“Why did you run away the last time?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was that I was afraid.”
She looked back at the shed as she spoke, saw old Maire a Glan bending over the fire, Willie the Duck playing his fiddle; could hear the loud laughter of Micky’s Jim. Norah looked up at the face of the man beside her and was not in the least afraid.
“We’ll go along the lane a bit,” he said.
They went together hand in hand along the hazel-lined gravel pathway. Overhead the stars sparkled, the trees, showing thin against the sky, waved their bare arms in the slight breeze and moaned plaintively. Willie the Duck was playing “Way down upon the Swanee River,” and it seemed as if the melody drifted in from a great distance.
“That’s a wonderful melody,” said the young man. “In it is the heart and soul of a persecuted people.”
He had heard somebody make that remark in the club and it appealed to him. The girl made no answer to his words. They stopped as if by mutual consent opposite the large shed in the stack yard.
“It’s very cold,” said Morrison.
“Is it? No.”
“We’ll go in here,” said the young man. He pulled the gate of the stack yard apart and went in, Norah following. A vague sense of danger, of some impending menace, suddenly took possession of the girl. The sight of the fire shining would be comforting, but she could not see the shed now. Between her and it the farmhouse stood up white and lonesome. A light glimmered for a moment in one of the rooms, then went out. Somewhere near a dog barked loudly, another joined in the outcry; an uneasy bird rose from the copse and fluttered off into the night.