She nodded and we walked on.
I knew the house, long before she stopped and pointed it out to me. It was just the prison, just the cage I had imagined it to be. In a little plot of land on the cliff's edge it stood, looking out across the wide and lonely bay of Ballysheen. The sun was shining then, but I knew what it must be like on a lightless day. There was no garden, and the shrubs that partly surrounded the house were bent with the south-west wind. They looked like old witches stooping in the grass to gather simples. No creeper grew upon the walls. It was all a cold grey stone, and the windows stared and stared as though they ached with endless looking out to sea. Even with that sun burning in the sky, the water was not blue. I thought of the colors which must still be living, burning in the eyes of that little prisoner behind those walls, and with an effort I kept my exclamation to myself.
"Shall we go on?" said Bellwattle.
I acquiesced, but just as we were about to turn away, I saw the curtains in an upper window move. For one instant they were pulled aside and a face that surprised me with its paleness peeped out.
I stopped, waiting to see more, hoping that I should really behold Clarissa for the first time and then, as the curtains fell together again, I turned to look at Bellwattle and found her watching me.
CHAPTER VIII
At the bottom of the garden I sat out under the hedge of nut trees this afternoon and did my best to formulate a plan of action. Dandy sat on the ground before me, staring up into my face. He knew I was thinking deeply and, though he would not have disturbed me for the world, I saw that he was offering me his assistance. It consists of a rapt and undivided attention while I speak aloud whatever comes first into my head. There are but few occasions when I refuse his offer. I accepted it then.
"This requires strenuous concentration," said I, whereupon I began to let my eyes wander up the garden to where Cruikshank was seeing to his raspberry canes.
He really should have been called Adam. Cruikshank is no proper name for him. For that matter, she might with better reason have been called Eve. They are just a man and woman in a garden and, so far as I know, there is no tree within its high stone walls, the fruit of which they may not touch. It would have saved a deal of trouble had the garden of Eden been like this.
As I looked back, I caught Dandy's eye. It was reminding me that I was letting concentration go with the wind. That wind always springs up when I attempt anything in the nature of concentration. I know so well the tune of it. So sure as I set my mind to some definite contemplation, it plays the prettiest of fancies in my ears.