Christian was in the kennels, in their
innermost depths. She was, in fact, seated on
the bench of “the ladies” lodging-house,
on the dry and rustling cushion of bracken on which
Major Talbot-Lowry bedded his pack.
Yearning to her, sitting all over
her, covering her with their ponderous affection,
were the hounds. Two large ladies had each a head
on each of her shoulders; two more had laid their chins
on her knees, and were gazing raptly into her face.
The less favoured stood, and squeezed, and pushed,
and panted, with glowing eyes and waving sterns, in
as close a circle round her as it was possible to form.
“Dearest things!” apostrophised
Christian, “I feel like Nero I wish
you had only one lovely head, so that I might kiss
you all at once!”
“Rot!” said Larry, who
was leaning against the wall, facing her, and saying:
“Down, you brute!” at intervals, to hounds,
who, having failed to force their way to Christian,
were directing their attention to him, to the detriment
of his grey flannel trousers. “And look
at your dress from their filthy paws!”
“Good Gawd, Mr. Larry Sir!
Don’t say paws! ’Ounds ’ave
feet” responded Christian, whose imitation
of Cottingham was no less accurate now than it had
been some eight years earlier; “and I don’t
care a pin for this old skirt anyway
“I’m as fond of hounds
as anyone,” said Larry, reprovingly, “but
I must say I should draw the line at their licking
my face!”
“They don’t!” said
Christian, indignantly; “that’s the beauty
of them, They never lick except perhaps
my darling Nancy, because I nursed her when she had
pneumonia.”
“If I were you, Cottingham,
I wouldn’t let Miss Christian into the kennels,”
said Larry, with severity, “she makes lap-dogs
of the hounds!”
Cottingham had joined the party, and
was leaning on the half-door of the kennel, watching
his hounds with the never-failing interest of a good
kennel-huntsman.
“I couldn’t be too ’ard
on Miss Christeen, sir,” replied Cottingham;
“her’s the best walk I have. That
there Nancy was a sickly little thing enough when
I sent ’er to Miss Christeen, and look at ’er
now! A slapping fine bitch!”
Christian turned a slow and expressionless
eye upon her accuser, indicating triumph.
“It’s like this with that
Nancy,” continued Cottingham, with whom the
preaching habit, fostered by years of laying down the
law on subservient fields, was inveterate. “Her
got that fond of Miss Christeen, her follered ’er
about, the way the olé lamb followed Mary, as
they say. And that artful she got! Wouldn’t
try a yard! An’ she ’ad the ‘olé
o’ the young entry like ’erself. Any
sort of a check, and back they all comes an’
looks at me, wi’ their ’eads a one side,
and their sterns agoin’ like this,” he
wagged a stubby fore-finger to and fro in so precisely
the right rhythm, that, stubby as it was, no magic
wand could evolve more instantly the scene to be presented;
“an’ that’s ‘ow it’d
be, th’ old ‘ounds workin’ ’ard,
and the young uns lookin’ like they ‘as
nothin’ to do only admire of me!”
“Quite right, too!” truckled Christian.
“Ah, Miss Christeen, I’m too used to soft
soap, I am!”
“Well, you know, Cottingham,
it was I cured Nancy when she took to following
me about.” She turned to Larry.
“Luckily, I broke my wrist, and by the time
I was able to ride again she had given me up and taken
to hunting.”
“That’s what you says,
Miss,” said Cottingham; “but I reckon what
her wanted was what her got from me a
good ’idin’!”
Having made his point, Cottingham,
a true artist, departed at the little toddling run
that in kennels indicates devotion to duty, combined
with a slippery floor.
“I had forgotten about your
breaking your wrist I remember about my
own, right enough!” said Larry. “What
rotten luck!”
“Oh, it’s dead sound now,”
said Christian. “Look!” She stood
up, and held out both her slender hands to him across
the intervening hounds’ backs. “I
bet you don’t know which is which!”
Larry took a hand in each of his,
and flexed the wrists. “The left, wasn’t
it?” he said, without releasing them. “Not
that I see any difference, only I remember now that
I heard you had smashed the same one that I did.”
“It did hurt horribly!
I expect you know. It hurts still a little, sometimes.”
She looked at him for sympathy. She was nearly
eighteen now, and had caught him up in height, so
that her brown eyes looked straight into his blue
ones.
“Poor little paw!” said
Larry patronizingly; he was going to be twenty-one
in a week, and felt immeasurably older than Christian.
“Oh, by the way, I forgot! I mustn’t
say paw. Must I call it ‘foot’?
I’ll make it well, anyhow!” he ended,
and, in what he felt to be the manner of a kind uncle,
he kissed the injured wrist.
“Quite well now, thank
you!” said Christian, mockingly, withdrawing
her hands. “If I had only thought of it,
I could have got Nancy to lick it! It might have
done just as well!” Her colour had risen a little.
“Let’s come out; it’s rather stuffy
in here.”
At a little distance from the kennel
precincts were waiting two small, smooth, white dogs,
daughters of the adored companions of Christian’s
childhood, themselves scarcely less adored than were
their parents. Seated, as was their practice,
in a well-chosen position, that combined seclusion
with a commanding view of the detested hounds, they
had not ceased (as was also their practice) from loud
and desolate barking, an exercise that in the case
of Dooley, the younger and more highly-strung of the
couple, was accustomed to develop into a sustained
contralto wail. As Christian and Larry left the
kennel yard, this moment had been reached. Dooley’s
nose was in the air, her mouth was as round as the
neck of a bottle, her white throat looked as long
as a swan’s throat, and the bark was softening
into sobs. Christian flung herself down, and
gathered her and her sister, the second Rinka, into
her arms.
“Let’s sit down here,”
she said, sending her hat spinning down the grassy
slope; “it’s too lovely to go in, and I
want a cigarette.”
“Haven’t got one,”
said Larry. “Sorry. I gave them up
in Lent, and now I’m doing as well without ’em.”
“Nerve gone already,”
said Christian. “That’s what comes
of missing a season!” She laughed up at him.
“Don’t know,” said
Larry, dropping down beside her on the dry, sun-hot
grass; “quite likely; but it wasn’t that.
The fact was” he hesitated “I
met a very decent Padre at Muerren. We used to
talk a lot about oh, no end of things!
When he found I was Irish he was awfully pleased.
He congratulated me on belonging to the Old Faith he’s
Irish himself, but he’s never lived over here.
He said it was such a wonderful link with the people
and the past such a romantic religion!
And so it is, you know. It hadn’t struck
me, somehow, till Father Nugent talked of it.
I’m sorry for you, Christian! Don’t
you feel being a Protestant is a bit well stodgy and
respectable no sort of poetry?”
“I like stodge,” said Christian, serenely.
Larry paid this frivolity no attention.
He had only recently discovered that he possessed
a soul, and he was as much pleased with it as he had
been with his first watch, and he found much the same
enjoyment in producing and examining it, that had been
afforded to him by the watch.
“It was Father Nugent’s
suggestion to give up smoking,” he said, unable
to eliminate from his voice a touch of pride, “I
knocked off whiskies and sodas, too but
that was off my own bat.”
“‘Smite them by the merit
of the Lenten Fast!’” murmured Christian.
Unlike Larry, she evaded personalities and especially
those that involved a discussion of religion.
“Larry do you remember the awful rags we used
to have over that hymn! What ages it is since
you were at home! Not since I’ve had my
hair up!”
“By Jove, I hardly knew you
when I saw you first!” responded Larry, his
sails filling on a fresh tack with characteristic speed.
“It’s not as light as it used to be.
I’m not sure that I like it up.”
He looked at her critically.
Her hair, thick and waving lay darkly on her forehead,
and was stacked in masses upon her small head on a
system known only to herself.
“That’s a pity,”
said Christian, coolly, “and I hate it, too.
But unluckily, whether you and I hate it or not, it’s
got to stay up now that’s to say,
when it will. I am supposed to be ‘out.’
I’m nearly eighteen, you know. I never
thought I’d live to such an age.”
“Oh, wait till you’re
‘of age,’ like me!” said Larry, impressively.
“Then you’ll know the horrors of longevity.
I’ve got to take over the show the
tenants and all the rest of it from your
father, and Aunt Freddy, next week! An awful
job it’s going to be! Cousin Dick says
that these revisions of rent have played the deuce
all round. I shall make old Barty Mangan my agent.
He’s a solicitor now all right. He can
run the show. I like old Barty, don’t you?”
“I hardly ever see him,”
said Christian, cautiously. “He has rather
nice looks more like a poet than a solicitor.”
“You see, I want to go abroad,
and do some music, and paint,” said Larry, pressing
on with his own subject. “Take painting
on seriously, you know
“I know,” said Christian,
thoughtfully, “I don’t envy Barty Mangan!
I know Papa’s having botheration with our people
“All the more reason for me
to earn my living by painting!” responded Larry
cheerfully.
They were sitting at the edge of a
patch of plantation. It was the middle of May,
and the young larches behind them were clad in a cloud
of pale emerald; the clumps of hawthorn, that were
dotted about the park, between the kennels and the
river, were sending forth the fragrance of their whiteness;
the new green had come into the grass, though it was
almost smothered in the snow of daisies; primroses
and wild hyacinths had strayed from the little wood,
and straggling down the hillside, had joined hands
and agreed, the first, to linger, the latter, to hasten
into blow, and so to share the month between them.
Just below, on the turn of the hill, was a big thicket
of furze bushes, more golden than gold, sweeter also
than honey and the honeycomb. From Larry’s
woods across the Ownashee, the cuckoo’s voice
came, as melodiously monotonous and as full of associations
as the bell of a village church. Silvery clouds
were sailing very high in a sky of thinnest, sweetest
blue; little jets of sparkling sound, rising and falling
in it, bespoke the invisible, rapturous larks, tireless
as a playing fountain; and the sun blazed down on
the boy and the girl and the two little dogs seated
there in the full of it.
Larry rolled over and over on the
grass like a young colt.
“Oh, murder-in-Irish!”
he groaned, in sheer ecstasy, “isn’t it
gorgeous! I always forget how entirely stunning
Ireland is, till I come back to it!”
He could say no more, as both dogs
had sprung from Christian’s arms, and were feverishly
licking his face.
“Your own fault!” said
Christian, answering his expostulations. “Kind
little things, they thought you asked for it.”
“I repeat,” said Larry,
lying on his back, and holding off his assailants
with difficulty, “eliminating badly brought-up
dogs, that Ireland is the finest country in the world,
and listen to this, Christian! the
Irish are the finest people, and the worst
governed!”
“’The foinest pisanthry
in Europe’!” said Christian, in gibing
exaggeration. “Larry, you’ve got awfully
English!” Larry rolled over and came into play
again, sitting bolt upright; “I’m a Home
Ruler!”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Christian,
tranquilly.
“I’m not the least absurd,”
returned Larry. “I mean it.
If not a Republican!” he added, ostentatiously,
and began to chant:
“And Ireland shall be free,
From the centre to the sea,
And huzza for Libertee,
Says the Shan Van Voght!”
“I say, you remember the old
companions of Finn? Well they’re rolling
up again! I’ve started them at Oxford.
Six members already! Two men in my college, and
“English, of course!”
interrupted Christian, with an effective tone of elderly
superiority. “People like yourself, who
know nothing about it!”
This was an insult not easily to be
tolerated; the gage of battle did not lie long at
Larry’s feet, and it may be admitted that the
challenger would have been ill pleased had it been
ignored.
In the five years that had passed
since the curtain of this narrative went down on Christian,
she had changed more than had Larry. It was as
though that extra-worldly endowment of her childhood
having ceased to manifest in external ways, had turned
its light inwards. The power of hearing what
others could not hear, had faded, but a subtlety of
mind, a clarity, a sort of pondering, intellectual
self-consciousness (that had no kinship with that
other form of self-consciousness that is only inverted
self-conceit) had taken the place of those voices that
she had once refused to deny to the inquisitorial
John.
The battle, with regard to the resurrected
Companions of Finn, having waxed and waned in a course
that need not here be followed, the argument took
on another phase.
“You know, Larry,” Christian
said, half-absently twisting and arranging Dooley’s
little tan ears, in order to express, on Dooley’s
behalf, with them, various emotions, “it seems
to me that all these political revolutions that you
are so anxious to start, for the good of Ireland,
are like putting the cart before the horse.”
“What do you mean?” asked
Larry, eyeing her with undisguised surprise.
“Well,” said Christian,
slowly, gazing across the valley with eyes more than
ever like the clearest brown stream, “you’ve
got to begin with the individual. After all,
Ireland is made up of individuals, and each of them
contributes in some way to the big result. It
seems to me that the real Spirit of the Nation is is
Her gaze at the far woods became fixed,
and her hands ceased to play with the soft, tan ears.
“Is what?” said Larry,
rather impatiently. He was bewildered by this
grave, young debater, and was trying to reconcile her
with the child he had left behind him last year, or
even with the child who, five minutes ago, had wished
to impress a comprehensive kiss on all the hounds
at once. Moreover, a young gentleman on the imminent
verge of official manhood, is justified in resenting
ideas, in opposition to his own, being offered to
him by a little girl, with her hair only just “up,”
whom he regards as no more than a niece, or thereabouts.
“Well,” said Christian,
still more slowly, her eyes lifting from the woods
and resting on a shining snowball of a cloud, “it’s
Religious Intolerance, I think! That seems to
me the Spirit of the Nation my side as
bad as yours, and yours as bad as mine
“Oh, the parsons and the priests,”
said Larry, airily. “Oh you wait, Christian!
You don’t know! You’ve been stuck
down here in a hole. If you met Father Nugent
“But I don’t mean them
only,” said Christian, standing to her guns;
“I mean the individual you and me!
Just anybody we’re all the same.
The Shan van Voght has got to free us from each other
before she takes on England!” She looked at
Larry; the seriousness left her face, and she shook
back the dark hair from her forehead with just the
same gay, mutinous toss of the head that a young horse
will give when the rider picks up the reins.
“I may have been stuck down here in a hole!”
said Christian, mocking him; “but anyhow, I
haven’t lived in England and lost my eye!”
“What about seeing from a distance,
and seeing the whole and not the part?” retorted
Larry. “What about a bird’s eye view?”
He had risen to his feet and was looking down at her,
feeling the moral support of physical elevation.
“That depends on the bird!”
said Christian. “Now, if it were a goose,
for example! Like Hi! Dogs!
Look, Larry! Look! Down by the furze bushes!
A huge rabbit!”
The discussion closed abruptly, as
such discussions will, when the disputants are at
the golden age, and views and opinions are winged,
and have not yet become ballast, or, which is worse,
turned to mooring-stones.