“Coup, c-o-u-p!” she called, but he swung his neck sideways as he swam—it was like a disdainful negation. “Perhaps he thinks I’m a freak,” she mused grimly, feeling more lonely because of the swan.
The lakes were guarded by massive old beech trees, and the beech trees stood ankle-deep in their foliage; a lovely and luminous carpet of leaves they had spread on the homely brown earth of Morton. Each spring came new little shuttles of greenness that in time added warp and woof to the carpet, so that year by year it grew softer and deeper, and year by year it glowed more resplendent. Stephen had loved this spot from her childhood, and now she instinctively went to it for comfort, but its beauty only added to her melancholy, for beauty can wound like a two-edged sword. She could not respond to its stillness of spirit, since she could not lull her own spirit to stillness.
She thought: “I shall never be one with great peace any more, I shall always stand outside this stillness—wherever there is absolute stillness and peace in this world, I shall always stand just outside it.” And as though these thoughts were in some way prophetic, she inwardly shivered a little.
Then what must the swan do but start to hiss loudly, just to show her that he was really a father: “Peter,” she reproached him, “I won’t hurt your babies—can’t you trust me? I fed you the whole of last winter!”
But apparently Peter could not trust her at all, for he squawked to his mate who came out through the bushes, and she hissed in her turn, flapping strong angry wings, which meant in mere language: “Get out of this, Stephen, you clumsy, inadequate, ludicrous creature; you destroyer of nests, you disturber of young, you great wingless blot on a beautiful morning!” Then they both hissed together: “Get out of this, Stephen!” So Stephen left them to the care of their cygnets.
Remembering Raftery, she walked to the stables, where all was confusion and purposeful bustle. Old Williams was ruthlessly out on the warpath; he was scolding: “Drat the boy, what be ’e a-doin’? Come on, do! ’Urry up, get them two horses bridled, and don’t go forgettin’ their kneecaps this mornin’—and that bucket there don’t belong where it’s standin’, nor that broom! Did Jim take the roan to the blacksmith’s? Gawd almighty, why not? ’Er shoes is like paper! ’Ere, you Jim, don’t you go on ignorin’ my orders, if you do—Come on, boy, got them two horses ready? Right, well then, up you go! You don’t want no saddle, like as not you’d give ’im a gall if you ’ad one!”
The sleek, good-looking hunters were led out in clothing—for the early spring mornings were still rather nippy—and among them came Raftery, slender and skittish; he was wearing his hood, and his eyes peered out bright as a falcon’s from the two neatly braided eye-holes. From a couple more holes in the top of his headdress, shot his small, pointed ears, which now worked with excitement.
“ ’Old on!” bellowed Williams, “What the ’ell be you doin’? Quick, shorten ’is bridle, yer not in a circus!” And then seeing Stephen: “Beg pardon, Miss Stephen, but it be a fair crime not to lead that horse close, and ’im all corned up until ’e’s fair dancin’!”
They stood watching Raftery skip through the gates, then old Williams said softly: “ ’E do be a wonder—more nor fifty odd years ’ave I worked in the stables, and never no beast ’ave I loved like Raftery. But ’e’s no common horse, ’e be some sort of Christian, and a better one too than a good few I knows on—”
And Stephen answered: “Perhaps he’s a poet like his namesake; I think if he could write he’d write verses. They say all the Irish are poets at heart, so perhaps they pass on the gift to their horses.”
Then the two of them smiled, each a little embarrassed, but their eyes held great friendship the one for the other, a friendship of years now cemented by Raftery whom they loved—and small wonder, for assuredly never did more gallant or courteous horse step out of stable.
“Oh, well,” sighed Williams, “I be gettin’ that old—and Raftery, ’e do be comin’ eleven, but ’e don’t feel it yet in ’is limbs the way I does—me rheumatics ’as troubled me awful this winter.”
She stayed on a little while, comforting Williams, then made her way back to the house, very slowly. “Poor Williams,” she thought, “he is getting old, but thank the Lord nothing’s the matter with Raftery.”
The house lay full in a great slant of sunshine; it looked as though it was sunning its shoulders. Glancing up, she came eye to eye with the house, and she fancied that Morton was thinking about her, for its windows seemed to be beckoning, inviting: “Come home, come home, come inside quickly, Stephen!” And as though they had spoken, she answered: “I’m coming,” and she quickened her lagging steps to a run, in response to this most compassionate kindness. Yes, she actually ran through the heavy white doorway under the semicircular fanlight, and on up the staircase that led from the hall in which hung the funny old portraits of Gordons—men long dead and gone but still wonderfully living, since their thoughts had fashioned the comeliness of Morton; since their loves had made children from father to son—from father to son until the advent of Stephen.
II
That evening she went to her father’s study, and when he looked up
