"Why? Oh—I don't know. We thought we knew so much about them, didn't we? All of us begin as teachers in the temple, and the best of us end by being clowns in a booth."
I looked back at him once as I passed out of the garden. He was standing up, with the tiny root of a stock in his hand, and his face was a picture of bewilderment.
Before I had decided upon any direction to follow, I found myself down by the long, low curve of strand marking the bend of the bay of Ballysheen. From the first moment that I saw it, it reminded me of Browning's "Night and Morning":
A mile of warm sea-scented beach,
Two fields to cross till a farm appears.
For there is the mile of sand as though it had been measured to his pen. There, too, are the low-lying fields and the long white farmhouse with its roof of thatch. Whenever they put their lamp in those farmhouse windows as the evening light draws in, I think as well of "the quick blue spurt of a match," of the "two hearts beating each to each."
The farm belongs to one named Power, whose land, some fifty acres of pasture fields and corn, stretches inland behind and around the house. It was there, through all his fields, I wandered, letting my feet take me as they wished. It seemed I had no intention left in all the world, except that I was determined upon one thing. I would not return to the house to tea. They might suppose what they liked about my appetite, but I could bear no longer the thought of keeping silent to the generous inquisition of Bellwattle's desire for my confidence. There were all the reasons in the world, I know, why I should tell her everything; but that fear in me of being thought a fool, added to the knowledge of that which she had already told Cruikshank, would be more than I could stand. Of course, she would think me a fool. Any woman would think so of a man who undertakes knight-errantry with such equipment as is mine.
When, therefore, it came to tea-time, I sat down behind a tree of hawthorn, white with blossom, just looking into the heart of the country which I knew I should not see again for many a month to come.
It was then as I sat there, that I saw the figure of General Ffrench approaching. Another instant and Dandy would have been alongside of him, master at once of those ceremonies of friendly overture which he knows so well how to conduct. My hand upon his collar came not a moment too soon.
"Lie down, you young devil!" said I, below my breath, for the old gentleman was following a beaten track through the field from which, if he did but continue it, I should escape his notice. For four weeks I had avoided hearing of the old queen's reception in Dublin, and it was not in my mind to listen to it then. So I held Dandy severely by the collar and he passed us by. It was not the sort of treatment Dandy appreciated. He has a passionate curiosity about human beings. Never a man can pass along a lonely road but what he must go and speak to him. He sniffs in a tentative way at his legs and then, if satisfied, drops his voice to a confidential whisper, whereupon the man always turns and looks at me with a kindly smile in his eyes, which vanishes no sooner than he properly has sight of me. I suspect it is that Dandy is endeavoring to persuade him what a splendid fellow I am, which, apparently, he has every good intention to believe, until he turns to find me as I am.
When, then, Dandy found himself a prisoner, compelled to watch this strange two-legged creature go by without any of his customary amenities, he twisted his head first this way and then that, till I thought he would wring his own neck in his collar.