called him to Glasgow?
"We must think of something!" Marsh was saying, but Henry was busy with
his own thoughts and paid no heed to him.
What, after all, had a farm to offer a quick-witted man or woman? That
girl, Lizzie McCamley of whom his father had spoken once, she had
preferred to go to Belfast and work in a linen mill and live in a slum
rather than continue in the country; and Jamesey McKeown, who was so
quick and eager and anxious to succeed, had weighed farms and fields and
hills and valleys in the balance and found them of less weight and value
than a Glasgow bar and a Glasgow music-hall. Henry remembered that his
father was more interested in the land than most men--and he resolved to
ask for his opinion. What was the good of all this co-operation, this
struggle to discover the best way of making the earth yield up the means
of life, this effort to increase and multiply, when nothing they could
do seemed to make the work attractive to those who did it?...
Marsh was still murmuring to him. "I see," he was saying, "that
something must be done. That girl ... what's her name?... Sheila
something?..."
"Sheila Morgan!" Henry said.
"Yes. Sheila Morgan ... she said something about dancing classes, didn't
she? We'll start a dancing class ... we'll teach them the Gaelic
dances!..."
It suddenly seemed funny to Henry that Marsh should propose to solve the
Land Problem ... the real Land Problem ... by means of dancing classes.
"They'll want more than that," he said. "They can't always be dancing!"
"No," Marsh answered, "but we can begin with that!"
Marsh's depression swiftly left him. He began to speculate on the future
of the countryside when the Gaelic revival was complete. There would be
Gaelic games, Gaelic songs, Gaelic dances and a Gaelic literature. "I
don't see why we shouldn't have a theatre in every village, with village
actors and village plays.... There must be a great deal of talent hidden
away in these houses that never comes out because there is no one to
bring it out.... I wish you were older, Henry, and were quit of Trinity.
You and I ... and Galway ... of course, we must have Galway ... might
start the Movement on a swifter course than it has now!..." He broke off
and made a gesture of impatience. "Oh, my God, why can't a man do more!"
he said.
5
Henry put the question to his father, and Mr. Quinn considered it for a
while.
"I don't know," he answered, "what to say. You'd think people would find
more to interest them in the land than in anything else ... but they
don't. There's so much to do, an' it's so varied, an' you have it all
under your own eye ... you begin it an' carry it on and you end it ...
an' yet somehow!... An' then the whole family understands it and can
take an interest in it. You'd think that that would hold them. There
isn't any other trade in the world that'll take up a whole family an'
give them all somethin' to talk about an' think over an' join in. But
I've never known a bright boy or girl on a farm that wasn't itchin' to
get away from it to a town!"
"But something'll have to be done, father!" Henry urged. "We must have
farmers!..."
"Aye, something'll have to be done, but I'm damned if I know what. I
suppose when they've developed machinery more an' can make transit
easier ... but sometimes I half think we'll have to breed people for the
land ... thick people, slow-witted people, clods ... an' just let them
root an' dig and grub an' ... an' breed!" He got up as he spoke, and
paced about the room. "No, Henry, I've got no remedy for you! The
Almighty God'll have to think of a plan, _I_ can't!"
6
Sheila Morgan did not know any of the ancient Gaelic dances, nor did any
one in Ballymartin. She knew how to waltz and she could dance the polka
and the schottishe. "An' that's all you need!" she said. There were two
old women in the village who danced a double reel, and Paddy Kane was a
great lad at jigs....
"Perhaps later on," Marsh said, "we can get some one to teach them
Gaelic dances!"
And so the classes began. Marsh had announced at the Language class that
the first of the Dancing Classes would be held on the following Thursday
... and on Thursday every boy and girl and young man and woman in
Ballymartin had crowded into the schoolroom where the class was to be
held.
"There are more here than come to the Language class," Marsh exclaimed
in astonishment when he entered the room.
"Dancing seems to be more popular than Gaelic," Henry replied.
"I don't know how we shall teach them all," Marsh went on. "I can't
dance ... and she can't possibly teach them all!"
But there was no need to teach them to dance--they had all learned to
dance "from their cradles," as some one said, and in a little while the
room was full of dancing couples.
Sheila Morgan had gone smilingly to John Marsh as he entered the room.
"We're all ready," she said, and waited.
"Oh, yes!" he replied, a little vaguely.
She looked at him for a few moments, and then went on. "If you were to
lead off," she suggested.
"Me? But I can't dance!..."
"You can't dance!"
"No," he continued. "Somehow, I've never learnt to dance!" She looked
disappointed. "I thought mebbe you an' me 'ud lead off," she said.
"I'm sorry," he replied. "Perhaps Mr. Quinn can dance!..."
Henry gave his arm to her and they walked off, to begin the slow
procession round the room until all the couples were ready.
"I think Mr. Marsh is the only one in the place that can't dance,"
Sheila said, as she placed her hand on Henry's shoulder.
He put his arm round her waist and they moved off in the dance. "I
suppose he is," he answered.
7
He danced with her several times. Her cheeks were glowing and the lustre
of her eyes was like the sparkle of the stars. Her lips were slightly
parted, and now and then her breath came quickly. As they swung round
and round, she sometimes closed her eyes and then slowly opened them
again. He became aware of some strange emotion that he had never known
before.
"I love dancin'," she murmured, half to herself.
"Yes," he replied, scarcely knowing that he was speaking.
"I love dancin'," she said again, and again he said "Yes" and no
more....
He led her to a seat at the side of the room and sat down on the chair
next to it. They did not speak, but sat there watching the swift
movements of the other dancers. Marsh was somewhere at the other end of
the room, looking on ... a little puzzled, a little disturbed ... but
pleased, too, because the dancers were pleased. He was wondering why the
interest in the Gaelic language was not so strong as the interest in the
waltz. "A foreign dance, too ... not Gaelic at all!"
But Henry had forgotten the Gaelic movement, and was conscious only of
the girl beside him and her glowing cheeks and her bright eyes and the
softness of her.... She was older than he was, a couple of years and he
noticed that she had just "put up" her hair. It had been hanging loosely
when he first saw her, and he wondered which he liked better, the loose,
hanging hair, or the hair bound round her head. Her slender white neck
was revealed now that her hair was up, and it was very beautiful, but he
thought that after all, his first sight of her, as she stood in the
doorway, the raindrops still on her face, and flung back the long, loose
strands of dark hair that lay about her shoulders ... he still thought
that was the loveliest vision of her he had seen....
Then he remembered Mary Graham. She, too, had long loose hair that lay
in dark lengths about her shoulders, and her eyes, too, could shine ...
but she was a girl, and Sheila was a woman!... He was engaged to Mary,
of course ... well, was it an engagement? They had been sweethearts and
he had told her he loved her and she had said that she would marry him
... and all that ... but they were kids when that happened. Ninian had
called him a sloppy ass!... This was different. His feeling for Sheila
Morgan was different from his feeling for Mary Graham. He had never felt
for any one as he felt for Sheila. He seemed unaccountably to be more
aware of Sheila than he was of Mary. He could not altogether understand
this difference of sensation ... but sometimes when he had been with
Mary, he had forgotten that she was a girl ... she was just some one
with whom he was playing a game or going for a walk or taking a bathe in
the sea. But he could not forget that Sheila was a woman. When he had
danced with her and his arm was about her waist and her fingers were in
his ... he seemed to grow up. He felt as if something at which he had
been gazing uncomprehendingly for a long time, had suddenly become known
to him. He recognised something ... understood something which had
puzzled him.
"Let's dance again," he said, standing up before her.
"All right," she answered, rising and going to him.
"I love dancing," he said to her.
"Yes," she murmured in reply.
8
When the dance was over, he took her to her uncle's farm. Marsh,
overcome by headache, had gone home before the dance was ended, and
Henry felt glad of this. He waited in the porch of the schoolhouse while
Sheila put on her coat and wrap, and wondered why his feeling for her
was so different from his feeling for Mary Graham, and while he
wondered, she came to him, gathering up her skirts.
"Isn't the sky lovely?" she said, glancing up at the stars, as they
walked out of the school-yard into the road.
He glanced up too, but did not answer.
"Millions an' millions of them," she said. "You'd wonder the sky 'ud
hold them all!"
"Yes," he said.
"Many's a time I wonder about the stars," she went on. "Do you ever
wonder about them?"
"Sometimes."
"Do you think there's people in them, the same as there is on the
earth?"
"I don't know," he answered.
"This is a star, too, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes."
"An' shines just like them does?"
"Yes, I think so!"
"That's quare!" She walked on for a few yards without speaking, and her
eyes were fixed steadily on the starry fields. "It's funny," she said,
"to think mebbe there's people up there lookin' at us an' them mebbe
thinkin' about this place what we're thinkin' of them. Wouldn't you love
to be able to fly up to one of them an' just see if it's true?..."
He laughed at her and she laughed in response. "I'm talkin' blether,"
she said, stumbling over a stone in the road.
"Mind!" he warned her, putting out his hand to steady her.
"I was nearly down that time," she said. "These roads is awful in the
dark ... you can't see where you're goin' or what's in the way!"
"No," he replied.
Her arms were crooked because she was holding her skirts about her
ankles, and as she stumbled against him a second time, he put out his
hand and caught hold of her arm, and this time he did not withdraw it.
He slipped his arm inside hers and drew her close to him, and so they
walked on in the starlight up the rough road that led to Matthew
Hamilton's farm.
"It's quaren late," she said, moving nearer to him.
"Yes," he answered.
There was a rustle in the trees as the night wind blew through the
branches, and they could hear the silken murmur of the corn as it bent
before the breeze. Now and then there was a flutter of wings in a hedge
as they passed by, and the low murmurs of cattle and sheep came from the
fields.
"I wish it were next Thursday," he said.
"So do I," she replied.
"I wish we could have two dancing-classes in the week instead of one!"
"So do I," she said.
"But we can't manage that," he continued. "You see we have two nights
for the Language class!..."
"You could have one night for the Language class," she said, "and two
nights for dancing!"
"I don't think Marsh would like that," he answered.
They walked on for a while, thinking of what Marsh would say, and then
she broke the silence.
"I don't see the good of them oul' language classes," she said.
"Don't you?"
"No. I'd rather be dancin' any day!..."
9
He left her at the gate that led into the farmyard.
"Good-night," he said, holding out his hand to her.
"Good-night!" she replied.
But still he did not move away nor did she open the gate and pass into
the yard.
"I shall look forward to Thursday," he said.
"So shall I!"
"Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
He still held her hand in his and as she made a movement to draw it
away, he suddenly pulled her to him and put his arms about her and
kissed her.
"Sheila!" he said.
"Let me go!" she whispered.
She drew away from him, and stood looking at him for a few moments. Then
she pushed the gate open and walked into the yard.
"Good-night!" she said.