CHAPTER XII

It was half-past eight when I left home to go to Derryaghy, but at the corner of the Bryansford Road I met Willie Breen and stopped to get particulars about our meeting to-morrow night. I did not mention the Dales because I was almost sure that in the end Katherine would not come, and in the midst of our talk he broke off abruptly with: “Here’s your fine friends,” delivered half-contemptuously. At the same time he stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled off whistling.

I wheeled round to face Miss Dick and Katherine and Gerald coming towards me. I raised my straw hat.

“We’re just going as far as the station and back,” said Katherine. “We thought we’d meet you.”

I dropped with her a little behind the others and walked as slowly as I could.

“I got your letter,” she went on, simply. “It was very nice of you to write, but I hope you didn’t want an answer. Letters are beyond me.”

“You weren’t angry?” I asked, timidly.

“No. What was there to be angry about? Of course, I couldn’t make out what it all meant: you didn’t intend me, I suppose, to take it quite seriously: but it seemed very flattering and poetic.... I was sorry we weren’t in when you came for us. Tell me what you did with yourself all afternoon.”

“I walked out to the old graveyard and sat there,” I replied.

“How cheerful!”

“It was rather: at any rate I liked it.... Let us go along here,” I added. “We can get home round this way. It is a good deal longer, but―― Do you mind?”

“Not if it doesn’t keep us too late.”

“I have been thinking about the artist’s apprentice,” I began. “Do you smell the meadow-sweet?”

“The artist’s apprentice? Oh, yes! Well, what were you thinking about him?”

“That he must paint your portrait.”

“But can he?”

“He can try, like other apprentices.”

“When?”

“Any time. To-morrow.”

“Really? Do you paint?”

“Only a little in water-colours. I’ve not had any lessons.”

“And you’ve made pictures?”

“No, just a few sketches. I never finish anything. Just something to remind me of――things.”

“You must show them to me.”

“If you like; but you won’t see anything in them; nobody ever does. They’re only meant for myself――and they’re no use anyway.”

“What did you really mean by your letter, Peter?”

“I don’t know――burn it. I meant everything that’s there, but I’m not sure now what _is_ there. After I had written it I went out and lay down on the golf-links and listened to the sea.... Would you like me to take you to my old graveyard? I expect you’ll be going to church there on Sunday.”

“Do you mean now?”

“Yes. It’s not far away――just across those fields.”

We walked on through the scented darkness.

“I don’t know that I like graveyards,” said Katherine, doubtfully.

“I don’t either――new ones――but this is very old.”

I helped her across the stile. Out of the shadow of the tall hedge, the grassy country lay grey and unsubstantial under the rising moon. The black spire of the church showed through the trees, and in a little while we reached the low wall where I had sat all the afternoon. But how changed the place was! Flooded with fantastic moonlight, only the shadows now seemed real.

“You do not want to go inside?” Katherine asked, dissuasively.

“No; we can see it from here.” And I leaned over the low wall. “It is not like a modern cemetery,” I again told her. “There is nothing horrid here. There are no bodies;――nothing but a little dust, and a few spirits, perhaps, that have not gone away.”

“Ghosts? Are you not afraid of them?”

“I don’t know. Not now, at any rate; these ghosts are friendly; they are so old.”

“Have you seen them?”

“No. I saw one at home in my bedroom when I was a little chap, but it was not nice; it was not like these.... You are buried here,” I added, smiling.

But Katherine turned away quickly. “Don’t,” she said. “Why do you like to be so morbid? Besides, I don’t think it is right.”

I could see that I had vexed her, and I changed the subject.

Down by the grave just below us the tiny green light of a glow-worm glimmered, but I did not point it out to Katherine. A fairy tale of Hans Andersen’s came into my mind, and I saw Death, like an old gardener, floating over the wall with a soul, like a baby, folded in his arms; and I watched him lay it softly to sleep under the trees. I had forgotten all the details of the story, but I made a story for myself, and the moonlight on the grass and on the weather-worn grave-stones, and the black, lurking shadows, and the still, moon-drenched church, wove into it a mysterious beauty. It seemed to me that something might happen now that would make, for me at least, all things different for ever after, that would push the boundaries of life infinitely further back, by bringing a dimmer, vaster world directly into relation with me. In that world, perhaps, they dreamed of this, just as I was now dreaming of it.

I was aroused by Katherine. “We must go, Peter.” She laid her hand on my arm.

“All right.”

I took a last look, and then stepped out briskly beside her.

“I oughtn’t to have brought you here,” I said, “out of your way.”

“I enjoyed coming. I am not in any hurry myself, but you know how early they go to bed, and it must be getting late.”

“Do you like me, Katherine,” I asked, pleasantly.

“If I had disliked you I don’t suppose I should have tramped all these miles with you.”

“You are sure I don’t bore you, or anything?”

“Not up to the present. Why do you ask?” she smiled.

“I just wanted to make sure. Girls, as a rule, would rather have older people than I am――wouldn’t they――fellows like the curate? I only mention him because you happen to have met him. You’re seventeen, which means that you’re grown up, and――――”

“I can’t make up my mind what you are,” Katherine interrupted, laughing aloud. “The first night I saw you you were frightened to open your mouth, and now you’re saying all kinds of things.”

“That shouldn’t be said?”

“No; I like them. I daresay in ten years’ time I won’t care to be told how old I am, but at present it’s all right.”

“I didn’t mean anything except that there’s a difference between us. Girls often get married at seventeen.”

“I think, you know, you’re rather a dear in your own way,” she said, thoughtfully.