“Are you going to pass the liniment, Pretty Pierre?” It was Jo Gordineer said that.
What the Prophet of Israel did say—Israel and Ireland were identical to Shon—was never told.
Shon’s bubbling sarcasm was full-stopped by the beneficent savour that, rising now from the hands of the four, silenced all irrelevant speech. It was a function of importance. It was not simply necessary to say How! or Here’s reformation! or I look towards you! As if by a common instinct, the Honourable, Jo Gordineer, and Pretty Pierre, turned towards Shon and lifted their glasses. Jo Gordineer was going to say: “Here’s a safe foot in the stirrups to you,” but he changed his mind and drank in silence.
Shon’s eye had been blazing with fun, but it took on, all at once, a misty twinkle. None of them had quite bargained for this. The feeling had come like a wave of soft lightning, and had passed through them. Did it come from the Irishman himself? Was it his own nature acting through those who called him “partner”?
Pretty Pierre got up and kicked savagely at the wood in the big fireplace. He ostentatiously and needlessly put another log of Norfolk-pine upon the fire.
The Honourable gaily suggested a song.
“Sing us ‘Avec les Braves Sauvages,’ Pierre,” said Jo Gordineer.
But Pierre waved his fingers towards Shon: “Shon, his song—he did not finish—on the glacier. It is good we hear all. ‘Hein?’”
And so Shon sang:
“Oh it’s down the long side of Farcalladen Rise.”