He fell asleep, after a long, wakeful night, and did not hear the maid who called him. Mr. Quinn, when he was told of the heaviness of Henry's slumber, said "Let him lie on!" and so it was that he did not rise until noon. He came down heavy-eyed and irritable, and wandered about the garden in which he took no pleasure. Marsh came to him while he was there, full of enthusiasm because more pupils had attended the Language class than he had anticipated.

"That girl, Sheila Morgan, wasn't there!"

"Oh!" said Henry.

"I thought she'd be certain to come. She seemed so anxious to join the class. Perhaps she was prevented. I hope you'll be able to come to-night, Henry!..."

Henry turned away impatiently. "I don't think I shall go again," he said in a surly voice.

Marsh stared at him. "Not go again!" he exclaimed.

"No."

"But!..."

"Oh, I'm sick of the class. I'm sick of the whole thing. I'm sick of Irish!..."

Marsh walked away from him, walked so quickly that Henry knew that he was trying to subdue the sudden rage that rose in him when people spoke slightingly of Irish things, and for a few moments he felt sorry and ready to follow him and apologise for what he had said; but the sorrow passed as quickly as it came.

"It's absurd of him to behave like that," he said to himself, and went on his way about the garden.

Presently he saw Marsh approaching him, and he stood still and waited for him.

"I'm sorry, Henry," Marsh said when he had come up to him.

"It was my fault," Henry replied.

"I ought not to have walked off like that ... but I can't bear to hear any one talking!..."

"I know you can't," Henry interrupted. "That's why I ought not to have said what I did!"

But Marsh insisted on bearing the blame. "I ought to have remembered that you're not feeling well," he said, reproaching himself. "I get so interested in Ireland that I forget about people's feelings. That's my chief fault. I know it is. I must try to remember.... I suppose you didn't really mean what you said?"

"Yes, I did," Henry replied quickly.

"But why?"

"I don't know. I just don't want to. What's the good of it anyhow?..."

Good of it! Henry ought to have known what a passion of patriotism his scorn for the Language would provoke.

"Oh, all right, John!" he said impatiently. "I've heard all that before, and I don't want to hear it again. You can argue as much as you like, but I can't see any sense in wasting time on what's over. And the Irish language is over and done with. Father's quite right!"

Marsh's anger became intensified. "That's the Belfast spirit in you," he exclaimed. "The pounds, shillings and pence mood! I know what you think of the language. You think, what is the commercial value of it? Will it enable a boy to earn thirty shillings a week in an office? Is it as useful as Pitman's Shorthand? That's what you're thinking!..."

"No, it's not, but if it were, it would be very sensible!"

"My God, Henry, can't you realise that a nation's language is the sound of a nation's soul? Don't you understand, man, that if we can't speak our own language then our souls are silent, dumb, inarticulate?... don't you see what I mean?... and all the time we're using English, we're like people who read translations. I don't care whether it is commercially valuable or not. That's not the point. The point is that it's us, that it's our tongue, our language, that it distinguishes us from the English, insists on our difference from them. Do you see what I mean, Henry? We are different, aren't we? You realise that, don't you? We are different from the English, and nothing will ever make us like them. My God, I'd hate to be like them!..."

Henry fled from him, and, scarcely knowing what he was doing, ran across the fields towards Hamilton's farm. As he went up the "loanie," he remembered that Sheila had struck him in the face in her rage at his cowardice, and he stopped and wondered whether he should go on or not. And while he was waiting in the "loanie," she came out of a field, driving a cow before her.