“I’ll be tellin’ you that to-morra. Will you be doin’ what I say?”
“I will,” said Micky.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE SPIRIT OF IRELAND
When General Grampound took his leave of Mr Boxall, Mr Boxall rose from his bed and resumed those garments he had relinquished before taking his place between the sheets. Having nothing else to do, and to kill the time, he took his place at the writing-table near the window, and proceeded to write letters.
The window gave a view over the stable roofs of a country more beautiful than a picture. The park, and the pools, heron-haunted, and lying under the grey sky of winter, made a picture tenderly tinted as an aquarelle; the fields, the woods, the moorlands, the dim and distant hills of Glynn, how beautiful they were seen through that illusive atmosphere, the air of Ireland!
The air of Ireland, the moist and crystal-clear air, what a magician it is! what a wealth of illusion it holds, and voiceless poetry!
Till you have known its influence, you never can know how far-off hills can draw you towards them, or what voices can haunt the glens. When you have known its influence you will know more of that mysterious secret “Ireland” than all the gaol reports, agricultural reports and Blue Books can teach you—if you are a poet.
Mr Boxall was not a poet. He had come over to Ireland for two reasons, firstly, to be in the same house with Violet Lestrange; secondly, to study Ireland and the Irish. He was not a poet, but a practical man.
Now, the pursuit of Love is as dangerous a pursuit for a practical man as the study of the Irish in their own home.