Part 30 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration:

”Fire and sleet and candle-light; And Christ receive thy soul.”

--Vol. I., p. 324.]

”Dreams? Yes. There will be dreams there. Dreams, and other things--'this ae night of all.' Not that my reason admits that they can be more than dreams, you know, Griggs. Reason says 'to sleep--no more.'

And fancy says 'perchance to dream.' Well, well, it will be a long dream, that's all.”

”Yes. We shall be dead a long time. Better drink now.” And Griggs drank.

”'Fire and sleet and candle-light, And Christ receive thy soul;'”

said Dalrymple, with a far-away look in his pale eyes. ”Do you know the Lyke-Wake Dirge, Griggs? It is a grand dirge. Hark to the swing of it.

”'This ae night, this ae night, Every night and all, Fire and sleet and candle-light, And Christ receive thy soul.'”

He repeated the strange words in a dull, matter-of-fact way, with a Scotch accent rarely perceptible in his conversation. Griggs listened.

He had heard the dirge before, with all its many stanzas, and it had always had an odd fascination for him. He said nothing.

”It bodes no good to be singing a dirge at a betrothal,” said the Scotchman, suddenly. ”Drink, man, drink! Drink till the blue devils fly away. Drink--

”'Till a' the seas gang dry, my love, Till a' the seas gang dry.'

Not that it is in the disposition of the Italian inn-keeper to give us time for that,” he added drily. ”As I was saying, I am of a melancholic temper. Not that I take you for a gay man yourself, Griggs. Drink a little more. It is my opinion that a little more will produce an agreeable impression upon you, my young friend. Drink a little more. You are too grave for so very young a man. I should not wish to be indiscreet, but I might almost take you for a man in love, if I did not know you better. Were you ever in love, Griggs?”

”Yes,” answered Griggs, quietly. ”And you, Dalrymple? Were you never in love?”

Dalrymple's loosely hung shoulders started suddenly, and his pale blue eyes set themselves steadily to look at Griggs. The red brows were s.h.a.ggy, and there was a bright red spot on each cheek bone. He did not answer his companion's question, though his lips moved once or twice as though he were about to speak. They seemed unable to form words, and no sound came from them.

His anger was near, perhaps, and with another man it might have broken out. But the pale and stony face opposite him, and the deep, still eyes, exercised a quieting influence, and whatever words rose to his lips were never spoken. Griggs understood that he had touched the dead body of a great pa.s.sion, sacred in its death as it must have been overwhelming in its life. He struck another subject immediately, and pretended not to have noticed Dalrymple's expression.

”I like your queer old Scotch ballads,” he said, humouring the man's previous tendency to quote poetry.

”There's a lot of life in them still,” answered Dalrymple, absently twisting his empty gla.s.s.

Griggs filled it for him, and they both drank. Little by little the Italians had begun to go away. Giulio, the fat, white-jacketed drawer, sat nodding in a corner, and the light from the high lamp gleamed on his smooth black hair as his head fell forward.

”There is a sincere vitality in our Scotch poets,” said Dalrymple, as though not satisfied with the short answer he had given. ”There is a very notable power of active living exhibited in their somewhat irregular versification, and in the concatenation of their ratiocinations regarding the three princ.i.p.al actions of the early Scottish life, which I take to have been birth, stealing, and a violent death.”

”'But of these three charity is the greatest,'” observed Griggs, with something like a laugh, for he saw that Dalrymple was beginning to make long sentences, which is a bad sign for a Scotchman's sobriety.

”No,” answered Dalrymple, with much gravity. ”There I venture--indeed, I claim the right--to differ with you. For the Scotchman is hospitable, but not charitable. The process of the Scotch mind is unitary, if you will allow me to coin a word for which I will pay with my gla.s.s.”

And he forthwith fulfilled the obligation in a deep draught. Setting down the tumbler, he leaned back in his chair and looked slowly round the room. His lips moved. Griggs could just distinguish the last lines of another old ballad.

”'Night and day on me she cries, And I am weary of the skies Since--'”

He broke off and shook himself nervously, and looked at Griggs, as though wondering whether the latter had heard.

”This wine is good,” he said, rousing himself. ”Let us have some more.