ath. He
moved forward, half shutting his eyes, and poised himself on the edge of
the rock, ready for the plunge. Then he put his hands down again and
lowering himself on to the sea-weed, slipped slowly into the water and
struck out. "I'm coming, father!" he said.

"That's right, my son, that's right!" Mr. Quinn replied, looking round.

6

He did not speak of Henry's nervousness again, but it troubled him none
the less. He himself was so fearless, so careless of danger, so eager
for adventure that he could not understand his son's shrinking from
peril.

"I used to think," he said to himself one day, "that boys took their
physique from their mothers an' their brains from their fathers, but it
doesn't seem to have worked out like that with Henry. He doesn't seem to
have got anything from me.... It's a rum business, whatever way you look
at it."

THE SECOND CHAPTER

1

Mr. Quinn's horror of the English people was neither consistent nor
rigid. When the Armagh schoolmaster was found wanting, Mr. Quinn
instantly decided to send Henry to Rumpell's, a famous English school,
and here Henry soon made friends of Ninian Graham and Roger Carey and
Gilbert Farlow. Gilbert Farlow was the friend for whom he cared most,
but his affection for Ninian Graham and Roger Carey was very strong.
Henry's soft nature was naturally affectionate, but there had been
little opportunity in his life for a display of affection. His mother
was not even a memory to him, for she had died while he was still a
baby. Old Cassie Arnott had nursed him, but Cassie, at an age when it
seemed impossible for her to feel any emotion for men, had suddenly
married and had gone off to Belfast. His memory of her speedily faded.
Cassie was succeeded by Matilda Turnbull, who drank, and was dismissed
by Mr. Quinn at the end of a fortnight; and then came Bridget Fallon....
Bridget had the longest hold on his memory, but she, too, disappeared
and was seen no more; for Mr. Quinn came on her suddenly one day and
found her teaching "Master Henry" to say prayers to the Virgin Mary! She
had put a scapular about his neck and had taught him to make the sign of
the cross....

"Take that damned rag off my child's neck," Mr. Quinn had roared at her,
"an' take yourself off as soon as you can pack your box!"

And Bridget, poor, kindly, devout, gentle Bridget, was sent weeping
away.

Long afterwards, Henry had talked to his father about Bridget, and Mr.
Quinn had e