THE BARNACLE GOOSE

I

E might have been a hundred years away, he thought, as he sped along the road on the jaunting-car; he might have been a hundred years away instead of a meager dozen, so strange did everything appear to him. Every turn of the way, every stone, every smoking farm-house, every green field, was new. Even the sea to the right of him, beside which he had played for nineteen years, was dramatically unexpected. Faintly the whole landscape came back to him; hazily, as though he were seeing for the first time a scene that had been inadequately described in a book.

First, there was the road itself, broad, undulating, rising and falling, like an artist's fancy. Then, right and left, fields of delicate blue-green corn, soft as no carpet could be; and great meadows of hay, sprinkled with white and red clover; long stretches of potatoes with delicate pink and mauve flowers; and here and there a gnarled apple orchard. Huge chestnut trees lined the way, and mellow farm-houses showed cozily, with their dun

thatched roofs. Cows grazed in the distanceshining, mottled Jerseys and stocky Kerrys, black as ink.

In the background the purple Mourne Mountains loomed like strange giants; and beside him the sea plashed musically, with a sound reminiscent of the chiming of bells. It was all surprisingly mellow, surprisingly rich, like the land which the spies of Joshua reported to lie past the Jordan's banks. Grant's eyebrows raised in puzzlement.

The brick-faced driver looked at him with a horseman's shrewd eyes.

"I knew you the first time I put eyes on you," he said in his clipped Ulster accent. "You're Thomas Grant's son-Willie John-that went away to America twelve years ago last March. And why should n't I know you? Many's the time I drove you when you were that high." He gave the dapper little mare a flick of the whip. "I suppose you'll be settling down and staying at home now?" he asked.

"No; I don't think I will," Grant answered; and he smiled as he heard his voice slip into the musical singsong it had n't known for many years. "I'll be going back in a month or so."

They whipped along past the sea for another mile, the little mare's hoofs striking the white road as true and as staccato as drumsticks. A strip of salt-marsh spun toward them. Eastward, over the

sea, a flock of birds hove. Their wings flapped wearily, and as they flew landward they uttered faint whimpering cries.

"The wild geese.'

The driver pointed them out with his whip. "They're coming back to the marsh. They're queer birds."

Grant watched them as they came. Their cries came sharp and complaining through the air, highpitched, querulous, turbulent. And still there

seemed to be something satisfied in them, like the sobbing of a child who has received what he wants but cannot stop for a moment.

"I often heard my grandfather say—and it's little he did n't know about birds," the driver went on "that there is n't a queerer bird in the world than the barnacle goose. The moment they can fly they'll leave the country. My grandfather saw them in Egypt, and he saw them in France, traveling all the time; but they can never get the taste of the Irish marshes out of their mouths, and they come back. The young ones go and the old ones stay. Even a bird does n't get sense until it's taught."

They swept from the highway into a narrower road, and Grant's heart jumped a little, for he recognized it, broader though it was, and greener its hedges and smoother its surface than he had thought it. The sun was going down and a soft bronze twilight was beginning to settle. A little

river ran past to the sea through the lush meadow

land, and for an instant he trout as it leaped for a fly. came the scent of clover.

saw the shimmer of a And from everywhere

They had turned, almost before he noticed it, into the yard of the farm-house, and again the sense of surprise struck Grant like a blow. Of course he remembered everything now-the long whitewashed farm-house, thatched with golden straw, with the sweet-pea and ivy clustering about its walls; the massive slated stable and byre; the barn to the rear of that, in the orchard; the white dairy near the big iron gates with its cinder churning table; the giant ricks of hay back of it all; the dogs running in the yard-sheep-dog and setter and greyhound-the two farm-hands stopping to look at him solemnly as he came through the gates; the thick servant-girl hurrying out of the front door as she heard the grinding of wheels. It was so different from what he had thought it was that he caught his breath in shamed embarrassment.

A tall young fellow with red hair and a humorous twist to his mouth came strolling from the stables. He wore a tweed coat and riding-breeches and boots. He stopped short and looked at the

car.

"It's Willie John!" he shouted.

He swung across the yard like a flash and grasped Grant's hand in something that felt like a vise. He