He answered nothing, for a quick sense of shame suddenly suffused him when he remembered how much he had talked, and the others keeping so dumb. Something began tumbling very fast about him. They went up the hill and suddenly the sea stretched before them, sheer through to England, a vast surface of shimmering ripples, where the moon touched, and here and there white curling waves. And beneath them it murmured on the beach in a steady crooning. The breeze blew landward and pressed about them firmly in a cool, even motion. To the right the Cliff Farm lay, softly white, and a faint scent came down from its orchard. The servant-girl passed through the gate and up toward the house.
"America 's a great country!" Grant said aloud.
He did not know why he said it. Perhaps it was because he could find nothing else to say, and perhaps it was a sort of incantation, conjuring away the doubts that were rising in his mind.
Eunice made no answer. And as he looked at her, standing there in the moonlight and the breeze, the old affection he had for her a dozen years ago rose within him, and he wondered whether he should n't put his arm about her and kiss her for old times' sake. But the idea left him as soon as it came, for the thought of trifling with her seemed a desecration.
"It's a great place!" he said again lamely.
She swung around upon him suddenly, savagely, her head tilted, her eyes flashing. The cloak behind her stood backward with the breeze; and as he watched her, amazed, petrified almost, the thought of dead ancient Irish women flashed through his brain--Maeve, the fighting queen of Connaught; and Deirdre, who dashed herself dead against a rock; and Grainne, the king's daughter, who fled to follow Diarmuid of the Spears.
"Then why don't you stay there?" she uttered passionately.
"Why don't I stay there?" he repeated blankly.
"Why don't you stay there?" she said again. "You come back here--you and your like--with a smile on your mouth and a sneer in your eye. You come back here in your fine clothes, that you 've sweated day and night for, and taken charity to get--ay, charity! What's tips but charity?--And you lord it round for a while and tell us what fools we are--and patronize us. Patronize us!"
She swung round and fronted the low-lying land with the faint blue heat haze of summer over it, touched into silver in the June moon. The muscles of her throat were throbbing. She was poised on her feet like a bird ready for flight.
"Look down there at your father's farm," she told him. Her hand stretched toward it and her gray eyes blazed in his face. "Look at it well! Look at the corn that's green, and the rye ripening, and the stacked haggard. Look at the trees in the orchard and the fruit hanging from them, and the river alive with trout, and the mountain with its grouse and hares. And then go back to your grand business and fumble the halfpence in your greasy till!"
He said nothing. Mechanically his eyes followed her hand where it pointed, and every word ate its meaning into his brain as if etched by strong acid.
"Ay!" he said dully.
"Have you eyes to see, man?" She bent toward him with her hands outstretched and her face aflame with anger. "Or have you ears to hear? Or has groping for coppers made you blind like a mole? Or the tinkle of tuppences deafened you the like of a bat?"
"I 've got eyes," he answered sullenly.
"Use them, then!" she snapped. "And when you go back to your grand business, stop making a poor mouth about Ireland. Don't whine the like of a beggar in the street. Stop your talk about poverty-stricken Ireland, and oppressed Ireland and lazy Ireland. We 've got money here as well as you, for all your grand business; and we've got pride; and we 've got strength. And we don't want anybody talking about our sorrows, and the nations pitying us in the four corners of the earth."
He said nothing, but his face had gone white; and every now and then he winced, as though he had been caught by a whip. He wished to Heaven she would stop; and still, back in him, something had awakened that yearned to be lashed into life.
"I heard you wanted your father and mother to go back to America with you and partake of the grand business. Look at that farm-house again. Your grandfather built that with granite hewn from his own quarry. And you want them to leave that and to go off with you and grub in a huckster's booth! God's glory and the blue sky over us!"
There was the rapid flapping of wings and they saw a wedge of birds in the moonlight. Suddenly they caught the shrill clamor of the barnacle goose.
"Even the birds," she uttered with scorn, "even the birds have sense. They 're happy when they get back from roving. Not like you and your like, Willie John. If you want to go, go! And God go with you! If you want to stay, stay--and you're welcome. But don't come back for a while, croaking like a magpie chattering over a ruined hearth."
She turned to him, and the agitation and passion seemed to leave her by a great effort of will. Her hands unclenched and her voice grew calm, with even a queer crooning melody in it; but her bosom heaved tumultuously.
"I liked you once, Willie John," she said. "I thought there was the makings of a big man in you. I mind the time at the football, and you running down the field like a hare, and no one to catch or trip you. And at the fairs I mind you putting the horses through their paces like a jockey born. And at throwing the weight there was no one of your size or years that could best you. Ay! I mind you, and your dogs following you, and your head high up in the air. I thought well of you that time, Willie John. I thought there was no one like you." She raised herself to her full height and looked at him squarely. "But now," she said, "I 'd rather have a stray tinker that does be traveling the roads."
And scornfully she left him.
IV
He came into the kitchen, two evenings later, from the parlor. His father sat by the table, reading his paper. His mother pottered about the turf fire, teasing it into flame. In a corner Joe sat, polishing the barrel of a breech-loading fowling-piece with an old rag. His father caught the glimpse of paper in his hand.
"Were you writing, Willie John?"
"Ay," Grant answered; "I was writing a letter to America."
He moved toward the fireplace and turned slowly about again to his father.
"You were saying," he asked, "that that place of McKenna's was for sale. I wonder how much he 'd want for it."
"He 'd take four thousand pounds," his father answered. "Maybe less."
"I 'm afraid I have n't got that much." Grant shook his head. "I 've only two thousand."
"We can lend you the difference, Willie John," Joe broke in. He squinted down the barrel of the rifle. "Can't we, Dad?"
"Ay sure!" his father answered.
"I 'm much obliged to both of you," Grant said.
He reached for his hat.
"Are you going out, Willie John?" his mother asked.
"I thought I 'd go up and call on Eunice Doran," Grant answered her. "I might as well be neighborly."
He went out, and there was silence in the kitchen for a few minutes. Joe clicked the lock of the gun.
"Do you mind that wild gander I put a ring on three years ago?" he asked his father. "It's back again. I saw it over the marshes to-day."
"It 'll take a mate and settle down in the marsh now." His father nodded. "It took it three years to find out that home is a good place. It's a queer, silly bird--the barnacle goose."
A little ripple of laughter came from the mother's lips as she stood over and poked the turf. The elder Grant looked up, astonished.
"What are you laughing at, Sarah Ann?" he inquired.
"I was thinking," she answered.
"What was it you were thinking about?" he pursued.
"Oh nothing!" she parried. "I was just thinking."
And she went on teasing the fire, while a subtle, affectionate smile played about the corners of her eyes.
BELFASTERS
"Oh, I'll go down unto Belfast to see that seaport gay."--A COUNTRY POET.
To him the whole conversation, the whole setting, the whole event, was unreal as ghosts are unreal, or objects on a foggy night. Here was this woman, who had been so nigh to him, and to whom he had been so much, talking of leaving him, in as matter-of-fact a manner as though she were speaking of taking a street-car. Here was the murk of a February evening in Belfast, the minute rain yellowing the street-lamps; the cable-cars rushing by brusquely and short-temperedly, a "get out of the way and be damned to you!" in their crashing, abrupt passage. She was thinking of leaving him, she was thinking of leaving him for good, all because of a strike, mind you! just for nothing more than a strike!
"Well, I 'd best be going," she said.
"Well--" He shifted from one foot to the other. "I think it's very foolish of you," he said.
She smiled, as he looked at her, that strange secret smile of hers that meant she had drawn into herself. He knew every expression on her face--for a year now.
"What is it you want me to do?" he asked for the fourth time.