An Irish Cousin by Edith Somerville

Author:Edith Somerville [Somerville, Edith and Ross, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781411436664
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
Published: 2017-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVII

NOVEMBER 20th was Willy’s twenty-fifth birthday, and he and I fitly celebrated it by going out hunting, and, having come home hungry after a good day’s sport, were now, in consideration of having had no lunch, indulging in poached eggs at afternoon tea.

“The men in the yard tell me that there are to be great doings to-night in honour of me,” Willy remarked, when the first sharp edge had been taken off his appetite, “There’s to be a bonfire outside the front gate, and Conneen the piper, and dancing, and everything. It means that I’ll have to send them a tierce of porter, and that you’ll have to turn out after dinner and go down and have a look at them.”

“So long as they don’t ask me to dance, I shall be very glad to go. But would your father mind?”

“Mind? Not he! You’re such a ‘white-headed boy’ with him, you can do what you like with him. By Jove, he’s a deal fonder of you than he ever was of me!” said Willy, with ungrudging admiration.

“I am sure he is not,” I said lazily, and as much for the sake of contradiction as from any false modesty. “It is most unlikely. I know if I were he, I should naturally like you better than I like myself.”

“What on earth are you trying to say?” said Willy. “Would you mind saying it all over again—slowly?”

“I mean,” I said, slightly confused, but sticking to my point—”I mean that if I were your father, I should see a great many more reasons for being fond of you than I should of me.”

“Well, as far as I can make that out,” said Willy, grinning exasperatingly, “it seems to me that it’s a pity you’re not my father.”

“You know perfectly well what I mean. Just suppose that I was your father—”

“I’d rather not, thanks.”

I did not heed the interruption. “I should be much fonder of you—”

“Then, why aren’t you?”

“I don’t care what you say,” I said, feeling I was getting the worst of it; “I know what I mean quite well, and so would you, only that you choose to be an idiot.” And, getting up, I left the room with all speed, in order to have the last word in a discussion which was taking a rather difficult tone.

The sea-fog had crept up from the harbour towards evening, and it fell in heavy drops from the trees upon Willy and me as we walked down the avenue after dinner to see the bonfire. There was no moon visible, but the milky atmosphere held some luminous suggestion of past or coming light. It was a still night; we could hear the low booming of the sea in the caves below the old graveyard, and the nearer splashing of the rising tide among the Durrus rocks.

“There’s no sound I hate like that row the ground-swell makes out there at the point,” said Willy. “If you’re feeling any way lonely, it makes you want to hang yourself.

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