Dubliners | Page 7

field. We both felt rather tired and when
we reached the field we made at once for a sloping bank over the ridge
of which we could see the Dodder.
It was too late and we were too tired to carry out our project of visiting
the Pigeon House. We had to be home before four o'clock lest our
adventure should be discovered. Mahony looked regretfully at his
catapult and I had to suggest going home by train before he regained
any cheerfulness. The sun went in behind some clouds and left us to
our jaded thoughts and the crumbs of our provisions.
There was nobody but ourselves in the field. When we had lain on the
bank for some time without speaking I saw a man approaching from the
far end of the field. I watched him lazily as I chewed one of those green
stems on which girls tell fortunes. He came along by the bank slowly.
He walked with one hand upon his hip and in the other hand he held a
stick with which he tapped the turf lightly. He was shabbily dressed in
a suit of greenish-black and wore what we used to call a jerry hat with a
high crown. He seemed to be fairly old for his moustache was
ashen-grey. When he passed at our feet he glanced up at us quickly and
then continued his way. We followed him with our eyes and saw that
when he had gone on for perhaps fifty paces he turned about and began

to retrace his steps. He walked towards us very slowly, always tapping
the ground with his stick, so slowly that I thought he was looking for
something in the grass.
He stopped when he came level with us and bade us goodday. We
answered him and he sat down beside us on the slope slowly and with
great care. He began to talk of the weather, saying that it would be a
very hot summer and adding that the seasons had changed gready since
he was a boy--a long time ago. He said that the happiest time of one's
life was undoubtedly one's schoolboy days and that he would give
anything to be young again. While he expressed these sentiments which
bored us a little we kept silent. Then he began to talk of school and of
books. He asked us whether we had read the poetry of Thomas Moore
or the works of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Lytton. I pretended that I had
read every book he mentioned so that in the end he said:
"Ah, I can see you are a bookworm like myself. Now," he added,
pointing to Mahony who was regarding us with open eyes, "he is
different; he goes in for games."
He said he had all Sir Walter Scott's works and all Lord Lytton's works
at home and never tired of reading them. "Of course," he said, "there
were some of Lord Lytton's works which boys couldn't read." Mahony
asked why couldn't boys read them--a question which agitated and
pained me because I was afraid the man would think I was as stupid as
Mahony. The man, however, only smiled. I saw that he had great gaps
in his mouth between his yellow teeth. Then he asked us which of us
had the most sweethearts. Mahony mentioned lightly that he had three
totties. The man asked me how many I had. I answered that I had none.
He did not believe me and said he was sure I must have one. I was
silent.
"Tell us," said Mahony pertly to the man, "how many have you
yourself?"
The man smiled as before and said that when he was our age he had
lots of sweethearts.

"Every boy," he said, "has a little sweetheart."
His attitude on this point struck me as strangely liberal in a man of his
age. In my heart I thought that what he said about boys and sweethearts
was reasonable. But I disliked the words in his mouth and I wondered
why he shivered once or twice as if he feared something or felt a
sudden chill. As he proceeded I noticed that his accent was good. He
began to speak to us about girls, saying what nice soft hair they had and
how soft their hands were and how all girls were not so good as they
seemed to be if one only knew. There was nothing he liked, he said, so
much as looking at a nice young girl, at her nice white hands and her
beautiful soft hair. He gave me the impression that he was repeating
something which he had learned by heart or that, magnetised by some
words of his own speech, his mind was slowly circling round and