Part 11 (1/2)
”We won't talk about it any more,” she said. ”I don't suppose you can be expected to understand.” And suddenly raising her head, she whistled to the dogs.
During the remainder of the walk Milbanke was very silent. Perplexed and yet fascinated by the problem, his mind dwelt unceasingly upon this strange position into which the chances of a day or two had thrown him.
The bonds that drew him to his entertainers, and the gulf that separated him from them, were so tangible and yet so illusive. In every outward respect they were his fellow beings; they spoke the same language, wore the same dress, ate the same food, and yet unquestionably they were creatures of different fibre. He felt curiously daunted and curiously attracted by the peculiar fact.
To appreciate the difference between the Englishman and the Irishman one must see the latter in his native atmosphere. It is there that his faults and his virtues take on their proper values; there that his innate poetry, his reckless generosity, his prodigal hospitality have fullest scope; there that his primitive narrowness of outlook, his antiquated sense of honour and his absurdly sensitive self-esteem are most vividly backgrounded. Outside his own country, he is merely a subject of a great Empire, possessing, perhaps, a sharper wit and a more ingratiating manner than his fellow-subjects of colder temperament; but in his natural environment he stands out pre-eminently as a peculiar development--the product of a warm-blooded, intelligent, imaginative race that by some oversight of Nature has been pushed aside in the march of the nations.
Milbanke made no attempt to formulate this idea or any portion of it, as he paced steadily forward across the darkening sands; but incontinently it did flash across his mind that the girl beside him claimed more attention in this unsophisticated atmosphere than he might have given her in conventional surroundings. She was so much part of the picture--so undeniably a child of the sweeping cliffs, the magnificent sea, and the hundred traditions that encircled the primitive land. In her buoyant, youthful figure he seemed, by a curious retrograde process of the mind, to find the solution to his own early wors.h.i.+p of a.s.shlin. a.s.shlin had attracted him, ruled him, domineered over him by right of superiority--the hereditary, half-barbaric superiority of the natural aristocrat; the man of ancient lineage in a country where yesterday--and the glories of yesterday--stand for everything, where to-day is unreckoned with, and to-morrow does not exist. Reaching the end of the strand, he turned to her quickly with a strange sensation of sympathy--almost of apprehension.
”Miss Clodagh,” he said gently, as she began to ascend the heaped-up boulders that separated the road from the beach, ”Miss Clodagh, I grant that I don't quite understand, as you put it; but I knew your father many years before you were born, and I think that gives me some privilege. On one point I have quite made up my mind. I shall not play cards again while I am in your house.”
As he spoke, Clodagh paused in her ascent of the boulders and looked at him. In the softly deepening twilight her eyes again held the mysterious promise of great beauty; and in their depths a shade of respect, of surprised admiration had suddenly become visible. As she gazed at him, her lips parted involuntarily.
”I didn't think you were so plucky,” she said; then abruptly she stopped, glancing over her shoulder.
From the road behind them came the clicking thud of a horse's hoofs, and a moment later the voice of a.s.shlin hailed them out of the dusk.
CHAPTER VIII
It would be futile to deny that the unexpected sound of a.s.shlin's voice brought a tremor to the mind of his guest. It is disconcerting to the most valiant to be confronted with his antagonist in the very moment that he has laid down his challenge; and at best Milbanke was no hero.
Nevertheless he recovered his equanimity with creditable speed, and exchanging a quick glance with Clodagh, scrambled hastily over the remaining stones and reached the road.
As he gained it, a.s.shlin pulled up sharply and dismounted from his big, bony horse with all the dexterity of a young man. With a loud laugh of greeting, he slipped the bridle over one hand and linked the other in Milbanke's arm.
”Hullo!” he cried. ”Now who'd have dreamt that I'd meet you like this?
I'm ashamed of you, James. 'Pon my word I am. Philandering across the strand in the fall of the evening as if you were still in the twenties.
It's with me you should have been. We had the deuce of a fine run!”
He paused to push his hat from his hot forehead and to rearrange the bridle.
Clodagh, who had followed Milbanke slowly, stepped eagerly forward as she caught the last words.
”Oh, father,” she cried, ”tell us about it! Who was there? Was the sport good? Did the bay carry you well?”
In her suddenly awakened interest it was clear to Milbanke that the vital question she had been discussing with him--the opinions he had expressed upon it--his very existence even, were obliterated from her mind, her natural, youthful exuberance responding to the idea of any physical action as unfailingly as the needle answers to the magnet. And again the faintly poignant sense of aloofness and age fell upon him as he listened uncomprehendingly to a.s.shlin's excited flow of words, and watched the bright, ardent face of the girl glowing out of the shadows.
They made a curious trio as they covered the stretch of road that led to Orristown and pa.s.sed between the heavy moss-grown piers of the big gate, entering the deep shade of the avenue. With an instinctive care for his horse, a.s.shlin went first, cautiously guiding the animal over the ruts that time and the heavy rains had ploughed in the soft ground.
Behind him came Clodagh, Milbanke, and their following of dogs.
Once again the thought of what the evening held came unpleasantly to Milbanke's mind as the shadow of the gaunt beech trees and the outline of the great square house brought the position home to him afresh. Lack imagination as he might, he realised that it was no light task to thwart a man whose faults had been cultivated and whose peculiarities--racial and personal--had been accentuated by a quarter of a century of comparative isolation. But instinctively as the thought came to him, he turned to the girl, whose erect figure had grown indistinct in the gathering gloom.
”Miss Clodagh,” he whispered, ”though I may not understand, are you satisfied to trust me?”
There was a pause; then, with one of the sudden impulses that formed so large a part of her individuality, Clodagh put out her hand; and for an instant her fingers and Milbanke's touched.
To every one but a.s.shlin, the dinner that evening was a strain. But the silence or the uneasiness of the others was powerless to damp his enthusiasm. His appet.i.te was tremendous; and as he ate plentifully and swallowed gla.s.s after gla.s.s of sherry, his excitement and his spirits rose. With the ardour of the born sportsman, he recounted again and again the details of the day's hunt--dwelling lovingly on the behaviour of the dogs and horses, and the prowess of his own mount in particular.