Henry. It's an unmanly religion, only fit for women an' ...
an' actors! It's not religion at all ... it's funk, Henry, that's what
it is! I read 'The Garden of the Soul' one time, an' I'd be ashamed to
pray the way that book goes on, with their 'Jesus, Mercy!' 'Mother of
God, pity me!' 'Holy Saints, intercede for me!' Catholics don't pray,
Henry; they whine; and I've no use for whinin'. If I can't go to heaven
like a man, I'll go to hell like one. Anyway, if I commit a sin, I'll
not whine about it, an' if God says to me on the last day, 'Did you
commit this sin or that sin?' I'll answer Him to His face an' say, 'Yes,
God, I did, an' if You'd been a man, You'd have done the same
Yourself!'"
So it was that, in his childhood, no woman made a lasting impression on
Henry's affectionate nature. No one, indeed, filled his affections
except his father. Henry's love for his father was unfathomable. Their
natures were so dissimilar that they never clashed. There were things
about Henry, his nervousness, his sudden accessions of fright, which
puzzled Mr. Quinn, and might, had he been a smaller man than he was,
have made him angry with the boy, contemptuous of him; but when Mr.
Quinn came across some part of Henry's nature which was incomprehensible
to him, he tried first, to understand and then, failing that, to be
tolerant. "We all have our natures," he used to say to himself, "an'
it's no use complainin' because people are different. Sure, that's what
makes them interestin' anyway!"
2
But Henry's affection for Gilbert Farlow and Ninian Graham and Roger
Carey was a new affection, a thing that came spontaneously to him. There
were other boys at Rumpell's whom he liked and others for whom he felt
neither like nor dislike, but just the ordinary tolerance of temporary
encounters and passing life; and there were a few for whom he felt a
hatred so venomous that it sometimes frightened him. There was Cobain, a
brutal, thick-jawed fellow who thumped small boys whenever they came
near him, and there was Mullally!... He could not describe his feeling
for Mullally! It was so strong that he could not sit still in the same
room with him, could not speak civilly to him. And yet Mullally was
civil enough to him, was anxious even to be friendly with him. There was
something of a flabby sort in Mullally's nature that made Henry
instinctively angry with him: his vague features, his weak, wandering
eyes, peering from behind large glasses, his tow-coloured hair that
seemed to have "washed-out," and above all, his squeaky voice that piped
on one jerky note....
It was Gilbert Farlow who gave Mullally his nick-name. (It was the time
of the Boer War, and the nick-name came easily enough.) "He isn't a
man," said Gilbert; "he's a regrettable incident!"
Gilbert Farlow, though he was the youngest and the slightest of the four
boys, was the leader of them. He had the gift of vivid language. He
could cut a man with a name as sharply as if it were a knife. He
invented new oaths for the delight of Ninian Graham, who had a taste for
strong language but no genius in developing it. It was he who appointed
Roger to the office of Purse-Bearer because Roger was careful. It was he
who decided that their pocket-money, with small exceptions, should be
spent conjointly, and that no money should be spent unless three out
of four consented to the expenditure. ("Damn it, is it my money or is it
not?" said Ninian when the rule was proposed, and "Fined sixpence for
cheek!" Gilbert replied, ordering Roger to collect the sixpence which
was then divided between the three who had not murmured.) It was he who
declared that "Henry" was too long and "Quinn," too short (though Roger
said the words were exactly the same length) and insisted on calling
Henry "Quinny" (which Roger said was actually longer than either of the
displaced words. "Well, it sounds shorter," said Gilbert decisively).
Gilbert planned their lives for them. "We'll all go to Cambridge," he
said, "and then we'll become Great!"
"Righto!" said Ninian.
"If any of our people propose to send us to Oxford, there's to be a row!
Sloppy asses go to Oxford ... fellows like Mullally!" Henry made a
terrible grimace at the mention of Mullally's name and Gilbert, swift to
notice the grimace, pointed the moral, "Well, Quinny, if your guv'nor
tries to send you to Oxford, don't let him. Remember Mullally, the ...
the boiled worm!" he continued, "an' say you won't go!"
"But my father was at Oxford," said Roger quietly.
"Your father was a parson and didn't know any better," Gilbert replied.
"And that reminds me, if one of us becomes a parson, the rest of us give
him the chuck. Is that agreed?"
Ninian held up both his hands. "Carried unanimous!" he said.
"I don't know!" Henry objected. "I used to think it'd be rather nice to
be a parson ... standing in the pulpit in a surplice and talking like
that to people!"
Gilbert got up from the grass where they were sitting. "He'll have to be
scragged," he said.
"Righto!" said Ninian, and the three of them seized Henry and flung him
to the ground and sat on him until he swore by the blood of his
forefathers that he would never, never consent to be a clergyman. "Or
give pi-jaws of any sort!" said Gilbert.
"Lemme go!" Henry squeaked, struggling to throw them off his back.
"When you've promised!..."
"Oh, all right, then!"
They released him and he stood up and straightened his clothes and
searched his mind for something of a devastating character to say.
"Funny ass!" he said at last, and then they scragged him again for being
cheeky.
But he would have submitted to any amount of scragging from them because
they were his friends and because he loved Gilbert and because they,
too, in their turn submitted to being scragged.
3
When Henry had been at Rumpell's for a year, Ninian Graham asked him to
spend the Easter holidays at his home in Devonshire. "I'll get my mater
to write and ask you," he said. Henry hesitated. He had never spent a
holiday away from home, and he knew that his father liked him to return
to Ireland whenever he had the chance to do so. He himself enjoyed going
home, but suddenly, when Henry had finished speaking, he felt a strong
desire to accept this invitation. "I'll have to ask my father," he
replied, and added, "I'd like to, Ninian. Thanks awf'lly!"
He had heard his father speak so contemptuously of English people that
he was almost afraid to ask him for permission to accept Ninian's
invitation. He wondered how he would explain his father's refusal to
Ninian who was so kind.... But his fears were not warranted, for Mr.
Quinn replied to his letter, urging him to accept the invitation.
"_Enjoy yourself_," he wrote. "_The English are very hospitable when
you get to know them, and the only way you can get to know them is to go
and live in their homes! But I'll expect you to come here in the summer.
You can bring your friends with you, the whole lot. William Henry says
there'll be a grand lot of strawberries and goosegogs this year and you
can all make yourselves as sick as you like on them._" He signed
himself, "_Your affectionate Father, Henry Quinn._"
And so Henry had gone that Easter to Boveyhayne, where Mrs. Graham and
her daughter Mary lived. Ninian and he had travelled by train to
Whitcombe where they were met by old Widger and driven over hilly
country to Boveyhayne. There was a long climb out of Whitcombe and then
a long descent into Boveyhayne, after which the road ran on the level to
the end of Hayne lane which led to the Manor. Before they reached the
end of the lane, Old Widger turned to them and, pointing with his whip
in front of him, said, laughingly, "Here be Miss Mary waitin' for 'ee,
Mas'er Ninyan!"
Ninian stood up in the carriage and looked ahead. "Hilloa, Mary!" he
shouted, waving his hand, and then, before Old Widger had time to pull
up, he jumped into the road and ran on ahead. "Come on, Quinny!" he
shouted, and Henry, suddenly shy, got out of the carriage and followed
after him.
"You needn't wait for us, Widger!" Ninian shouted again. "We'll walk
home!"
And Widger, smiling largely, drove on.
4
Mary Graham was younger than Ninian, nearly two years younger, and very
different from him. He was big in body and bone, and fair and very
hearty in his manner. When Ninian approved of you he did not pat your
back: he punched it so that your bones rattled and your flesh tingled.
All his movements were large, splashy, as Gilbert said, and, his voice
was incapable of whispers. But Mary was slight and small and dark and
her laugh was like the sound of a little silver bell. She was standing
on an earth mound at the entrance to the lane when Henry came up to
Ninian and her, and he wondered to himself how her small, shapely head
could bear the weight of the long dark hair which fell about her
shoulders in a thick, flowing pile. Ninian was chattering to her so
loudly and so rapidly that Henry could hardly hear her replies....
"Oh, this is Quinny!" Ninian said, jerking his thumb in Henry's
direction. "His real name is Quinn, Henry Quinn, but we call him
'Quinny.' At least, Gilbert does, so, of course we do too. And he's
Irish, but he isn't a Catholic, and he says Irish people don't keep pigs
in their houses, and they eat other things besides potatoes and ... come
on, Quinny, buck up and be civil!"
Mary stepped down from the mound, and held out her hand to Henry. "How
do you do!" she said, smiling at him, and he took her hand and said he
was very well and asked her how she did, and she said she was very well,
and then she smiled again, and so Henry smiled too.
Ninian had moved on up the lane. "Buck up, you two!" he said. "I'm
hungry!" He started to run, thinking of tea, and then he suddenly
checked himself and came back. "I say, Mary," he said, "Quinny's
fearfully gone on wildflowers and birds and ... and Nature ... and that
sort of stuff. Show him the primroses and things, will you? I've got an
awful hunger and I want to see the mater. Oh, Quinny, these are
primroses, these yellow things, and Mary'll show you anything else you
want to see. There's a jolly lot of honeysuckle and hazelnuts in these
hedges later on. So long!" He went off again, running in a heavy,
lumbering fashion because of the ascent and the broken, stony ground.
Henry stood still, waiting for Mary to make a decision. He could not
think of anything to say and so he just smiled. He began to feel hot and
uncomfortable, and it seemed to him suddenly that Mary must think he
was a frightful fool, maundering about primroses and wild violets and
bluebells, and yet not able to say a word for himself in her presence
... standing there, grinning like ... like anything, and ... and not
saying a word.
She was standing sideways, with her head turned to look at her brother,
now disappearing round a bend in the lane, and Henry was able to observe
her more closely. He saw that she was wearing a short frock, reaching to
her knees, and he plucked up heart. "She's only a kid," he said to
himself, and then said aloud to her, "It's awf'lly nice here!"
She turned towards him as he spoke and he saw that her face was still
smiling. "Yes, isn't it?" she answered. "Shall we go on now, or would
you like to gather some primroses. There are lots in this lane, or if
you like to walk up to the copse, there are more there, and we can mix
them with bluebells. I think primroses and bluebells are lovely
together, don't you?"
He thought it would be nicer to go to the copse, and so they moved on up
the lane.
"I like these high hedges," he said. "We don't have high hedges in
Ireland. In lots of places we don't have hedges at all--only stone
walls!"
Mary made a grimace. "I shouldn't like that," she exclaimed. "I love
hedges ... best in the spring because then they're new. There's always
something living in them. I never go by the hedges without hearing
something moving inside ... birds and mice and things. Of course, it's
very stuffy in the lanes in summer because the hedges are so high and
the leaves are so thick and the air can't get through!... Look! Look!"
She climbed on to the bars of a gate, and pointed, and he climbed on to
the bars beside her, and saw the English Channel, shining like a sheet
of silver in the setting sun.
"Can you see the trawlers coming home?" she said. "Out there! Do you
see? Those are our boats ... the Boveyhayne boats. That one with the
brown sails is Tom Yeo's boat. He's awf'lly nice and his wife's going to
have a baby. He told me so, and they hope it'll be a boy because Jim
Rattenbury--that's Tom Yeo's mate in the boat ... his wife had a
daughter last month, and they all think it would be awf'lly nice if
Tom's son were to grow up and marry Jim's daughter, and I think it
would, and of course it would, wouldn't it?"
"Would it?" said Henry.
"Of course it would. It would be so nice for everybody, and then the
boat could be left to Tom's son and it would belong to Jim's daughter,
too. I think that would be _very_ nice! I do hope they've caught a lot
of fish!" She jumped down from the gate and clapped her hands together.
"I know," she said. "We won't pluck primroses now. We'll go home and
simply swallow our tea like lightning, and then we'll tear down to the
beach and see them landing the fish. Come on, let's run!" She started
off and then suddenly checked herself and said, "Oh, I think I'd better
call you 'Quinny,' like Ninian. It'll save a lot of trouble, won't it?
Mother won't call you that. She'll probably call you 'Henry' or 'Harry.'
If we hurry up, we'll be just in time to see the boats beached!"
She ran off, laughing pleasantly, and he followed after her.
"That's the copse," she shouted, pointing to the trees on her left.
"We'll soon be there!"
They reached the top of the lane and crossed a narrow public road, and
then were in a broad avenue, almost arched by trees, at the end of which
was the Manor. It was a squarely-built sixteenth century house, made of
stone, taken from the Roman quarry a mile or two away on the road to
Franscombe. The first Graham to own it received it and the lands
adjacent to it from Henry the Second, and ever since that time a Graham
had been lord of the manor of Boveyhayne. Ninian was the last of his
line. If he were to die, there would be no more Grahams at Boveyhayne.
That was the fear that haunted Mrs. Graham....
Mary ran swiftly across the grass in the centre of the avenue and pushed
open the gate that led through a fine stone arch. She held the gate open
for Henry, and then they both passed up the flagged path into the house.
"Mother, mother!" Mary shouted, quickly entering the drawing-room,
"here's Quinny, and please can we have tea at once because the trawlers
are just coming home and we want to see them being beached and ... oh, I
say, my hands are messy, aren't they. Still, it doesn't matter! I can
wash them afterwards."
"My dear!" said Mrs. Graham reproachfully, and then she turned to greet
Henry who had become awkward again. "How do you do, Mr. Quinn," she
said, holding her hand out to him.
Henry flushed deeply. It was the first time any one had ever called him
Mister, and he was very glad that Ninian was not present to hear. He was
quite well, he said. No, he was not a bit tired. Yes, he would rather
like to go to his room.... A maid had followed him into the room, and
Mrs. Graham asked her to show Mr. Quinn to his room, and, flushing
deeper still, he turned to go with her. As he left the room, he heard
Mary saying to Mrs. Graham, "Oh, mother, you mustn't call him _Mr._
Quinn. He blushed frightfully when you said that. His name is 'Quinny,'
or you can call him 'Henry' if you like!"
"I think I'll call him 'Henry,' my dear!" said Mrs. Graham.
5
It seemed to Henry that Mrs. Graham was the most beautiful woman in the
world, and he had a great longing that she would draw him to her, as she
drew Ninian, and put her arms about him and kiss him. Sometimes he had
faint memories of the way in which poor Bridget Fallon had hugged him,
and how she had cried over him once when she told him that his soul
would be damned forever because he was a "black Protestant." ... He
remembered that episode more vividly than any other because he had
howled with fear when she narrated the pains and torments of hell to
him. There had been a Mission at the chapel the previous week, and a
preaching friar had frightened the wits out of her with his description
of "the bad place." He had told the congregation of scared servants and
frightened labourers that they would be laid on red-hot bars in hell and
that the devil would send demons to nip their flesh with burning
pincers.... Henry could not be comforted until she had promised to
rescue him from the Evil One, and when she bade him wear the scapular,
he hurriedly hung it round his neck as if he were afraid that before he
could get it on, the Devil would have him.... Well, Bridget had loved
him very tenderly, and of all the women he had ever known, she seemed to
him to be the most beautiful. But Mrs. Graham was more beautiful than
Bridget, more beautiful than Bridget could ever be. There was something
so exquisite in her movements, her smile (Mary had her smile) and her
soft sweet voice with its slight Devonshire burr, that Henry felt he
wished to sit beside her and walk with her and always be by her. His
sudden, growing love for her made him feel bold, and he lost the shy,
nervous sensation he had had when he first came into her presence and
heard her call him "Mr. Quinn," and so, when Ninian and Mary talked
about the trawlers, he turned to Mrs. Graham quite naturally, and said,
"Won't you come to the beach, too, Mrs. Graham?" Instantly Ninian and
Mary were clamorous that she should go with them, and so she
consented....
"We'll have to hurry," said Mary, "because the boats come in awf'lly
quick."
"My dear, I can't run," Mrs. Graham said.
It was Ninian who suggested that Widger should harness the pony and that
they should drive down to the beach in the buggy....
"Yes, yes," said Mary.
And Ninian went off to tell Widger to hurry harder than he had ever
hurried before in his life.
"I'll do that for 'ee, Mas'er Ninyan, sure 'nough!" said Widger.
But Ninian and Mary were too impatient to wait for the buggy, and so
they set off together, leaving Henry to follow with Mrs. Graham.
"Quinny'll drive you down, mater," Ninian said.
Mrs. Graham turned to Henry. "You won't let Peggy run away with me, will
you?" she said, pretending to be alarmed, and Mary and Ninian burst into
laughter at the thought of Peggy ... which was short for Pegasus ...
running away with any one.
"He's fat and lazy," said Ninian.
"He goes to sleep in the shafts," Mary added, running out of the
drawing-room on Ninian's heels.
6
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're _all_ alive,"
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's_ all 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.
7
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.
8
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!"