"Is that the way you wheedled the poor lassie out of the kiss? But there now, I'll no say a word more about her if it makes you sore. But I can't sit here crackin' all day. I've the dinner to get ready, and the master'll be quare and angry if it's no ready against he's home."
"Would you like me to leave you them twa graven images?" she said.
"I'd like you to take them away," said Neal, "and then get me a book out of the case."
"I will, surely. What sort of a book would you like? A big one or a wee one. There's one here in a braw red cover with pictures of ships in it. Maybe it might content you."
"Read me a few of their names," said Neal, "and I'll tell you which to bring."
"Faith, if you wait for me to read you the names you'll wait till the crack of doom. Nobody ever learned me readin', writin', or 'rithmetic."
"Bring me three or four," said Neal, "and I'll choose the one I like best."
She deposited half a dozen volumes on the chair beside him and left the room. Neal took them up one by one. There was a volume of "Voltaire," Tom Paine's "Rights of Man," "The Vindiciæ Gallicæ," by Mackintosh, Godwin's "Political Justice," Montesquieu's "Esprit des Lois," and a volume of Burns' poetry, not long out from a Belfast printer. Neal already knew Godwin's works and the "Esprit des Lois." They stood on his father's bookshelves. He glanced at the pages of the others, and finally settled down to read Burns' poetry. The Scottish dialect presents little difficulty to a man bred among County Antrim people. The love songs, with their extraordinary freshness and vivid emotion, delighted Neal. Like many lovers of poetry, he tasted the full pleasure of verse best when he read it aloud. One after another he declaimed the marvellous songs, returning again and again to one which seemed peculiarly suited to his circumstances--
"It's not the roar o' sea or shore Wad make me longer wish to tarry; Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar-- It's leaving thee, my bonny Mary."
He read the song aloud for the fourth time. As he uttered the last words he heard a laugh, and, looking up, saw his host, Felix Matier, standing at the door of the room.
"Well, Neal, good morrow to you. You're well enough in body, to judge by your voice. But if that poem's a measure of the state of your mind you're sick at heart. Never mind Mary, man. There's better stuff in Burns than that. He's no bad poet, is Rabbie Burns. Listen to this now. Here's one I'm fond of."