1
Mr. Quinn had become more absorbed in the Irish Agricultural
Co-Operative Movement, and he used the home farm for experiments in
scientific cultivation. His talk, when Henry returned home, was mainly
about a theory of tillage which he called "continuous cropping," and it
was with difficulty that Henry could persuade him to talk about
Gilbert's proposal that he should join the household in Bloomsbury.
"I'm glad you've come home, Henry," he said after breakfast on the
morning following Henry's return. "This system of continuous cropping is
splendid, but it wants careful attention. You've got to adjust it
continually to circumstances ... you can't follow any rules about it ...
and if you'll just stay here and help me with it, we'll be able to do
wonders with the home farm!"
Henry did not wish to settle in Ballymartin, at all events not for a
long time.
"I want to go to London, father!" he said.
"London! What for?" Mr. Quinn exclaimed, and then before Henry could say
why he wished to go to London, he added, "You'll have to settle on
something, Henry. I always meant you to take over the estate fairly
soon, to work things out with me. Don't you want to do that?"
"Not particularly, father!"
"Well, what's to become of you, then? Do you want to go into the Army?
It's a bit late!..."
"No, father!"
"Or the Navy? But you should have gone to Osborne long ago if you wanted
to do that!"
Henry shook his head.
"Well, what do you want to do. Are you thinkin' of the law?"
"I don't care about the law, father!..."
"I don't care about it myself, Henry. I was no good at it, an' mebbe
that's the reason I think so little of it. But we have to have lawyers
all the same. It would be a good plan now to sentence criminals to be
lawyers, wouldn't it? 'The sentence of the Court is that you be taken
from this place an' made to practise at the Bar for the rest of your
natural life, an' may the Lord have mercy on your soul!' Begod, Henry,
that's a great notion!"
Henry interrupted his father's fancy. "I want to write," he said.
"Write!" Mr. Quinn exclaimed. "Write what?"
"Books. Novels, I think!..."
Mr. Quinn put down his paper and gaped at his son. "Good God," he said,
"an author!"
"Yes, father."
"You're daft, Henry!"
Henry got up from his chair, and went across to his father and took hold
of his shoulder affectionately. "No, father, I'm not," he answered.
"Yes, you are, I tell you. You're clean cracked!..."
"I've written one novel already."
Mr. Quinn threw out his hands in a despairing gesture. "Oh, well," he
said, "if you've committed yourself.... Where is it?"
"It's upstairs in my room. The manuscript, I mean. Of course, it hasn't
been published yet."
A servant came into the room to clear away the remains of the breakfast,
and Mr. Quinn got up from his chair and walked through the open window
on to the terrace.
"What's it about?" he said to Henry who had followed him.
"Oh, love!" Henry answered, seating himself beside his father.
Mr. Quinn grunted. "Huh!" he said, gazing intently at the gravel. "Is it
sloppy?"
"I don't think so, father. At least, I hope it isn't!"
"Or dirty?"
"No, it isn't dirty. I _know_ it isn't dirty," Henry said very
emphatically.
Mr. Quinn did not answer for a while. He got up from his seat and walked
to the end of the terrace where he busied himself for a few moments in
tending to a rosebush. Then he returned to the seat where Henry had
remained, and said, "Will you let me read it, Henry?"
"Why, yes, father. Of coarse, I will," Henry answered, rising and moving
towards the house. "I'd like you to read it," he added. "Perhaps you'll
tell me what you think of it?"
"I will," Mr. Quinn replied, closing his lips down tightly.
"I'll just go and get it," Henry said, and he went into the house.
Mr. Quinn remained seated on the terrace, looking rigidly in front of
him, until Henry returned, carrying a pile of manuscript. He took the
paper from him without speaking, and glanced at the first sheet on which
Henry had written in a large, clear hand:
DRUSILLA: A NOVEL
BY
HENRY QUINN.
and then he turned the page and read what was written on the second
sheet:
TO
MY FATHER
He looked at the dedication for a longer time than he had looked at the
title-page, and his hand trembled a little as he held the paper.
"I thought you wouldn't mind, father!" Henry said.
"Mind!" Mr. Quinn replied. "No, I don't, Henry. I ... I like it, my son.
Thanks, Henry. I ..." He got up and moved quickly towards the window.
"I'll just go in an' start readin' it now," he said.
2
He returned the manuscript to Henry on the following afternoon. "I've
read worse," he said.
He walked to the end of the terrace and then walked back again. Then he
shouted for William Henry Matier, who came running to him. He pointed to
a daisy on the lawn and asked the gardener what the hell he meant by not
keeping the weeds down.
"Ah, sure, sir!..."
"Root the damn thing up," Mr. Quinn shouted at him, "an' don't let me
see another about the place or I'll shoot the boots off you! I don't
know under God what I keep you for!"
"Now, you don't mean the half you say, sir!..."
"You're not worth ninepence a week!"
"Aw, now," said Matier, who knew his master, "I'm worth more'n that,
sir!"
"How much are you worth? Tell me that, William Henry Matier!"
William Henry rooted up the daisy, and then said that he wouldn't like
to put too high a price on himself....
"You'd be a fool if you did," Mr. Quinn interrupted.
" ... but I'd mebbe be worth about double what you named yourself, sir!"
"Eighteenpence!" Mr. Quinn exclaimed.
"Aye, that or a bit more. Were you wantin' anything else, sir!" He
winked heavily at Henry as he turned away.
"You're not worth the food you eat," Mr. Quinn said.
"Aw, now, sir, you never know what anybody's worth 'til you have need of
them," Matier replied. "A man mightn't be worth a damn to you one day,
an' he'd mebbe be worth millions to you the next!"
"There's little fear of you bein' worth millions to any one. Run on now
an' do your work if you've any work to do!" Mr. Quinn turned to Henry as
the gardener went off. "I suppose you'll be wantin' to live in London
for the rest of your life?"
"I should like to go there for a while anyway, father!"
"Huh! All you writin' people seem to think there's no life to be seen
anywhere but in London. As if people hadn't got bowels here as well as
in town!"
"I don't think that, father!..."
"Oh, well, it doesn't matter whether you think it or not, you'll not be
happy 'til you get to London, I suppose. You'll stay here a wee while
anyway, won't you? You've only just come home, an' it's a long time
since I saw you last!"
"I'll stay as long as you like, father."
"Very well, then. I'll tell you when I've had enough of your company an'
then you can go off to your friends. How much money do you think you'll
need in London? Don't ask for too much. I need every ha'penny I have for
the work. You've no notion what a lot it costs to experiment wi' land,
an' I'm not as rich as you might imagine!"
Henry hesitated. He had never talked about money with his father, and he
had a curious shyness about doing so now. "I don't know," he replied.
"Would two hundred a year be too much?..."
"I'll spare you two hundred an' fifty!"
"Thank you, father. It's awfully good of you!"
"Ah, wheesht with you! Sure, why wouldn't a man be good to his own son.
I suppose now you want to hear what I think of your book?"
Henry smiled self-consciously. "Yes, I should like to know your opinion
of it. I thought at first you didn't think much of it. You didn't say
anything!..."
"I'll give you a couple of years to improve it," Mr. Quinn answered.
"If you can't make it better in that time, you're no good!"
"I suppose not."
"An' don't hurry over it. Go out an' look about you a bit. There's a lot
of stuff in your story that wouldn't be there if you had any gumption.
Get gumption, Henry!"
"I'll try, father. Of course, I know I'm very inexperienced...."
"You are, my son, an' what's more you're tellin' everybody how little
you know in that book of yours. Man, dear, women aren't like that!...
Well, never mind! You'll find out for yourself soon enough. Mind, I
don't mean to say that there aren't some good things in the book. There
are ... plenty! If there weren't, I wouldn't waste my breath talkin' to
you about it. But there are things in it that are just guff, Henry, just
guff. The kind of romantic slush that a young fellow throws off when he
first realises that women are ... well, women, damn it! ... I wish to
God, you would write a book about continuous croppin'! Now, there's a
subject for a good book! There's none of your damned love about
that!..."
3
He had not seen Sheila Morgan since the morning after he had failed to
stop the runaway horse. Many times, indeed, she had been in his mind,
and often at Trinity, in the long sleepless nights that afflict a young
man who is newly conscious of his manhood, he had turned from side to
side of his bed in an impotent effort to thrust her from his thoughts.
He made fanciful pictures of her in his imagination, making her very
beautiful and gracious. He saw her, then, with long dark hair that had
the lustre of a moonless night of stars, and he imagined her, sitting
close to him, so that her hair fell about his head and shoulder and he
could feel the slow movement of her breasts against his side. He would
close his eyes and think of her lips on his, and her heart beating
quickly while his thumped so loudly that it seemed that every one must
hear it ... and thinking thus, he would clench his fists with futile
force and swear to himself that he would go to her and make her marry
him. Once, when he had spent an afternoon at the Zoo in the Phoenix
Park, he had lingered for a long while in the house where the tigers are
caged because, suddenly, it seemed to him that the graceful beast with
the bright eyes resembled Sheila. It moved so easily, and as it moved,
its fine skin rippled over its muscles like running water....
"I don't suppose she'd like to be called a tigress," he had thought to
himself, laughing as he did so, "but that's what she's like. She's
beautiful...."
And later in that afternoon, he thought he saw a resemblance between
Mary Graham and a brown squirrel that sat on a branch and cracked nuts,
throwing the shells away carelessly ... the Mary he had known when he
first went to Boveyhayne, not the Mary he had seen on his last visit.
He wondered whether Sheila had altered much, and then he wondered what
change four years had made in Mary Graham. Sheila, who had been dominant
in his mind in his first year at Trinity, had receded a little into the
background by the time he had quitted Dublin, but Mary, never very
prominent, had retained her place, neither gaining nor losing position.
It was odd, he thought to himself, that he had not been to Boveyhayne in
the four years he had been at T.C.D. Mrs. Graham had invited him there
several times, but he had not been able to accept the invitations: once
his father had been ill, and he had had to hurry to Portrush, where he
was staying, and remain with him until he was well again; and another
time he had been with Gilbert Farlow at his home in Kent; and another
time had agreed to go tramping in Connacht with Marsh and Galway. Ninian
and Gilbert and Roger had spent a holiday at Ballymartin.... Ninian took
a whole week to realise that he was in Ulster and not in Scotland, and
Gilbert begged hard for the production of a typical Irishman who would
say "God bless your honour!" and "Bedad!" and "Bejabers!" and pretended
not to believe that there were not any "typical Irishmen" ... and went
away, vowing that they would compel Mr. Quinn to invite them to stay
with him in the next vac. It was then that Ninian decided that he would
like to be a shipbuilder. Mr. Quinn had taken them to Belfast to see the
launch of a new liner, and Tom Arthurs had invited them all to join the
luncheon party when the launch was over. The Vicereine had come from
Dublin to cut the ribbon which would release the great ship and send it
moving like a swan down the greasy slips into the river; and Tom Arthurs
had conducted her through the Yard, telling her of the purpose of this
machine and that engine until the poor lady began to be dubious of her
capacity to launch the liner. There were other guides, explaining, as
Tom Arthurs explained, the functions of the Yard to the visitors, but
Ninian had contrived to attach himself to Tom Arthurs and he listened to
him as he talked, as simply as was possible, of the way in which great
ships are built. Thereafter, Ninian had tongue for none but Tom Arthurs,
and he told him, when the party was over and the guests were leaving the
Yard, that he would like to work in the Island. Tom had doubted whether
Cambridge was the proper preparation for shipbuilding.... "I was out of
my apprenticeship when I was your age," he said ... but he said that
Ninian could think about it more seriously and then come to him when his
time at Cambridge was up.
"I'm thinking seriously of it now," said Ninian.
"All right, my boy!" Tom Arthurs answered, laughing, and slapped him on
the back. "We'll see what we can do for you!"
And Ninian, flushing like a girl, went away full of happiness, and soon
afterwards began to imitate Tom Arthurs' Ulster speech in the hope that
people would think he was related to the shipbuilder or, at all events,
a countryman of his.
It was odd, indeed, that Henry had not seen Mary in that time, but it
was still more odd that he had not seen Sheila. Matt Hamilton had died
soon after Henry had entered Trinity, but Mrs. Hamilton still had the
farm which, people understood, was to be left to Sheila when her aunt
died. He had not cared to go to the farm ... a mixture of pride and
shyness prevented him from doing so ... but he had hoped to meet her on
the roads about Ballymartin. "Perhaps by this time," he said to himself,
"she will have forgotten my funk!" But although he frequently loitered
in the roads about the "loanie," he never met her, and it was not until
he said some casual things to William Henry Matier that he discovered
that she was not at the farm. "I heerd tell she was visitin' friends in
Bilfast!" Matier said, and with that he had to be content. Ninian and
Gilbert and Roger were at Ballymartin then, and he had little
opportunity to mourn over her absence; indeed, when he remembered that
they were with him, he was glad that she was not at the farm: their
presence would have made difficulties in the way of his intercourse with
her. He would try to be alone at Ballymartin, in the next vacation, and
then he would be able to bring her to his will again. But he did not
spend the next vacation at home, and so, with this and other absences
from Ballymartin, he was unable to see her for the whole of his time at
Trinity. Neither he nor his father had spoken of her since the day when
Mr. Quinn had solemnly led him to the library to rebuke him for his
sweethearting. Mr. Quinn, indeed, had almost forgotten about Henry's
lovemaking with Sheila, and when he met the girl and remembered that
there had been lovemaking between his son and her, he thought to himself
that Henry had probably completely forgotten her....
He wished to see her again, and his desire became so strong that he
started to walk across the fields to the "loanie" that led to
Hamilton's farm before he was aware of what he was about. His mind
filled again with the visions he had had of her at Trinity, and he
imagined that he saw her every now and then hiding behind a tree, ready
to spring out on him and startle him with a loud whoop, or running from
him and laughing as she ran....
4
He met her in the "loanie," and for a few moments he did not recognise
her. She was sitting on the grass, in the shade of a hedge, huddling a
baby close to her breast, and he saw that she was suckling it.
"Oh, Henry, is that you?" she said, starting up hurriedly so that the
baby could not suck. She drew her blouse clumsily together, but the
fretful child would not be pacified until she had started to feed it
again, and so she resumed her seat on the grass.
"I didn't know you were back," she said, holding the baby up to her.
"Are you here for long?"
He did not answer immediately. He had not yet completely realised that
this was Sheila whom he had been eager to marry, and then when he
understood at last that this indeed was she, something inside him kept
exclaiming, "But she's got a baby!" and he wondered why she was feeding
it.
"Are you married, Sheila?" he said.
She laughed at him, and answered, "That's a quare question to be askin',
an' me with this in my arms!" She looked at the baby as she spoke.
"I didn't know you were married," he replied. "I was coming up to the
farm to see you!"
"I've been married this year past," she said.
"I didn't know," he murmured. "No one told me!..."
And suddenly he saw that her face was coarser than it had been when he
loved her. Her hair was tied untidily about her head, and he could see
that her hands, as she held the child, were rough and red, and that her
nails were broken and misshapen. Her boots were loosely laced, and she
seemed to be sprawling....
"I'm all throughother," she said, as if she realised what was in his
mind and was anxious to excuse herself to him. "This wee tory hardly
gives me a minute's peace, an' my aunt's not so well as she was!"
He nodded his head, but did not speak.
"Is it a boy or a girl?" he asked after a while.
"It's a boy," she said, "an' the very image of his da. He's a lovely
child, Henry. Just look at him!"
He came nearer to her and looked at the baby who had his little fingers
at her breast as if he would prevent her from taking it from him. The
child, still sucking, looked up at him with greedy-sleepy eyes.
"Isn't he a gran' wee fella?" she went on, eyeing her son proudly.
"Whom did you marry?" he asked.
"You know him well," she answered. "Peter Logan that used to keep the
forge ... that's who I married. D'ye mind the way he could bend a bar of
iron with his two hands?..."
Henry remembered. "Doesn't he keep the forge now?" he asked.
"No, he sold it to Dan McKittrick when he married me. We needed a man on
the farm, an' he's gran' at it. There isn't a one in the place can bate
him at the reapin', an' you should see the long, straight furrows he can
plough. The child's the image of him, an' I declare by the way he's
tuggin' at me ... be quit, will you, you wee tory, an' not be hurtin' me
with your greed!... he'll be as strong as his da, an' mebbe stronger!"
"Are you stayin' long?" she said again.
"No," he answered. "I'm going to London!..."
"London! Lord bless us, that's a long way!"
"I'm going soon ... in a day or two," he went on, making his resolution
as he spoke. The sight of her bare breast embarrassed him, and he wanted
to go away quickly.
"You're a one for roamin' the world, I must say!" she said. "You're no
sooner here nor you're away again. Mebbe you'll come up an' see my aunt
... she was talkin' about you only last week ... an' Peter'd be right
an' glad to welcome you!"
"No, thanks, not to-day," he answered. "I've something to do at home ...
I'm sorry!..."
"But you said you were comin' to see me!..."
"I know, but I've just remembered something ... I'm sorry!" He was
speaking in a jerky, agitated manner and he began to move away as if he
were afraid that she would detain him. "I'll come another time," he
added.
"Well, you're the quare man," she said. "Anybody'd think you were afeard
of me, the hurry you're in to run away!"
He laughed nervously. "Of course, I'm not afraid of you," he exclaimed.
"Why should I be?"
"I don't know!" She looked at him for a few seconds, and then the
whimsical look that he remembered so well came into her eyes. "D'ye mind
the way you wanted to marry me, Henry?" she said.
"Yes ... yes! Ha, ha!"
"An' now I've this! It's a quaren funny, isn't it?"
"Funny?"
"Aye, the way things go. I wonder what sort of a child I'd a' had if I'd
married you!"
"I really don't know!... I'm afraid I must go now!"
"Well, good-bye, Henry! I'll mebbe see you again some time!"
She held out her hand to him and he took it, and then dropped it
quickly.
"Yes, perhaps," he answered, and added, "Good-bye!"
He went off quickly, not looking back until he had reached the foot of
the "loanie," and then he stood for a second or two to watch her. She
was busy with her baby again. He could see her white breast shining in
the sunlight, and her head bent over the sucking child.
"Well, I'm damned," he said to himself, as he hurried off.
And as he hurried home, his mind set on quitting Ballymartin as speedily
as possible, he remembered the casual way in which she had spoken of
their possibly meeting again. "I'll mebbe see you some time!" she had
said. So indifferent to him as that, she was, so happy in her love for
her husband whom he remembered as a great big, hairy, tanned man who
beat hot iron with heavy hammers and bent it into wheels and shoes for
horses.
"She takes more interest in that putty-faced brat of hers than she does
in me," he said to himself, angrily, and then, so swift were his changes
of mood, he began to laugh. "Of course, she does," he said aloud. "Why
shouldn't she? It's hers, isn't it?"
He remembered her young beauty and contrasted it with her appearance
when he saw her in the "loanie" with her child. In a few years, he
thought, she would be like any village woman, worn out, misshapen,
tired, with gnarled knuckles and thickened hands. Already she had begun
to neglect her hair....
"It's a damned shame," he murmured. "If she'd married me she'd have kept
her looks!..."
"But she wouldn't marry me," he went on. "I wasn't man enough for
her.... My God, I wish I was out of this!"
5
"Father," he said when he got home, "I'd like to go to London at once!"
"You can't go this minute, my son. There's no train the night!"
"I mean, I want to go as soon as possible!"
Mr. Quinn glanced sharply at him. "You're in a desperate hurry all of a
sudden," he said. "What's up?"
"Nothing, father, only I want to get to work, and I can't work here!..."
"Restless, are you? I was hopin' you'd give me a bit of your company a
while longer!..."
"I'm sorry, father!..."
"That's all right, my boy, that's all right. When do you want to go?"
"To-morrow!"
"You've only been home a short time.... Never mind! I'll come up to
Belfast an' see you off. There's a Co-operative Conference there the day
after the morra, an' I may as well go up with you as go up alone!"
Henry knew that his father was hurt by his sudden decision to leave
Ballymartin, and he felt sorry for the old man's disappointment, but he
felt, too, that he could not bear to stay near Hamilton's farm at
present, knowing that Sheila, whom he had loved and idealised, was
likely to meet him in the roads at any moment, a baby in her arms,
perhaps at her breast, and a husband somewhere near at hand.
"I must go," he told himself. "I must get over this...."
6
Mr. Quinn and he travelled to Belfast together on the following morning,
and they spent the hour before the steamer sailed for Liverpool in
pacing up and down the deck.
"You can write to me when you get to London," Mr. Quinn said, and Henry
nodded his head.
He was very conscious now of his father's disappointment, and although
he was determined to go to London, he was moved by the affectionate way
in which the old man tried to provide for his needs on the journey.
"Hap yourself well," he had said when they crossed the gangway on to the
boat. "These steamers never give you enough clothes on your bunk. I'd
put my overcoat on top of the quilt if I were you!..."
They stood for a time looking across the Lagan at the shipyard, and
talked about the possibility of Ninian Graham entering the shipbuilding
firm, and then they moved to the side of the boat that was against the
quay-wall. The hour at which the steamer was to depart was drawing near
and the number of passengers had increased. They could hear the noise of
the machinery as the cargo was lowered from the quay into the hold, and
now and then, the squealing of pigs as the drovers pushed them up the
gangways. A herd of cattle came through the sheds and stumbled in a
startled, stupid fashion on to the lower decks, while the drovers
thwacked them and shouted at them. There was a small crowd of people,
friends of passengers and casual onlookers, standing on the quay waiting
to see the ship go out, and some of them were shouting messages to their
friends. Henry had always liked to watch crowds at times such as this,
and often in Dublin, he had spent a while in Westland Row Station,
looking at the people who were going to England. He was so interested in
the crowd on the quay that he did not hear his father speaking to him.
"I want to speak to you, Henry," the old man said, and then receiving no
answer, he said again, "I want to speak to you, Henry!"
"Yes, father?" Henry answered, without looking up.
"Turn round a minute, Henry!..." He hesitated, and Henry turning round,
saw that his father was embarrassed.
"What is it, father?" he said.
"I just wanted to say something to you, Henry. You see, you're beginnin'
another life ... out of my control, if you follow me ... not that I ever
tried to boss you...."
"No, father, you've never done that. You've been awfully decent to me!"
"Ah, now, no more of that! I just wanted to say somethin' to you, only I
don't rightly know how to begin...." He fumbled for words and then, as
if making a reckless plunge, he blurted out, "Do you know much, Henry?"
"Know much?" Henry answered vaguely.
"Aye. About women an' things? Did you know any women in Dublin?"
"Oh, yes, a few!" Henry answered.
"Did ... did you have anything to do with them?"
"Anything to do with them!"
"Aye!"
Henry began to comprehend his father's questions. "Oh, I ... I kissed
one or two of them!" he said.
"Was that all?" Mr. Quinn's voice was so low that Henry had difficulty
in hearing him.
"Yes, father," he answered.
"You know, don't you, that there's other things than kisses? Or do you
not know it?"
Henry nodded his head.
"I'm ... I'm not interferin' with you, Henry. I'm not just askin' for
the sake of askin' ... but ... well, do you know anything about those
... things?"
He moved slightly as he spoke, as if, by moving, he could take the edge
off his question.
"I know about them, father. Something!" Henry said huskily, for his
father's questions embarrassed him strangely.
"You've never ... you've never!..."
"No, father!"
Mr. Quinn turned away and looked over the side of the boat. He seemed to
be watching a piece of orange peel which floated between the wall and
the side of the boat. The first bell of warning to friends of passengers
was sounded, and he turned sharply and looked at his son. "I'll have to
be goin' soon," he said.
"That's only the first bell, father," Henry replied. "There's plenty of
time yet!"
"Aye!" Mr. Quinn glanced about the deck which was now covered by
passengers. "You'll have plenty of company goin' over," he said.
"Yes!"
They were making conversation with difficulty. Mr. Quinn felt nervous
and a little unhappy because Henry was leaving him so soon, and Henry
felt disturbed because of the strange conversation he had just had with
his father. He had a shamed sense of intrusion into privacies.
"It's very interestin' to see a boat goin' out to sea," Mr. Quinn was
saying. "I used to come down here many's a time when I was a young
fellow just to watch the steamers goin' out. Did you ever stan' on top
of a hill an' watch a boat sailin' out to sea?"
"No, I don't remember doing that!"
"It's a fine sight, that! You see her lights shinin' in the dark a long
way off, but you can't see her, except mebbe the foam she makes, an'
begod you near want to cry. That's the way it affects me anyway....
Henry, if you ever get into any bother over the head of a woman, you'll
tell me, won't you, an' I'll stan' by you!" He said this so suddenly,
coming close to Henry as he said it, that Henry was startled. "You'll
not forget," he went on.
"No, father, I won't forget!"
"I've been wantin' to say that to you for a good while, but it's a hard
thing for a man to say to his own son. I could say it easier to somebody
else's son nor I can to you. London's a quare place for a young fella,
Henry, but it's no good preachin' to men about women ... no good at all.
The only thing you can do is to stan' by a man when he gets into bother.
That's all, except to hope to God he'll not disgrace his name if he's
your son. You know where to write to, Henry, if you need any help!...
Hilloa, there's the second bell!"
They could hear the sailors calling out "Any more for the shore!" and
the sound of hurried farewells and the shuffle of awkward feet along the
gangways.
"Good-bye, Henry!"
"Good-bye, father!"
"You'll not forget to write now an' awhile?"
"I'll write to you the minute I get to London!"
"Ah, don't hurry yourself! You'll mebbe be tired out when you arrive.
Just wait 'til the mornin', an' write at your leisure...."
"Hurry up, sir!" an impatient sailor said.
"Ah, sure, there's plenty of time, man! Good-bye, Henry! I believe I'm
the last one to go ashore. Well, so long!"
They shook hands, and then the old man went down the gangway.
"Any more for the shore?" the sailor shouted, unloosing the rope that
held the gangway fast to the ship. Then the gangway was cast off. A bell
rang, and in an instant the sound of the screws beating in the water was
heard. A shudder ran through the boat as the engines began to move, and
slowly the gap between the ship and the quay widened. Henry smiled at
his father, and the old man blinked and smiled back. The passengers
leant against the side of the boat and shouted farewells and messages to
their friends on shore. "Mind an' write!" "Remember me to every one,
will you!" "Tell Maggie I was askin' for her!" Then hats were waved and
handkerchiefs were floated like flags.... A woman stood near to Henry
and cried miserably to herself.... The ship swung into the middle of the
Lagan and began to move down towards the sea. Henry could still see his
father, standing under the yellow glare of a large lamp hanging from the
shed. He had taken off his hat, and was waving it to his son. It seemed
to Henry suddenly that the old man's hair was very grey and thin.... He
took out his handkerchief and waved it vigorously in response.
Somewhere in the steerage people were singing a hymn:
'Til we me .. ee .. eet, 'til we me .. eet,
'Til we meet at Je . e . su's feet ... Jesu's feet,
'Til we me .. ee .. eet, 'til we me .. eet,
God be with you 'til we meet again!
The slurring, sentimental sounds became extraordinarily human and moving
in the dusky glow, and he felt tempted to hum the words under his breath
in harmony with the singers in the steerage; but two men were standing
behind him, and he was afraid they would overhear him. He could hear one
of them saying to his companion, "I always say, eat as much as you can
stuff inside you, an' run the risk of bein' sick. Some people makes a
point of eatin' nothin' at all when they're crossin' the Channel, but
they're sick all the same, an' they damn near throw off their insides. A
drop of whiskey is a good thing!..."
The boat was making way now, and the people on the quay were ceasing to
have separate outlines: they were merging in a big, dark blur under the
yellow light. Henry could not see his father at the spot where he had
stood when the ship moved away, and he felt disappointed when he thought
to himself that the old man had not waited until the last moment. Then
he saw a figure hurrying along the quays, waving a large white
handkerchief.... It was his father, trying to keep pace with the boat,
and Henry shouted to him and waved his hands to him in a kind of
delirium. Gradually the boat outstripped the old man, and at last he
stood still and watched it disappearing into the darkness. He was still
waving to Henry, but no sound came from him. He seemed to be terribly
alone there on the dark quay.... Henry shuddered in the night air, and
glancing about him saw that most of the passengers had gone down to the
saloon or to their cabins. He, too, was almost alone. He turned to look
again at his father, straining to catch the last glimpse of him, and
while he was straining thus, he heard the old man's voice vibrating
across the river to him. "Good-bye Henry!" he shouted. "God bless you,
son!" and Henry felt that he must leap overboard and swim back to the
shore. He waved his handkerchief towards the place where his father was
standing and tried to shout "Good-bye, father!" to him, but his voice
rattled weakly in his throat, and he felt tears starting in his eyes.
"It's silly of me to behave like this," he murmured to himself, rubbing
his eyes with his hand.
The boat had passed between the Twin Islands and was now sailing swiftly
down the Lough towards the Irish Sea. The lights on the quay faded into
a faint yellow blur, like little lost stars, and presently, when the
cold airs of the sea struck him sharply, he turned and went towards the
saloon.
"I hope to goodness it'll be smooth all the way over," he said to
himself.