"Mother," said Ulick, "you don't seem very glad to see me."

"I shall never forget the evening we spent when you threw yourself into the ca.n.a.l. You were a wicked child."

"And why did you think I was drowned?"

"Well, your cap was picked up in the bulrushes."

He thought that whatever wickedness he had been guilty of might have been forgiven, and he began to feel that if he had known how his mother would receive him he would not have come home.

"Well, the dinner is nearly ready. You'll stay and have some with us, and we can make you up a bed in the kitchen."

He could see that his mother wished to welcome him, but her heart was set against him now as it had always been. Her dislike had survived ten years of absence. He had gone away and had met with a mother who loved him, and had done ten years' hard seafaring. He had forgotten his real mother--forgotten everything except the bee and the hatred that gathered in her eyes when she put it down his back; and that same ugly look he could now see gathering in her eyes, and it grew deeper every hour he remained in the cottage. His little brother asked him to tell him tales about the sailing ships, and he wanted to go down to the ca.n.a.l with Ulick, but their mother said he was to bide here with her.

The day had begun to decline, his brother was crying, and he had to tell him a sea-story to stop his crying. "But mother hates to hear my voice," he said to himself, and he went out into the garden when the story was done. It would be better to go away, and he took one turn round the garden and got over the paling at the end of the dry ditch, at the place he had got over it before, and he walked through the old wood, where the trees were overgrown with ivy, and the stones with moss. In this second experience there was neither terror nor mystery--only bitterness. It seemed to him a pity that he had ever been taken out of the ca.n.a.l, and he thought how easy it would be to throw himself in again, but only children drown themselves because their mothers do not love them; life had taken a hold upon him, and he stood watching the ca.n.a.l, though not waiting for a boat. But when a boat appeared he called to the man who was driving the horse to stop, for it was the same boat that had brought him from the Shannon.

"Well, was it all right?" the steersman said. "Did you find the house?

How were they at home?"

"They're all right at home," he said; "but father is still away. I am going back. Can you take me?"

The evening sky opened calm and benedictive, and the green country flowed on, the boat pa.s.sed by ruins, castles and churches, and every day was alike until they reached the Shannon.

CHAPTER XII

THE WILD GOOSE

He remembered a green undulating country out of which the trees seemed to emerge like vapours, and a line of pearl-coloured mountains showing above the horizon on fine days. And this was all. But this slight colour-memory had followed him all through his wanderings. His parents had emigrated to Manchester when he was nine, and when he was sixteen he felt that he must escape from Manchester, from the overwhelming dreariness of the brick chimneys and their smoke cloud. He had joined a travelling circus on its way to the Continent, and he crossed with it from New Haven to Dieppe in charge of the lions. The circus crossed in a great storm; Ned was not able to get about, and the tossing of the vessel closed the ventilating slides, and when they arrived at Dieppe the finest lion was dead.

"Well, there are other things to do in life besides feeding lions," he said; and taking up his fiddle he became interested in it. He played it all the way across the Atlantic, and everyone said there was no reason why he should not play in the opera house. But an interview with the music conductor dispelled illusions. Ned learnt from him that improvisations were not admissible in an opera house; and when the conductor told him what would be required of him he began to lose interest in his musical career. As he stood jingling his pence on the steps of the opera house a man went by who had crossed with Ned, and the two getting into conversation, Ned was asked if he could draw a map according to scale. It would profit him nothing to say no; he remembered he had drawn maps in the school in Manchester. A bargain was struck! he was to get ten pounds for his map! He ordered a table; he pinned out the paper, and the map was finished in a fortnight. It was of a mining district, and having nothing to do when it was finished he thought he would like to see the mine; the owners encouraged him to go there, and he did some mining in the morning--in the evenings he played his fiddle. Eventually he became a journalist.

He wandered and wrote, and wandered again, until one day, finding himself in New York, he signed an agreement and edited a newspaper. But he soon wearied of expressing the same opinions, and as the newspaper could not change its opinions Ned volunteered to go to Cuba and write about the insurgents. And he wrote articles that inflamed the Americans against the Spaniards, and went over to the American lines to fight when the Americans declared war against Spain, and fought so well that he might have become a general if the war had lasted. But it was over, and, overpowered by an extraordinary dislike to New York, he felt he must travel. He wanted to see Europe again, and remembering the green plain of Meath, he said: "I'll go to Ireland."

His father and mother were dead, and without a thought of his relations, he read the legends of Meath on his way out; he often sat considering his adventures, the circus, the mining camp, and his sympathy with the Cubans in their revolt against Spain; these convinced him of his Gaelic inheritance and that something might be done with Ireland. England's power was great, but Spain's power had been great too, and when Spain thought herself most powerful the worm had begun.

Everything has its day, and as England decayed, Ireland would revive. A good time might be on its way to Ireland; if so he would like to be there or thereabouts; for he always liked to be in the van of a good time.

He went straight to Tara, his mind bending rather to pagan than to Christian Ireland. Traces of Cormac's banqueting hall were pointed out to him, and he imagined what this great hall, built entirely of wood and hung about with skins, must have been. He was shown the Rath of Kings and the Rath of Grania. Her name brought to his mind her flight with Diarmuid and how when they had had to cross a stream and her legs were wetted, she had said to Diarmuid, who would not break his oath to Finn, "Diarmuid, you are a great warrior, but this water is braver than you!" "Perhaps this very stream!" he said, looking towards a stream that flowed from the well of Neamhtach or Pearly. But he was told it was this stream that had turned the first water mill in Ireland and that Cormac had put up the mill to save a beautiful bond-maid from toiling at the quern.

The morning was spent in seeking the old sites, and in the afternoon he went to the inn and found a good number of villagers in the tap-room.

He learned from them that there were cromlechs and Druid altars within walking distance of Tara, and decided on a walking tour. He wandered through the beautiful country, interested in Ireland's slattern life, touched by the kindness and simplicity of the people. "Poor people," he thought, "how touching it is to find them learning their own language,"

and he began to think out a series of articles about Ireland.

"They talk of Cuchulain," he said, "but they prefer an Archbishop, and at every turn in their lives they are paying the priest. The t.i.tle of my book shall be 'A Western Thibet,' an excellent t.i.tle for my book!"

and leaning on a gate and looking across a hay-field, he saw the ends of chapters.

Now that he had a book to write, his return to America was postponed; a postponement was to Ned an indefinite period, and he was glad he was not returning to America till the spring, for he had found pleasant rooms in a farm-house. He would make them his head-quarters; for it was only by living in a farm-house he could learn the life of the people and its real mind. And he would have written his book just as he had planned it if he had not met Ellen Cronin.

She was the only daughter of a rich farmer in the neighbourhood. He had heard so much about her learning and her pretty face that he was disposed to dispute her good looks; but in spite of his landlady's praise he had liked her pretty oval face. "Her face is pretty when you look at it," he said to his landlady. But this admission did not satisfy her. "Well, enthusiasm is pleasant," he thought, and he listened to her rambling talk.

"She used to like to come to tea here, and after her tea she and my son James, who was the same age, used to make paper boats under the alder-trees."

And the picture of Ellen making boats under alder-trees pleased Ned's fancy, and he encouraged the land-lady to tell him more about her. She told him that Ellen had not taken to study till she was twelve and that it was the priest who had set her reading books and had taught her Latin.

Ned lay back in his chair smiling, listening to the landlady telling him about Ellen. She had chosen her own school. She had inquired into the matter, and had taken her father into her confidence one day by telling him of the advantages of this school. But this part of the story did not please Ned, and he said he did not like her a bit better for having chosen her own school. Nor did he like her better because her mistress had written to her father to say she had learned all that she could learn in Ireland. He liked her for her love of Ireland and her opposition to her father's ideas. Old Cronin thought Ireland a miserable country and England the finest in the world, whereas Ellen thought only of Irish things, and she had preferred the Dublin University to Oxford or Cambridge. He was told that her university career had been no less brilliant than her school career, and he raised his eyebrows when the landlady said that Miss Ellen used to have her professors staying at Mount Laurel, and that they used to talk Latin in the garden.

But she was long ago done with the professors, and Ned asked the landlady to tell him what change had come over the mind of this somewhat pedantic young woman. And he was told that Ellen had abandoned her studies and professors for politics and politicians, and that these were a great trial to her father, into whose house no Nationalist member of Parliament had ever put his foot before. "Now the very men that Mr. Cronin used to speak of as men who were throwing stones at the police three years ago are dining with him to-day." And worse than her political opinions, according to Mr. Cronin, was her resolution to speak the language of her own country. "When he had heard her talking it to a boy she had up from the country to teach her, Mr. Cronin stuck both his hands into his stubbly hair and rushed out of the house like a wild man."

It was pleasant to listen to the landlady's babble about the Cronins, for he was going to spend the evening with them; he had been introduced to her father, a tall, thin, taciturn man, who had somewhat gruffly, but not unkindly, asked him to come to spend the evening with them, saying that some friends were coming in, and there would be some music.

Ned's life had been lived in newspaper offices, in theatres, circuses, and camps. He knew very little of society--nothing at all of European society--and was curious to see what an Irish country-house was like.

The Cronins lived in a dim, red brick, eighteenth-century house. It stood in the middle of a large park, and the park was surrounded by old grey walls and Ned liked to lean on these walls, for in places they had crumbled, and admire the bracken in the hollows and the wind-blown hawthorn-trees growing on the other side of the long, winding drive. He had long wished to walk in the park and now he was there. The hawthorns were in bloom and the cuckoo was calling. The sky was dark overhead, but there was light above the trees, and long herds of cattle wandered and life seemed to Ned extraordinarily lovely and desirable at that moment. "I wonder what her dreams are? Winter and summer she looks at these mysterious hollows and these abundant hawthorn groves."

The young lady had been pointed out to him as she went by, and he was impatient to be introduced to Ellen, but she was talking to some friends near the window, and she did not see him. He liked her white dress, there were pearls round her neck, and her red hair was pinned up with a tortoise-sh.e.l.l comb. She and her friends were looking over a photograph alb.u.m, and Ned was left with Mr. Cronin to talk to him as best he could; for it was difficult to talk to this hard, grizzled man, knowing nothing about the war in Cuba nor evincing any interest in America. When Ned asked him about Ireland he answered in short sentences, which brought the conversation to abrupt closes. America having failed to draw him out, and Ireland, Ned began to talk of his landlady. But it was not until he related the conversation he had had with her that evening about Miss Cronin that the old farmer began to talk a little. Ned could see he was proud of his daughter; he regretted that she had not gone to Oxford, and said she would have carried all before her if she had gone there. Ned could see that what his landlady had told him was true--that old Cronin thought very little of Ireland.

He hoped to get three minutes' conversation, at least, out of Girton, but the old farmer seemed to have said everything he had to say on the subject. The conversation failed again, and Ned was forced to speak to him of the interest that Miss Cronin took in the Irish language and her desire to speak it. At the mention of the Irish language, the old man grew gruffer, and remembering that the landlady had said that Miss Cronin was very religious, Ned spoke of the priests--there were two in the room--and he asked Mr. Cronin which of them had encouraged Miss Cronin to learn Irish. He had never heard the language spoken, and would like to hear it.

"I believe, Mr. Cronin, it was Father Egan who taught your daughter Latin?"

"It was so," said Mr. Cronin; "but he might have left the Irish alone, and politics, too. We keep them as fat as little bonhams, and they ought to be satisfied with that."

Ned did not know what were little bonhams, and pretended a great interest when he was told that bonham was the Irish for sucking pig, and glancing at the priests he noticed that they were fat indeed, and he said, "There is nothing like faith for fattening. It is better than any oil-cake."

Mr. Cronin gave a grunt and Ned thought he was going to laugh at this sally, but he suddenly moved away, and Ned wondered what had happened.

It was Ellen who had crossed the room to speak to her father, and Ned could see that she had heard his remark, and he could see that the remark had angered her, that she thought it in bad taste. He prepared quickly a winning speech which would turn the edge of her indignation, but before he had time to speak the expression of her face changed and a look of pleasure pa.s.sed into it; he could see that the girl liked him, and he hastened to tell her that his landlady had told him about the paper boats and the alder-trees. And Ellen began to speak about the landlady, saying she was a very good, kind woman, and she wanted to know if Ned were comfortable at the farm-house. But she seemed to have some difficulty in speaking, and then, as if moved by some mysterious influence, they walked across the room towards the window and sat under the shadow of the red damask curtains. A gentle breeze was blowing and the curtains filled with it and sank back with a mysterious rustle. And beyond them the garden lay dark and huddled in the shadows of great trees. He heard her say she was sorry that James, the landlady's son, had gone to America, and then they spoke of the forty thousand that were leaving Ireland every year. It was Ned who continued the conversation, but he could see that what he said hardly entered her ears at all. Yet she heard his voice in her heart, and he, too, heard her voice in his heart, and several times she felt she could not go on talking, and once she nearly lost consciousness and must have swayed a little, for he put out his hand to save her.

They went into the garden and walked about in the dusk. He told her about the war in Cuba and about the impulse which had brought him back to Ireland, and his tale seemed to her the most momentous thing she had ever heard. She listened to his first impressions about Tara, and every moment it seemed to her that she was about to hear a great secret, a secret that had been troubling her a long while; every moment she expected to hear him speak it, and she almost cried when her father came to ask Ned if he would play for them.

Ellen was not a musician, and another woman would have to accompany him. He was tall and thin and his hands were manly. She could hardly look at his hands without shuddering, so beautiful were they when they played the violin; and that night music said something more to her than it had ever said before. She heard again the sounds of birds and insects, and she saw again the gloom of the trees, and she felt again and more intensely the overpowering ecstasy, and she yielded herself utterly and without knowing why. When he finished playing he came to her and sat by her, and everything she said seemed to fall from her lips involuntarily. She seemed to have lost herself utterly, she seemed to have become a fluid, she yielded herself like a fluid; it was like dying: for she seemed to pa.s.s out of herself to become absorbed in the night. How the time past she knew not, and when her guests came to bid her good-bye she hardly saw them, and listened to their leave-taking with a little odd smile on her lips, and when everyone was gone she bade her father good-night absent-mindedly, fearing, however, that he would speak to her about Ned. But he only said good-night, and she went up the wide staircase conscious that the summer night was within the house and without it; that it lay upon the world, a burden sweet and still, like happiness upon the heart.

She opened her window, and sat there hoping that something would come out of the night and whisper in her ear the secret that tormented her.

The stars knew! If she could only read them! She felt she was feeling a little more than she was capable of understanding. The ecstasy grew deeper, and she waited for the revelation. But none came, and feeling a little ashamed she got up to close the window, and it was then that the revelation broke in her mind. She had met the man who was to lead the Irish people! They wanted a new leader, a leader with a new idea; the new leader must come from the outside, and he had come to them from America, and her emotion was so great that she would have liked to have awakened her father. She would have liked to have gone into the country waking the people up in the cottages, telling them that the leader had come. She stood entranced, remembering all he had said to her. He had told her he had been moved to return to Ireland after the war in Cuba, and she had not understood. The word married pa.s.sed through her mind before she could stay it. But she was necessary to this man, of this she was sure; the Voice had told her. She was feeling more than she could understand, and she lay down in her bed certain that she had accomplished the first stage of her journey.

And just then Ned was leaning on the garden gate. The summer night was sweet and still, and he wanted to think of this girl who had come so suddenly into his life. The idea of marriage flitted across his mind as it had flitted across hers, and he tried to remember the exact moment in Cuba when the wish to see Ireland had come into his mind. To believe in fate and predestination is an easy way out of life's labyrinth, and if one does not believe in something of the kind the figures will not come right. How did he know that he had not met this girl for some unknown purpose. He could see a great white star through a vista in the trees, and he said: "I believe that that star knows. Why will it not tell me?"

And then he walked into the woods, and out under the moon, between the little grey fields. Some sheep had come out on the road and were lying upon it. "I suppose it's all very natural," he said. "The circus aspiring to the academy and the academy spying to the circus. Now, what am I going to do to-morrow? I suppose I must go to see her."

He had visited all the ruins and pondered by all the cromlechs, and was a little weary of historic remains; the girl was too much in his mind to permit of his doing much writing. He might go to Dublin, where he had business, and in the morning he looked out the trains, but none seemed to suit his convenience, and at five o'clock he was at Laurel Hill listening to Ellen. She was anxious to talk to him about the political opportunity he could seize if he were so minded.

"Men have always believed in fate," Ned said, and, interrupting him suddenly she asked him if he would come to see a pretty house in the neighbourhood--a house that would suit him perfectly, for he must have a house if he intended to go in for politics.

They came back in the dusk, talking of painting and papering and the laying out of the garden. Ellen was anxious that the garden should be nice, and he had been much interested in the old family furniture at Laurel Hill, not with the spindle-legged Sheraton sideboard, but with the big Victorian furniture which the Cronins thought ugly. He liked especially the black mahogany sideboard in the dining-room, and he was enthusiastic about the four-post bed that Mr. Cronin had slept in for thirty years without ever thinking it was a beautiful thing. This ma.s.sive furniture represented a life that Ned perceived for the first time, a sedate monotonous life; and he could see these people accomplishing the same tasks from daylight to dark; he admired the well-defined circle of their interests and the calm security with which they spoke of the same things every evening, deepening the tradition of their country and of their own characters; and he conceived a sudden pa.s.sion for tradition, and felt he would like to settle down in these gra.s.s lands in an eighteenth-century house, living always amid heavy mahogany furniture, sleeping every night in a mahogany four-post bed: and he could not help thinking that if he did not get the mahogany four-post bed with the carved top, perhaps he would not care to marry Ellen at all.

The next time he saw her their talk turned upon the house she had found for him, and she said if he did not take it he would certainly go back to America in the spring. She forgot herself a little; her father had to check her, and Ned returned home sure in his mind that she would marry him--if he asked her. And the next day he chose a pair of trousers that he thought becoming--they were cut wide in the leg and narrow over the instep. He looked out for a cravat that she had not seen him wear, and he chose the largest, and he put on his braided coat. He could not see that his moustache was not in keeping with his clothes: he had often intended to shave it, but to-day was not the day for shaving. She had liked his moustache, and he thought it would be a pity she should not enjoy it, however reprehensible her taste for it might be. And he pondered his side-whiskers, remembering they were in keeping with his costume (larger whiskers would be still more in keeping), and amused by his own fantastic notions, he thought he was beginning to look like the gentleman of seventy or eighty years ago that he had seen in varnished maplewood frames in the drawing-room at the Cronins'. His trousers were of a later period, but they were, nevertheless, contemporaneous with the period of the mahogany sideboard, and that was what he liked best.

Suddenly he stopped, remembering that he had never wished to be married, because he never thought that he could love the same woman always, and now he asked himself if Ellen were an exception, and if he had been led back to Ireland to marry her. He had grown tired of women before, but it seemed to him that he never could grow tired of her.

That remained to be seen; the one certain thing was that he was going to propose to her.