Changing Winds Part 14

Sheila Morgan did not know any of the ancient Gaelic dances, nor did any one in Ballymartin. She knew how to waltz and she could dance the polka and the schottishe. "An' that's all you need!" she said. There were two old women in the village who danced a double reel, and Paddy Kane was a great lad at jigs....

"Perhaps later on," Marsh said, "we can get some one to teach them Gaelic dances!"

And so the cla.s.ses began. Marsh had announced at the Language cla.s.s that the first of the Dancing Cla.s.ses would be held on the following Thursday ... and on Thursday every boy and girl and young man and woman in Ballymartin had crowded into the schoolroom where the cla.s.s was to be held.

"There are more here than come to the Language cla.s.s," Marsh exclaimed in astonishment when he entered the room.

"Dancing seems to be more popular than Gaelic," Henry replied.

"I don't know how we shall teach them all," Marsh went on. "I can't dance ... and she can't possibly teach them all!"

But there was no need to teach them to dance--they had all learned to dance "from their cradles," as some one said, and in a little while the room was full of dancing couples.

Sheila Morgan had gone smilingly to John Marsh as he entered the room.

"We're all ready," she said, and waited.

"Oh, yes!" he replied, a little vaguely.

She looked at him for a few moments, and then went on. "If you were to lead off," she suggested.

"Me? But I can't dance!..."

"You can't dance!"

"No," he continued. "Somehow, I've never learnt to dance!" She looked disappointed. "I thought mebbe you an' me 'ud lead off," she said.

"I'm sorry," he replied. "Perhaps Mr. Quinn can dance!..."

Henry gave his arm to her and they walked off, to begin the slow procession round the room until all the couples were ready.

"I think Mr. Marsh is the only one in the place that can't dance,"

Sheila said, as she placed her hand on Henry's shoulder.

He put his arm round her waist and they moved off in the dance. "I suppose he is," he answered.

7

He danced with her several times. Her cheeks were glowing and the l.u.s.tre of her eyes was like the sparkle of the stars. Her lips were slightly parted, and now and then her breath came quickly. As they swung round and round, she sometimes closed her eyes and then slowly opened them again. He became aware of some strange emotion that he had never known before.

"I love dancin'," she murmured, half to herself.

"Yes," he replied, scarcely knowing that he was speaking.

"I love dancin'," she said again, and again he said "Yes" and no more....

He led her to a seat at the side of the room and sat down on the chair next to it. They did not speak, but sat there watching the swift movements of the other dancers. Marsh was somewhere at the other end of the room, looking on ... a little puzzled, a little disturbed ... but pleased, too, because the dancers were pleased. He was wondering why the interest in the Gaelic language was not so strong as the interest in the waltz. "A foreign dance, too ... not Gaelic at all!"

But Henry had forgotten the Gaelic movement, and was conscious only of the girl beside him and her glowing cheeks and her bright eyes and the softness of her.... She was older than he was, a couple of years and he noticed that she had just "put up" her hair. It had been hanging loosely when he first saw her, and he wondered which he liked better, the loose, hanging hair, or the hair bound round her head. Her slender white neck was revealed now that her hair was up, and it was very beautiful, but he thought that after all, his first sight of her, as she stood in the doorway, the raindrops still on her face, and flung back the long, loose strands of dark hair that lay about her shoulders ... he still thought that was the loveliest vision of her he had seen....

Then he remembered Mary Graham. She, too, had long loose hair that lay in dark lengths about her shoulders, and her eyes, too, could s.h.i.+ne ...

but she was a girl, and Sheila was a woman!... He was engaged to Mary, of course ... well, was it an engagement? They had been sweethearts and he had told her he loved her and she had said that she would marry him ... and all that ... but they were kids when that happened. Ninian had called him a sloppy a.s.s!... This was different. His feeling for Sheila Morgan was different from his feeling for Mary Graham. He had never felt for any one as he felt for Sheila. He seemed unaccountably to be more aware of Sheila than he was of Mary. He could not altogether understand this difference of sensation ... but sometimes when he had been with Mary, he had forgotten that she was a girl ... she was just some one with whom he was playing a game or going for a walk or taking a bathe in the sea. But he could not forget that Sheila was a woman. When he had danced with her and his arm was about her waist and her fingers were in his ... he seemed to grow up. He felt as if something at which he had been gazing uncomprehendingly for a long time, had suddenly become known to him. He recognised something ... understood something which had puzzled him.

"Let's dance again," he said, standing up before her.

"All right," she answered, rising and going to him.

"I love dancing," he said to her.

"Yes," she murmured in reply.

8

When the dance was over, he took her to her uncle's farm. Marsh, overcome by headache, had gone home before the dance was ended, and Henry felt glad of this. He waited in the porch of the schoolhouse while Sheila put on her coat and wrap, and wondered why his feeling for her was so different from his feeling for Mary Graham, and while he wondered, she came to him, gathering up her skirts.

"Isn't the sky lovely?" she said, glancing up at the stars, as they walked out of the school-yard into the road.

He glanced up too, but did not answer.

"Millions an' millions of them," she said. "You'd wonder the sky 'ud hold them all!"

"Yes," he said.

"Many's a time I wonder about the stars," she went on. "Do you ever wonder about them?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you think there's people in them, the same as there is on the earth?"

"I don't know," he answered.

"This is a star, too, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes."

"An' s.h.i.+nes just like them does?"

"Yes, I think so!"

"That's quare!" She walked on for a few yards without speaking, and her eyes were fixed steadily on the starry fields. "It's funny," she said, "to think mebbe there's people up there lookin' at us an' them mebbe thinkin' about this place what we're thinkin' of them. Wouldn't you love to be able to fly up to one of them an' just see if it's true?..."

He laughed at her and she laughed in response. "I'm talkin' blether,"

she said, stumbling over a stone in the road.

"Mind!" he warned her, putting out his hand to steady her.

"I was nearly down that time," she said. "These roads is awful in the dark ... you can't see where you're goin' or what's in the way!"