Part 55 (2/2)

Miss Macrae turned to the poet.

'They play, sitting at the luxurious wine, Men and gentle women under a bush, Without sin, without crime.'

'They are playing still,' Blake added. 'Unbeheld, undisturbed! I verily believe there is no Gael even now who would not in his heart of hearts let drift by him the Elysiums of Virgil, Dante, and Milton, to grasp at the Moy Mell, the Apple Isle, of the unknown Irish pagan! And then to play sitting at the luxurious wine,

'Men and gentle women under a bus.h.!.+'

'It really cannot have been ping-pong that they played at, _sitting_.

Bridge, more likely,' said Merton. 'And ”good wine needs no bus.h.!.+”'

The bard moved away, accompanied by his young hostess, who resented Merton's cynicism

'Tell me more of that lovely poem, Mr. Blake,' she said.

'I am jangled and out of tune,' said Blake wildly. 'The Sa.s.senach is my torture! Let me take your hand, it is cool as the hands of the foam-footed maidens of--of--what's the name of the place?'

'Was it Clonmell?' asked Miss Macrae, letting him take her hand.

He pressed it against his burning brow.

'Though you laugh at me,' said Blake, 'sometimes you are kind! I am upset--I hardly know myself. What is yonder shape skirting the lawn? Is it the Daoine Sidh?'

'Why do you call her ”the downy she”? She is no more artful than other people. She is my maid, Elspeth Mackay,' answered Miss Macrae, puzzled.

They were alone, separated from the others by the breadth of the roof.

'I said the _Daoine Sidh_,' replied the poet, spelling the words. 'It means the People of Peace.'

'Quakers?'

'No, the fairies,' groaned the misunderstood bard. 'Do you know nothing of your ancestral tongue? Do you call yourself a Gael?'

'Of course I call myself a girl,' answered Miss Macrae. 'Do you want me to call myself a young lady?'

The poet sighed. 'I thought _you_ understood me,' he said. 'Ah, how to escape, how to reach the undiscovered West!'

'But Columbus discovered it,' said Miss Macrae.

'The undiscovered West of the Celtic heart's desire,' explained the bard; 'the West below the waters! Thither could we twain sail in the magic boat of Bran! Ah see, the sky opens like a flower!'

Indeed, there was a sudden glow of summer lightning.

'That looks more like rain,' said Merton, who was standing with the Budes at an opposite corner of the roof.

'I say, Merton,' asked Bude, 'how can you be so uncivil to that man? He took it very well.'

'A rotter,' said Merton. 'He has just got that stuff by heart, the verse and a lot of the prose, out of a book that I brought down myself, and left in the smoking-room. I can show you the place if you like.'

'Do, Mr. Merton. But how foolish you are! _do_ be civil to the man,'

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