"Faix," said Tiernay, "I ain't sure, principally because I haven't had time to invent it; but we've got rid of Mackworth, and can now discourse reasonable."
Cuthbert sent a boy up to the hall for some towels, and then lay down on the sand beside Tiernay. He was very fond of that man in spite of his reckless Irish habit of talking nonsense. He was not alone there. I think that every one who knew Tiernay liked him.
They lay on the sand together those three; and, when Father Mackworth's anger had evaporated, he came back and lay beside him. Tiernay put his hand out to him, and Mackworth shook it, and they were reconciled. I believe Mackworth esteemed Tiernay, though they were so utterly unlike in character and feeling. I know that Tiernay had a certain admiration for Mackworth.
"Do you think, now," said Tiernay, "that you Englishmen enjoy such a scene and such a time as this as much as we Irishmen do? I cannot tell. You talk better about it. You have a dozen poets to our one. Our best poet, I take it, is Tommy Moore. You class him as third-rate; but I doubt, mind you, whether you feel nature as acutely as we do."
"I think we do," said Cuthbert, eagerly. "I cannot think that you can feel the beauty of the scene we are looking at more deeply than I do. You feel nature as in 'Silent O'Moyle'; we feel it as in Keats' 'St. Agnes' Eve!'"
He was sitting up on the sand, with his elbows on his knees, and his face buried in his hands. None of them spoke for a time; and he, looking seaward, said idly, in a low voice—
"'St. Agnes' Eve. Ah! bitter chill it was.
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limped, trembling, through the frozen grass;
And drowsy was the flock in woolly fold.'"
What was the poor lad thinking of? God knows. There are times when one can't follow the train of a man's thoughts—only treasure up their spoken words as priceless relics.
His beautiful face was turned towards the dying sun, and in that face there was a look of such kindly, quiet peace, that they who watched it were silent, and waited to hear what he would say.