He had gone to his room and then, listening until he had heard Marsh go
out, he had descended the stairs and, almost on tiptoe, had gone out of
the house by a side-door, and, slipping through the paddock as if he
were anxious not to be seen, had run swiftly through the meadows and
cornfields until he reached the road that led to Hamilton's farm. He had
not decided what he was going to do when he had reached the farm. Sheila
would probably be busy about the house or she might have work to do in
the farmyard. Now that her uncle was ill, some of his labour would have
to be done by others. But he would be less in the way, he thought, in
the morning than he would be in the evening when the cows were being
milked ... though he might offer to help her to strain the milk and
churn it, if she did that, and he could scald the milk-pans and ... do
lots of things! The evening, however, was still a long way off, but the
morning was ... _now!_ And he wished very much to be with Sheila ... now
... this moment!
He saw her before she saw him. She had her back to him, and she was
bending over her uncle who was sitting at the door of the farmhouse,
with a rug wrapped round his legs. Henry, suddenly shy, stood still in
the "loanie," looking at her and trying to think of something to say to
her which would make his appearance there at that hour natural; but
before he had thought of something that was suitable, she turned and saw
him, and so he went forward, tongue-tied and awkward.
"Here's Mr. Quinn!" she said to her uncle ... she had never known him as
Master Henry, and she had not yet learned to call him by his Christian
name alone.
The farmer looked up. "You mane Mr. Henry," he said, and Henry,
listening to him, felt that at last he was near manhood, for people were
shedding the "Master."
"Good-morning, Hamilton!" he said, holding out his hand to the farmer.
"How're you to-day?"
"Middlin', sir ... only middlin'. This is the first I've been out of the
house this long while, but the day's that warm, I just thought I'd like
to get a heat of the sun, bad or no bad. It's a terrible thing to be
helpless like this ... not able to do a han's-turn for yourself!..."
"Ah, quit, Uncle Matt!" Sheila interjected. "Sure, you'll soon be all
right an' runnin' about like a two-year oul'!" She turned to Henry.
"He's an awful man for wantin' to be doin' things, an' it's sore work
tryin' to get him to sit still the way the doctor says he's to sit.
Always wantin' to be up an' doin' somethin'! Aren't you, Uncle Matt?"
"Ay, daughter, I am. I was always the lad for work!..."
"You're a terrible oul' provoker, so you are. You're just jealous,
that's it, an' you're heart-feard we'll mebbe all learn how to look
after the farm better nor you can!"
The old man smiled and took hold of her hand and fondled it. "You're the
right wee girl," he said affectionately. "Always doin' your best to keep
a man's heart up!"
"Indeed, then," she said briskly, "you gimme enough to do to keep your
heart up. You're worse nor a cradleful of childher!... Here, let me wrap
this shawl about your shoulders! Aren't you the oul' footer to be
lettin' it slip down like that?... There now!"
He lay back in his chair while she folded the shawl about him, and
smiled at her. "God content you, daughter!" he murmured.
2
"Well!" she said to Henry as they moved towards the byre.
He had sat with the farmer for a while, talking of the weather and the
crops and the prospects of the harvest, and then, seeing Sheila going
across the yard, he had followed her.
"Well?" she said, looking at him quizzically.
He did not know what to say, so he stood there smiling at her. Her arms
were bare to the bend, and the neck of her blouse was open so that he
saw her firm, brown throat.
"Well!" he replied, still smiling, and "Well?" she said again.
She went into the byre, and he followed her to the door, and stood
peering into the dark interior where a sick cow lay lowing softly.
"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" Sheila called to him.
"I have a whole lot to say," he replied, "but I don't know how to say
it!"
She laughed at that, and he liked the strong, quick sound of her
laughter. "You're the quare wee fella," she exclaimed.
_Wee fellow!_ He flushed and straightened himself.
"I was passing along the road," he said stiffly, "and I thought I'd come
up and see your uncle!..."
"Oh!" she answered.
"Yes. My father was wondering yesterday how he was getting on, so I just
thought I'd come over and see him. I suppose you're busy?"
"You suppose right!"
He moved a step or two away from the door of the byre. "Then I won't
hinder you in your work," he said.
"You're not hinderin' me," she replied, coming out of the dark byre as
she spoke. "It would take the quare man to hinder _me_! Where's Mr.
Marsh this mornin'?"
"Oh, somewhere!"
"I thought you an' him was always thegether. You're always about
anyway!"
He felt strangely boyish while she was talking. Last night, when he had
drawn her to him and had kissed her soft, moist lips, he had felt
suddenly adult. While his arms were about her, he was conscious of
manhood, of something new in his life, something that he had been
growing to, but until that moment had not yet reached ... and now,
standing in the strong sunlight and looking into her firm, laughing
eyes, his manhood seemed to have receded from him, and once more he was
... a wee fellow, a schoolboy, a bit of a lad.... His vexation must have
been apparent in his expression, for she said "What ails you?" to him.
"Nothing," he replied, turning away.
It was she who was making him feel schoolboyish again. She looked so
capable and so assured, standing outside the byre-door, with a small
crock in her hands, that he felt that she was many years older than he
was, that she knew far more than he could hope to know for a long
time....
She put the crock down and came close to him and took hold of his arm.
"What ails you?" she said again, peering up into his face and smiling at
him.
He looked at her with sulky eyes. "You're making fun of me," he said.
She shook his arm and pushed him. "G'long with you!" she said. "A big
lump of a fella like you, actin' the chile!..." She picked up the crock
and handed it to him. "Here," she said, "carry that into the house, will
you, an' ask me aunt Kate to give you the full of it with yella male,
an' then hurry back. I'll be up in the hayloft," she added, moving off.
3
He laid the crock of yellow meal down on a wooden box in the barn, and
then climbed up the ladder to the hayloft.
"Wheesht," she said, holding up her hand. "There's a hen sittin' here,
an' I don't want her disturbed!" He climbed into the loft as quietly as
he could. "They'll soon be out now," she went on, "the lovely wee
things!... What did you come here for, the day?"
"To see you!" he answered.
"Then that was a lie about comin' to see my Uncle Matt?"
He nodded his head.
"I thought as much. Sit down here by the side of me!"
He sat down on the hay where she bade him. "Are you angry with me?" he
asked, making a wisp of hay.
"What would I be angry for?"
He did not know. Last night, perhaps, when he had kissed her?
"Oh, that!" she said. "Sure, that's nothin'!"
"Nothing?"
Why, then, had she left him so suddenly? She must have known how much he
had to say to her....
"Look at the time it was!" she exclaimed. "An' me havin' to get up at
five an' let the cows out.... _You_ weren't up at no five, I'll bet!" He
had risen at eight. "Eight!" she exclaimed. "That's no hour of the day
to be risin'. If you were married to me, I'd make you skip long before
that hour!"
Married to her!...
"Sheila," he whispered, taking hold of her arm.
"Well?" she said, thrusting a hay-stalk into his hair.
"I love you, Sheila!" he whispered, coming closer to her.
"Do you, indeed?" she answered.
"I do, Sheila, I do...."
He raised himself so that he was kneeling in front of her. His shyness
had left him now, and the words were pouring rapidly out of his mouth.
"The minute I saw you in the door of the schoolroom that night, I was in
love with you. I was, indeed!"
"Were you?"
"Yes. I couldn't help it, Sheila, and the worst of it was I didn't know
what to say to you. And then, last night ... when we were walking up the
'loanie' together and I was holding your arm ... you know!... like
this...." He took hold of her arm as he spoke and pressed it in his....
"I felt like ... like...."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Like anything. You _will_ marry me, Sheila? You _do_ love
me?..."
She withdrew her arm from his and struck him lightly with a wisp of hay.
"You're in a terrible hurry all of a sudden!" she said. "One minute you
hardly know me, an' the next minute you're gettin' ready to be married
to me. You're a despert wee fella!"
_Wee fellow_ again!
"I'm not so very young," he said.
"What age are you?" she asked.
"I'm nearly seventeen," he replied.
She jumped up and stood over him. "God save us," she said, "that's the
powerful age. You'd nearly bate Methusaleh!"
He stood up beside her. "Now, you're laughing at me again," he
complained.
"No, I'm not," she answered.
She laid her hand on his shoulder and gripped it firmly, and stood thus,
looking at him intently. Then she drew him into her arms and kissed him.
"I like you quaren well," she said, holding him to her.
"Do you, Sheila?"
"Aye, of course I do, or I wouldn't be huggin' you like this, would I?
Did you bring the yella male?"
He nodded his head. "It's down below," he said.
"Dear, oh, dear," she sighed. "I've wasted a terrible lot of time on
you, Mr. Quinn!..."
"Call me 'Henry,'" he said.
"I'll call you 'Harry,'" she answered.
"You can call me anything you like!..."
She pinched his cheek. "You're a dear wee fella," she said. He did not
mind being called a "wee fella" now. "But you're keepin' me from my
work," she went on.
He seized her hand impetuously. "Take a day off," he said, "and we'll go
for a long walk together!"
She laughed at him. "You quality people is the great ones for talk," she
replied. "An' how could I take a day off an' me with my work to do?"
"Well, this evening then," he urged.
"There'll be the cows to milk!..."
"I'll come and help you."
"But sure you can't milk!"
"No, I can't milk, of course, but I can do anything else you want done.
I can hold things and ... and run messages ... and just help you. Can't
I? And then, when you've finished your work, we'll go and sit in the
clover field...."
"An' get our death of cold sittin' on the damp ground. Dear O, but men
talks quare blether!"
He tried to persuade her that dew was not damping. ... "Ah, quit!" she
exclaimed ... and then he begged for her company in a walk along the
Ballymena Road.
"I suppose I'll have to give in to you," she said. "You're a terrible
fella for coaxin'!"
She moved towards the trap where the head of the ladder showed, and
prepared to descend from the loft.
"What time will I come for you?" he asked, following her.
"Half-seven," she answered, going down the ladder. "I'll be well done my
work then!"
He stood above her, looking down through the trap. "We generally have
dinner at half-past seven," he said.
"You should have your dinner in the middle of the day, like us," she
answered, and added, decisively, "It's half-seven or never!"
"All right," he exclaimed, stooping down carefully and putting his feet
on a rung of the ladder. "I'll come for you then. I'll manage it
somehow."
4
He told his father that he did not want any dinner. John Marsh had
enquired about his headache, and Henry had said that it was better, but
that he thought he would like to be quiet that evening. He said, too,
that he had made up his mind to go for a long, lonely walk. "But what
about your dinner?" Mr. Quinn had said, and he had answered that he did
not want any. "If I'm hungry," he added, "I can have something before I
go to bed."
He felt vaguely irritated with John Marsh who first pestered him ...
that was the word Henry used in his mind ... with sympathy and then
lamented that his headache would prevent him from helping that evening
at the Gaelic language class. "Still, I suppose well manage," he ended
regretfully.
"I don't suppose there'll be many at the class," Henry replied almost
sneeringly.
"Why?" said Marsh.
"Oh, well," Henry went on, "after last night!..."
"You mean that they think more of dancing than they do of the language?"
Marsh interrupted, and there was so much of anxiety in the tone of his
voice that Henry regretted that he had sneered at him.
"Well, that's natural," he said, trying to think of some phrase that
would mitigate the unkindness of what he was saying, and failing to
think of it. "After all, it _is_ much more fun to dance than to learn
grammar...."
"But this is the _Irish_ language," Marsh persisted, as if the Irishness
of the tongue transcended the drudgery of learning grammar.
Mr. Quinn crumpled the _Northern Whig_ and threw it at Marsh's head.
"You an' your oul' language!" he exclaimed. "What good'll it do anybody
but a lot of professors. Here's the world tryin' to get Latin an' Greek
out of the universities, an' here's you tryin' to get another dead
language into them!"
There followed an argument that developed into a wrangle, in the midst
of which Henry, flinging a consolatory speech to Marsh, escaped from the
house. "You'll get all the keen ones to-night," he said. "That'll be
some consolation to you!"
It was too soon to go up to Hamilton's farm. The dairy work would hardly
be done, and there would be the evening meal to prepare, and he knew
that he would not be welcome in the middle of that activity. He did not
wish to return to the room where his father and John Marsh were arguing
about the Irish language, nor did he wish to go and sit in his own room
until the time came to go and meet Sheila. If Hannah were to make some
sandwiches for him, in case he should feel hungry, he would go to the
bottom fields and lie in the long grass by the brook until it was time
to meet Sheila. He went downstairs to the kitchen and found Hannah busy
with the night's dinner.
"Well, Master Henry!" she said.
He told her of his headache and his desire for a solitary walk, and
asked her to cut sandwiches for him.
"I will with a heart an' a half," she said, "when I've strained these
potatoes. Sit down there a while an' content yourself till I've
done...."
He took the sandwiches from her and went off to the bottom fields. The
sky was full of mingled colours and long torn clouds that looked like
flights of angels, and hidden in the fold of one great white strip of
cloud that stretched up into the heavens, the sickle moon shone faintly,
waiting for the setting sun to disappear so that she should shine out
with unchallenged refulgence. He stood a while to look at the glory of
the sky, and munched his sandwiches while he looked. He had always had a
sensuous love of fine shapes and looks; the big bare branches of an old
tree showing darkly against a winter sky or the changing colour of
clouds at sunset, transfused at one moment to the look of filmy gold as
the sun sent his rays shining upwards, darkened at the next, when the
sun had vanished, so that they had the colour of smoke and made a stain
as if God had drawn a sooty thumb across the sky; but now his
sensuousness had developed, and he found himself full of admiration for
things which hitherto he had not observed. That evening, when the
cart-horses were led home, he had suddenly perceived that their great
limbs were beautiful. He had stood still in the lane to watch them going
by, and had liked the heavy plunging sound of their hoofs on the rough
road, and the faded look of the long hair that hung about their houghs;
but more than these he had liked the great round limbs of them, so full
of strength. He remembered that once at Boveyhayne, Mary Graham and he
had argued about the sea-gulls. She had "just loved" them, but he had
qualified his admiration. He liked the long, motionless flight of the
gulls as they circled through the air, and the whiteness of their
shapely bodies and the grey feathers on their backs, but he disliked the
small heads they had and the long yellow beaks and the little black eyes
and the harsh cry ... and he had almost sickened when he saw them
feeding on the entrails that were thrown to them by the fishermen....
But now, since he had fallen in love with Sheila Morgan, it seemed to
him that everything in the world was beautiful; and lying here in the
long grass, he yielded himself to the loveliness of the earth. He lay
back and closed his eyes and listened to the sounds that filled the air,
the noise of pleased, tired things at peace and the subdued songs of
roosting birds. He could hear shouts from the labourers in the distant
hayfields and, now and then, the slow rattle of a country cart as it
moved clumsily along the uneven roads that led from the fields to the
farmyards. There was a drowsy buzz of insects that mingled oddly with
the burble of the stream and the lowing of the cattle.... He lay there
and listened to a lark as it flew up from the ground with a queer,
agitated flutter of wings, watching it as it ascended high and higher
until it became a tiny speck, and then he sat up and watched it as it
descended again, still flying with that queer, agitated flutter of
wings, until it came near the earth, when its song suddenly ceased and
it changed its flight and fell swiftly to its nest.
He rose up from the grass and walked over to the stream and dipped his
hands into it, splashing the water on to the grass beside him. The
sunlight shone on his hand and made the wet hairs shine like golden
threads....
5
He was kneeling there at the side of the stream, looking at the wet glow
of his hand when the fear of death came to him, and instantly he was
terrified when he thought that he might die. The consciousness of life
was in him and the desire to continue and to experience and to know were
quickening and increasing. It seemed to him then that if he were to die
at that moment, he would have been cheated of his inheritance, that he
would have a grievance against God for all eternity.... He moved away
from the brook and sank back into the grass, shaken and disconcerted.
Until that moment, he had never thought of death except as a vague,
inevitable thing that came to all creatures some time ... generally when
they were old and had lost the savour of life. He had never seen a dead
man or woman and he was unfamiliar with the rites of burial. He knew,
indeed, that people die before they grow old, that children die, but
until that moment, death had not become a personal thing, a thing that
might descend on _him_....
He shut his eyes and tried to dose the thought of death out of his mind,
but it would not go away. He began to sing disconnected staves of songs
in the hope that he would forget that he was mortal.... There was a song
that Bridget Fallon had taught him when he was a child, and now after
many years, he was singing it again:
There were three lords came out of Spain,
They came to court my daughter Jane.
My daughter Jane, she is too young,
And cannot bear your flatt'ring tongue.
So fare you well, make no delay,
But come again another day....
But the thought of death still lay heavy on his mind, and so he got up
and left the field and hurried along the road that led to Hamilton's
farm.
"Oh, my God," he cried to himself, "if I were to die now, just when I'm
beginning to know things!..."
He began to run, as if he would run away from his own thoughts. The torn
strips of clouds, that had looked like molten gold, were now darkening,
and their darkness seemed ominous to him. The steepness of the "loanie"
made him pant and presently he slackened his pace and slowed-down to
walking. His eyes felt hot and stiff in their sockets and when he put
his hand on his forehead, he felt that it was wet with sweat.
"I'm frightened," he said to himself. "Scared!..."
He wiped his forehead and then crumpled his handkerchief in his hot
palms.
"I'm rattled," he went on to himself. "That's what I am. Oh, my God, I
_am_ scared!..."
He looked about him helplessly. He could see a man tossing hay in a
field near by, and he watched the rhythmical movement of his fork as it
rose and fell.
"I couldn't die now," he thought. "I _couldn't_. It wouldn't be fair. I
wouldn't let myself die ... I wouldn't!"
And as suddenly as the fear of death had fallen on him, it left him.
"Good Lord!" he said aloud, "what an ass I am!"
6
Sheila was sitting on a stool in front of the door. Her uncle had gone
to bed, and her aunt, tired after her day's work and her attendance on
the sick man, was lying on the sofa, dosing.
"I wondered were you comin'," Sheila said as he came up to her.
"You knew I'd come," he answered.
"I didn't know anything of the sort," she exclaimed, getting up from the
stool. "Fellas has disappointed me before this."
"Have you had other sweethearts?" he asked, frowning.
She laughed at him. "I've had boys since I was that high," she replied,
holding out her hand to indicate her height when she first had a
sweetheart. "What are you lookin' so sore about? D'ye think no one never
looked at me 'til you came along? For dear sake!"
She rallied him. Was she the first girl he had ever loved? Was she? Ah,
he was afraid to answer. As if she did not know! Of course, she was not
the first, and dear knows she might not be the last....
"I'll never love any one but you, Sheila!..."
"Wheesht will you, or my aunt'll hear you!"
"I don't care who hears me!..."
"Well, I do then. Come on down the loanie a piece, an' you can say what
you like. I love the way you talk ... you've got the quare nice English
accent!"
He followed her across the farmyard and through the gate into the
"loanie."
"My father wouldn't like to hear you saying that," he said.
"Why?" she asked. "Does he not like the English way of talkin'?"
"Indeed, he does not. He loves the way you talk, the way all the Ulster
people talk!..."
"What! Broad an' coarse like me?" she interrupted.
Henry nodded his head. "He doesn't think it's coarse," he said. "He
thinks it's fine!"
Sheila pondered on this for a few moments. "He must be a quare man, your
da!" she said.
They walked to the foot of the "loanie" and then turned along the
Ballymena road.
"Does he know you come out with me?" she said.
"Who?" he answered.
"Your da."
"No. You see!..." He did not know what to say. It had not occurred to
him to talk about Sheila to his father, and he realised now that if it
had, he probably would not have done so.
"But if you're goin' to marry me?..." Sheila was saying.
"Oh, of course," he replied. "Of course, I shall have to tell him about
you, won't I? I just didn't think of it.... Then you're going to marry
me, Sheila?" he demanded, turning to her quickly.
"Och, I don't know," she answered. "I'm too young to be married yet, an'
you're younger nor me, an' mebbe we'd change our minds, an' anyway
there's a quare differs atween us."
"What difference is there between us?" he said, indignantly.
"Aw, there's a quare deal of differs," she maintained. "A quare deal.
You're a quality-man!..."
"As if that matters," he interrupted.
"It matters a quare lot," she said.
They sat down on a bank by the roadside and he took hold of her hand and
pressed it, and then he put his arm about her and drew her head down on
to his shoulder.
"Somebody'll see you," she whispered.
"There's no one in sight," he replied.
"Do you love me an awful lot?" she asked, looking up at him.
"You know I do."
"More nor anybody in the world?"
He bent over and kissed her. "More than anybody in the world," he
answered.
"You're not just lettin' on?" she continued.
"Letting on!"
"Aye. Makin' out you love me, an' you on'y passin' the time, divertin'
yourself?"
He was angry with her. How could she imagine that he would pretend to
love her?...
"I do love you," he insisted, "and I'll always love you. I feel that ...
that!..."
He fumbled for words to express his love for her, but could not find
any.
"Ah, well," she said, "it doesn't matter whether you're pretendin' or
not. I'm quaren happy anyway!"
She struggled out of his embrace and put her arms round his neck and
kissed him. She remained thus with her arms round him and her face close
to his, gazing into his eyes as if she were searching for something....
"What are you thinkin', Sheila?" he asked.
"Nothin'," she said, and she drew him to her and kissed him again.
"I wish I was older," he exclaimed presently.
"Why?"
"Because I could marry you, then, and we'd go away and see all the
places in the world...."
"I'd rather go to Portrush for my honeymoon," she said. "I went there
for a trip once!"
"We'd go to Portrush too. We'd go to all the places. I'd take you to
England and Scotland and Wales, and then we'd go to France and Spain and
Italy and Africa and India and all the places."
"I'd be quaren tired goin' to all them places," she murmured.
"And then when we'd seen everything, we'd come back to Ireland and start
a farm...."
She sat up and smiled at him. "An' keep cows an' horses," she said.
"Yes, and pigs and sheep and hens and ... all the things they have.
Ducks and things!"
"I'd love that," she said, delighted.
"We'd go up to Belfast every now and then, and look at the shops and buy
things!...."
"An' go to the theatre an' have our tea at an eatin'-house?"
"We'd go to an hotel for our tea," he said.
"Oh, no, I'd be near afeard of them places. I wasn't reared up to that
sort of place, an' I wouldn't know what to do, an' all the people
lookin' at me, an' the waiters watchin' every bite you put in your
mouth, 'til you'd near think they'd grudged you your food!"
They made plans over which they laughed, and they mocked each other,
teasing and pretending to anger, and he pulled her hair and kissed her,
and she slapped his cheeks and kissed him.
"I'd give the world," she said, "to have my photograph took in a
low-neck dress. Abernethy does them grand!..." She stopped suddenly and
turned her head slightly from him in a listening attitude.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Wheesht!" she replied, and then added, "D'ye hear anything?"
He listened for a moment or two, and then said, "Yes, it sounds like a
horse gallopin'...." They listened again, and then she proceeded. "You'd
near think it was runnin' away," she said.
The sound of hooves rapidly beating the ground and the noise of
quickly-revolving wheels came nearer.
"It _is_ runnin' away," she said, getting up from the bank and moving
into the middle of the road where she stood looking in the direction
from which the sound came.
"Don't stand in the road," Henry shouted to her. "You might get hurt."
She did not move nor did she appear to hear what he was saying. He had a
strange sensation of shrinking, a desire not to be there, but he subdued
it and went to join her in the middle of the road.
"Here it is," she said, turning to him and pointing to where the road
made a sudden swerve.
He looked and saw a galloping horse, head down, coming rapidly towards
them. There was a light cart behind it, bumping and swaying so that it
seemed likely to be overturned, but there was no driver. It was still
some way off, and he had time to think that he ought to stop the
frightened animal. If it were allowed to go on, it might kill some one
in the village. There would be children playing about in the street....
"I'll stop it," he said to himself, and half-consciously he buttoned his
coat.
He tried to remember just what he ought to do. William Henry Matier had
told, him not to stand right in front of a runaway horse, but to move to
the side so that he could run with it. He would do that, and then he
would spring at its head and haul the reins so tightly that the bit
would slip back into the horse's mouth.... He moved from the middle of
the road, and was conscious that Sheila had moved, too. His breath was
coming quickly, and he felt again that sense of shrinking, that curious
desire to run away. He saw a wheel of the cart lurch up as it passed
over a stone in the road, and instantly panic seized him. "My God," he
thought, "if that had been me!... He saw himself flung to the ground by
the maddened horse and the wheel passing over his body, crunching his
flesh and bones. He had the sensation of blood gushing from his mouth,
and for a moment or two he felt as if he had actually suffered the
physical shock of being broken beneath the cart wheel....
"I can't!" he muttered, and then he turned and ran swiftly to the side
of the road and climbed on to the bank, struggling to break through the
thorn hedge at the top of it. His hands were torn and bleeding and once
he slipped and fell forward and his face was scratched by the thorns....
7
He had thrown himself over the hedge and had lain there, with his eyes
closed, trembling. He was crying now, not with fright, but with remorse.
He had failed in courage, and perhaps the horse had dashed into the
village and killed a child.... He wondered what Sheila would say, and
then he started up, his eyes wide with horror, thinking that perhaps
Sheila had been killed. He climbed up the bank, and jumped over the low
hedge into the roadway. There were some men approaching him, coming
from the direction in which the horse had come, but he did not pay any
heed to them. He began to run towards the village. A little distance
from the place where he and Sheila had stood to watch the oncoming
animal, the road made another bend, and when he had reached this bend,
he met Sheila.
"You needn't hurry _now_," she said.
He did not hear the emphasis she laid on the word "now." "Are you all
right?" he asked anxiously.
She did not answer, but strode on past him.
"Are you all right?" he repeated, following after her.
"It's a bit late to ask that," she said, turning and facing him. "I
might 'a' been killed for all you cared, so long as you were safe
yourself!"
He shrank back from her, unable to answer, and the men came up, before
she could say anything else to him.
"Did ye see the horse runnin' away?" one of them said to her.
"You'll find it down the road a piece," she replied. "It's leg's broke.
It tum'led an' fell. Yous'll have to shoot it, I s'pose!"
They supposed they would. The driver had been drinking and in his
drunkenness he had thrashed the poor beast. ... "But he'll never thrash
another horse, the same lad," said the man who told them of the
circumstances. "He was pitched out on his head, an' he wasn't worth
picking up when they lifted him. Killed dead, an' him as drunk as a
fiddler! Begod, I wouldn't like to die that way! It 'ud be a quare thing
to go afore your Maker an' you stinkin' wi' drink!"
The men went on, leaving Sheila and Henry together. She stood watching
the men, oblivious seemingly of Henry's presence, until he put out his
hand and touched hers.
"Sheila!" he said.
She snatched her hand away from him. "Lave me alone!" she exclaimed, and
moved to the side of the road further from him.
"I meant to try and stop it," he said, "but somehow I couldn't I ... I
did my best!"
He had followed her and was standing before her, pleading with her, but
she would not look at him. He stood for a while, thinking of something
to say, and then put out his hand again and touched hers. "Sheila," he
said.
She swung round swiftly and struck him in the face with her clenched
fist.
"How dare you touch me!" she cried and her eyes were full of fury.
"Sheila!"
"Don't lay a finger on me ... you ... you coward you! You were afeard to
stop it, an' you run away, cryin' like a wee ba!" He tried to come to
her again, but she shrunk away from him. "Don't come a-near me," she
shouted at him. "I couldn't thole you near me. I'd be sick!..."
She stopped in her speech and walked away from him. He stared after her,
unable to think or move. He could feel the smart of her blow tingling in
his face, and he put his hand up mechanically to his cheek, and as he
did so, he saw that his hand was still trembling. He could see her
walking quickly on, her head erect and her hands clenched tightly by her
side. He wanted to run after her, but he could not move. He tried to
call to her, but his lips would not open....
The light was fading out of the sky, and the night was covering up the
hills and fields, but still he stood there, staring up the road along
which she had passed out of his sight. People passed him in the dusk and
greeted him, but he did not answer, nor was he aware when they turned to
look at him. Once, he was conscious of a loud report and a clatter of
feet, but he did not think of it or of what it meant. In his mind,
smashing like the blows of a hammer, came ceaselessly the sound of
Sheila's voice, calling him a coward....
8
It was quite dark when he moved away. His mouth was very dry and his
eyes were hot and sore, and his legs dragged as he walked. He was tired
and miserable and he had a frightful sense of age. That morning he had
wakened to manhood, full of pleasure in the beauty of living and growing
things; now, he was like an old man, longing for death but afraid to
lose his life. There were stars above him, but no moon, and the tall
trunks of the trees stood up like black phantoms before him, moaning and
crying in the wind. He could hear the screech-owls hooting in the dark,
and the lonely yelp of a dog on a farm.
He began to hurry, walking quickly and then running, afraid to look
back, almost afraid to look forward ... and as he ran, suddenly he fell
on something soft. His hands slipped on wetness that smelt....
In the darkness he had fallen over the body of the horse which had been
shot while he was standing where Sheila had left him. He gaped at it
with distended eyes, and then, with a loud cry, he jumped up and fled
home, with fear raging in his heart.