He s.n.a.t.c.hed at her hand. "Listen, Maggie," he said.

"What?" she answered.

"Do you ... do you like me?"

"Ummm ... mebbe I do!"

"I love you, Maggie!"

"Aye, so you say!" she said.

"Do you not believe me?..."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"It's true," he affirmed. "I love you!..."

"Good-night," she said.

"Good-night, Maggie!"

He released her hand, but she did not go immediately. She came close to him, and put her arms about his neck and drew his face down to hers, and kissed him.

"You're a nice wee fellow," she said. "I like you queer and well!"

Then she withdrew her arms, and this time he did not try to detain her.

IX

He missed the last train to Ballyards, but he did not mind that. He set out bravely to walk from Belfast. The silence of the streets, the deeper silence of the country roads, accorded with the pleasure in his heart. He sang to himself, and sometimes he sang aloud. He was in love with Maggie Carmichael, and she ... she liked him queer and well. He could hardly feel the ground beneath his feet. The road ran away from him. The moon and the stars shared his exultation, and the trees gaily waved their branches to him, and the leaves of the trees beat their hands together in applause. "And her sunny locks Hang on her temples like a golden fleece," he said aloud...

It was very late when he reached the door of the shop in Ballyards. His Uncle William was standing in the shade of the doorway, peering anxiously into the street.

"Is that you, John?" he called out, while John was still some distance away from the shop.

"Aye, Uncle William," John called out in reply.

Uncle William came to meet him. "Oh, whatever kept you, boy?" he said when they met.

"I missed the train," John answered.

"Your Uncle Matthew, John!..."

Anxiety came into John's mind. "Yes, Uncle?" he said.

"He's bad, John. Desperate bad! We had to send for Dr. Dobbs an hour ago, and he's still with him. I thought you'd never reach home!"

All the joy fell straight out of John's heart. He did not speak. He walked swiftly to the house, and pa.s.sing through the shop, entered the kitchen, followed by his Uncle William.

THE FOURTH CHAPTER

I

"Your ma's upstairs with the doctor and him," said Uncle William, closing the kitchen door behind him.

"Is he very bad?" John asked in an anxious voice.

"I'm afeard so," Uncle William replied.

John went towards the staircase, but his uncle called him back. "Better not go up yet awhile," he said. "The doctor'll be down soon, mebbe, and he'll tell you whether you can go up or not."

"Very well," John murmured, coming back into the kitchen and sitting down beside the fire.

"It come on all of a sudden just before bedtime," Uncle William went on, "He wasn't looking too grand all the morning, as you know, but we never thought much of it. He never was strong, and he hasn't the strength to fight against his disease. If he dies, I'll be the last of the three brothers. Death's a strange thing, John. Your da was the cleverest and the wisest of us all, and he was the first to go; and now your Uncle Matthew, that's wise in his way, and has a great amount of knowledge in his head, is going too ... the second of us ... and I'm left, the one that could be easiest spared. It's queer to take the best one first and leave the worst 'til the last. You'd near think G.o.d had a grudge against the world!... What were you doing in Belfast the day?"

"I went to the theatre."

"Aye. What did you see?"

"I saw _Romeo and Juliet_ in the middle of the day, and _Julius Caesar_ at night!" John answered. "Is my Uncle Matthew unconscious?"

"No. He has all his senses about him. He knows well he's dying. Did he never speak to you about that?"

John shook his head. "I couldn't bear it if he did. Does he mind, d'you think?"

"No, he does not. Why should he mind? It's us that's left behind that's to be pitied, not them that goes. I can't make out the people of these days, the way they pity the dead and dying, when it's the living's to be pitied. Did you like the plays, John?"

John roused himself to answer. "Aye," he said, "they were grand. What happened when he took bad?"

"We had just had our supper, and he started to go up the stairs, and all of a sudden he called out for your ma, and we both ran to him together, her and me, and the look on his face frightened me. I didn't stop to hear what was wrong. I went off to fetch Dr. Dobbs as quick as I could move. I never saw _Julius Caesar_ myself, but I mind well the time I saw _Romeo and Juliet_. It was an awful long time ago, when the oul' Theatre Royal ... not this one, but the one before it, that was burnt down ... and we saw _Romeo and Juliet_. That's a tremendous piece, John! It gripped a hold of my heart, I can tell you, and I came away from the theatre with the tears streaming down my face.

I always was a soft one, anyway. That poor young boy and his lovely wee girl tormented and tortured by people that was older nor them, but hadn't half the sense! It grips you, that play!"

"Aye," said John.

"You'll hardly believe me, John, but the play was so real to me that when they talked about getting married, I said to myself I'd go and see the wedding. I did by my troth!"

"Eh?" said John abstractedly.

"I was talking about the play!..."

"Oh, aye, aye! Aye!"

"It sounds silly, I know," Uncle William continued, "but it's the G.o.d's own truth, as sure as I'm sitting here. And whenever I pa.s.s 'The Royal,' I always think of _Romeo and Juliet,_ and I see that poor boy and girl stretched dead, and them ought to have been happy together and having fine, strong childher!"