Now, if it had been an angel he had seen
Now, if it had been an angel he had seen in the high air, it would have been the Act—or the banshee, and her crooning and keening by the riverside, with her white cloak, her red, burnished hair.... But it was an island he had seen, a dancing town, with his own hard wee Scots-Irish eyes. And that was not an Act of God; it was a fact, and so outside his Uncle Alan's bailiwick and within his Uncle Robin's. His Uncle Robin would say it was the reflected image of some place in the world. Aye, he'd take his Uncle Robin's word for that. But where was it? Surely, as yet, it was undiscovered. It had the quiet of a June evening, that land had, and a grand shimmering beauty.... And if it was known where it was, wouldn't the mountainy folk be leaving their cabins, and the strong farmers their plowed lands, and the whining tinkers behoofing the road for it? If it was known where that land was....
It occurred to him it must have been that land his father meant and he writing his poem of the Green Graveyard of Creggan. While he was sleeping under the weeping yew-trees the young queen had touched the sleeping poet on the shoulder.
"A shiolaigh charthannaigh," she said, "O kindly kinsman,na caithtear thusa ins na nealtaibh broin, let you not be thrown under the clouds of sorrow!Acht eirigh in do sheasamh, but rise in your standing,agas gluais liomsa siar' sa' rod, and travel with me westward in the road.Go Tir Dheas na Meala, to the shimmering land of honey where the foreigner has not the sway. And you will find pleasantry in white halls persuading me to the strains of music."
Surely his father, too, had seen Dancing Town!
And it was an old story that Oisin had found it, when he rode with the princess over the waves on a white horse whose hoofs never touched water, and he abode with her inTir nan Og, in the Land of Them Who are Young, for a thousand years or more, until the great homesickness for Ireland took him, that takes the strongest, and he came for a visit on the white horse; but the girths of the saddle broke, and he fell to theground, and the horse flew away. And he who had been strong and young and beautiful became old and bald and blind, and Patrick of the Bells and Crosses took him, and put him with the groaning penitents, who beat their breasts under the fear of hell. And he, who had known Tir nan Og and the Silver Woman, was a drooling ancient with a wee lad to lead him.... But that was just a winter's tale with no sense to it.
But there were other things in books that had the ring of truth to them. There was the voyage of Maeldun, who had set out in his coracle, and visited strange islands. The Island of Huge Ants was one, and wee Shane had seen in his geography book pictures of armadillos, and he shrewdly surmised that Maeldun had been to South America. And there was the Island of Red-Hot Animals, but that was a poser. Still and all, the rhinoceros had armor like an old knight's, and that would surely get red-hot under the suns of the equator. It would explain, too, why the rhinoceros favored the water, like a cow in July.... Sure that was it: Maeldun had been to Africa. And Maeldun, too, had found the Fortunate Isle. Brendan, too, had known it. Wasn't it in old charts—St. Brendan's Isle? He said he found it, and surely a saint of God wouldn't lie....
Och, it was there somewhere, but people were different from what they were in the ancient days. They didn't bother. If they had told his father about it, sure all Colquitto would have done was to call for pen and paper.
"Mo bhron air an fhairrge," he would have written: "My grief on the sea—how it comes between me and the land where my mind might be easy—" And then he'd have lain back and chanted it. "'Avourneen, did you ever in all your life hear a poem as good as my poem? Sure old Homer's jealous in the black clouds. Was there ever a Greek poet the equal of a Gaelic one?Anois, teacht an Earraigh—now the moment spring comes in, 't is I will hoist sail,inneosad mo sheol...."
And Alan Donn might have started to find it, but at the first golf links he'd stop, "to take the conceit out of the local people, and to give them something to talk of, and they old men," or to match his coursing greyhound against any dog in the world for a ten-pound note, or to deluther some red-cheeked likely woman....
And Uncle Robin might hear of it, and he'd sit down and write a book, saying where it probably was, and how you might get there, and what the people were like, and whom they were probably descended from.... And the book would be in all the libraries of the world, and people would be writing him telling him what a great head was on him, and he'd mutter: "Nonsense! Nonsense! All nonsense!" and stroke his great red beard....
But wouldn't it be the funny thing, the queer and funny thing, if he himself, wee Shane Campbell, were to go out and discover that island, and to own it, and to have it marked in the maps and charts, "Wee Shane Campbell's Island," for all to read and see?...
"Decent wee fellow, is it about here somewhere the house of the McFees?"
Shane had turned into the main road that ran along the sea-shore on the way homeward when the voice hailed him. It was a great black-bearded man, sitting on the ditch, holding his shoes in his hand. His face was tanned to mahogany, and in his ears were little gold rings. He wore clothes that were obviously new, obviously uncomfortable.
"If you keep on the road about a half a mile and then turn to the left, and keep on there until you come to a loaning near a well with a hawthorn-bush couching over it, and turn to the left down that loaning, you'll come to it. It's a weethatched house, needing a coat of whitewash. It's got a byre with a slate roof, and a rowan-tree near it. You canna' miss it."
"Now isn't that the queer thing," the big man said, "me that thought I knew every art and part of this country, and that could find my way in the dark from Java Head to Poplar Parish, can't remember the place where I was born and reared? Forty years of traveling on the main ocean and thinking long for this place, and now when I come back I know no more about it than a fish does of dry land." He stood up painfully. "And me that thought I would come back leaping like a hare am now killed entirely with the soreness of my feet."
"You're not accustomed to walking, then, honest man?"
"'Deed, and you may say I'm not, decent wee fellow. I'm a sailorman, and aboard ship there's very little use for the feet. You've got to be quick as a fish with the hands, and have great strength in the arms of you. And you must have toes to grip, and thighs to brace you against the heeling timbers. But to be walking somewhere for long, hitting the road with your feet like you'd be hitting a wall with your head, it's unnatural to a sailing man. A half a mile, did you say?"
"Honest man," said wee Shane, troubled, "are you looking for any one in the house of the McFees?"
"For a woman that bore me and put me to her breast. An old woman now, decent wee fellow."
"You'll no' find her, honest man."
"She's dead?"
"I saw her with the pennies on her eyes not two months gone."
"So my mother's dead," said the big man. "So my mother's dead. Ah, well, all her troubles are over. It's forty years since I saw her, and she the strapping woman. And in forty years she must have had a power of trouble."
"She looked unco peaceful, honest man."
"The dead are always peaceful, decent wee fellow. So my mother's dead. Well, that alters things."
"You'll be staying at home then, honest man?"
"I'll be going back to sea, decent wee fellow. I had intended to stay at home and be with the old woman in her last days, the like of a pilot that brings a ship in, as you might say. But it would have been queer and hard. Herself, now, had no word of English?"
"Old Annapla McFee spoke only the Gaidhlig."
"And the Gaidhlig is gone from me, as theflower goes from the fruit-tree. And there could have been little conversation betwixt us, she remembering fairs and dances and patterns in the Gaidhlig, and me thinking of strange foreign ports in the English tongue. Poor company I'd have been for an old woman and she making her last mooring. I'd have been little assistance. Forty years between us—strange ports and deep soundings. Oh, we'd have been making strange."
"Ah, maybe not, honest man."
"How could it have been any other way, decent wee lad? She'd have been the strange, pitiful old cummer to me, who minded her the strapping woman, and I'd have been a queer bearded man to her, who minded me only as a wee fellow, the terror of the glen. People change every day, and there's a lot of change in forty years.
"And, besides, it would have been gey hard on me, wee lad. The grape and spade would be clumsy to my hands, there being no life to them after the swinging spars. And my fingers, used to splicing rope, would not have the touch for milking a cow. And I'd feel lost, wee fellow, some day and me plowing a field, to see a fine ship on the waters, out of Glasgow port for the Plate maybe, and to think of it off the Brazils, and the pampero coming quick as a thrown knife,and me not aboard to help shorten sail or take a trick at the wheel. And it might have made me ugly toward the old woman. And I wouldn't have had that at all, at all.... But she's finished the voyage, poor cummer.... And it's a high ship and a capstan shanty for me again ... all's well...."
"It's a wonder, honest man, you wouldn't stay on land at peace and you forty years at sea."
"Well, it's a queer thing, decent wee fellow, but once you get the salt water in your blood you're gone. A queer itching is in your veins. It's like a disease. It is so. It spoils you for the fire on winter nights and for the hay-fields in the month o' June. And it puts a great bar between you and the folk o' dry land, such as there is between a fighting man and a cowardly fellow. It's the salt in the blood, I think; but you'd have to ask a doctor about that.
"I'm not saying it's a good life. It's a dog's life. It is so. And when you're at sea you say: 'Wasn't I the fool to ever leave dry land; and if I get back and get a job,' says you, 'you'll never see me leave it again. It's a wee farm for me,' you'll say. And then somehow you'll find yourself back aboard ship. And you'll be off the Horn, up aloft, fighting a sail like you'd fight a man for your life, or you'll be in the horse latitudes,as they call them, and no breeze stirring, and not a damned thing to do but holystone decks, the like of an old pauper that does be scrubbing a poorhouse floor. And you say: 'Sure I'd rather be a tinker traveling the roads, with his ass and cart and dog and woman, nor a galley-slave to this bastard of a mate that has no more feeling for a poor sailorman nor a hound has for a rabbit. It's a dog's life,' you say, 'and when we make port I'm finished.'
"But you make port and you stay awhile, and you find that the woman you've been thinking of as Queen of Sheba is no more nor a common drab. And the publican you thought of as the grand generous fellow has no more use for you and your bit silver gone. It's a queer thing, but they on land think of nothing but money. And one day you think, and the woman beside you is pastier nor dough, and the man of the public house is no more nor a cheap trickster, and you're listening to the conversation of the timid urban people, and the house you're in is filthier nor a pig's sty. And you say: 'Is this me that minds the golden women of the islands, and they with red flowers in their hair? Is this me that fought side by side with good shipmates in Callao? Am I listening to the chatter of these mild people, methat's heard grand stories in the forecastle of how this man was marooned in the Bahamas, and that man was married to a Maori queen, by God? Me, the hero that dowsed skysails, and they cracking like guns. Is this lousy room a place for me that's used to a ship as clean as a cat from stem to stern?' And you stand up bravely, and you look the man of the public house square in the shifty eyes, and you say: 'Listen, bastard! Do you ken e'er a master wants a sailing man? A sailor as knows his trade, crafty in trouble, and a wildcat in danger, and as peaceful as a hare in the long grass?' And you're off again on the old trade and the old road, where the next port is the best port, and the morrow is a braver day.... So it's so long, decent wee fellow! I'm off on it again. It's a dog's life, that's what it is, the life of a sailing man. But you couldn't change. I suppose it's the salt in the blood."
"You're off, honest man?"
"Aye, I'm off, wee fellow. And thank you kindly for what you told me, and for telling me especially the old woman looked so peaceful and her with the pennies on her eyes."
"But aren't you going up to see the house?"
"I don't think I will, wee lad. I've had a picture in my mind for forty years of the big housewas in it, and the coolth of the well. And maybe it isn't so at all. I'd rather not know the difference. I'll keep my picture."
"But the house is yours," wee Shane urged him. "You're not going to leave it as it is. Aren't you going to sell it and take the money?"
"Och, to hell with that! I've no time," said the sailing man, and he limped painfully back down the road.
His Uncle Robin had gone off to discuss with some Belfast crony the strange things he used to discuss, like the origin of the Round Tower of Ireland or the cryptic dialect of the Gaelic masons or whether the Scots came to Scotland from Ireland or to Ireland from Scotland, all very important for a member of the Royal Irish Academy. And his mother had gone off shopping to buy linen for the house at Cushendhu, poplin for dresses, delft from Holland for the kitchen and glass from Waterford for the sideboard in the dining-room. And because he was to go to the boarding-school that night and thereafter would be harsh discipline, and because his Uncle Robin had known he was on the point of crying, he had been allowed to wander around Belfast by himself for a few hours with a silver shilling in his pocket. And wee Shane had made for the quays....
The four of them had sat in a cold, precise room that morning, his Uncle Robin, his mother, wee Shane, and the principal, a fat, gray-eyed, insincere Southerner, with a belly like a Chinese god's, dewlaps like a hunting hound's, cold, stubby, and very clean hands, and a gown that gave him a grotesque dignity. And he had eyed wee Shane unctuously. And wee Shane did not like fat, unctuous men. He liked them lean and active, as glensmen are.
And the principal had spoken in stilted French to his mother, who had responded in French that cracked like a whip. And the principal had licked the ground before Uncle Robin. It was "Yes, Dr. Campbell!" And, "No, Dr. Campbell!" where the meanest glensman would have said "Aye, maybe you're right, Robin More," or, "Na, na, you're out there, Robin Campbell."
"The old hypocrite!" It was the only word wee Shane could describe the master by, a favorite word of his Uncle Alan's.
And in the corridors he had met some of the scholars, white-faced fellows; and the masters—they had mean eyes, like the eyes of badgers.
"I dinna want to go!" He blurted out on the quays of Belfast.
"Where dinna you want to go, wee laddie?" A black, curly-headed man with gray eyes and a laugh like a girl's stopped short. He had blue clothes and brass buttons and stepped lightly as a cat.
"I dinna want to go to school."
"Sure, all wee caddies go to school."
"I ken that. But I don't want to go to school with a bunch of whey-faced gets, and masters lean and mean as rats, and a principal puffed out like a setting hen."
"Oh, for God's sake! is that the way you feel about it? Laddie, you don't talk like a townsman. Where are you from?"
"I'm from the Glens of Antrim. From Cushendhu."
"I'm a Raghery man myself.Tha an Gaidhlig agad?
"Tha, go direach!"
"So you've got the Gaidhlig too? Who are your people, wee laddie?"
"I'm a Campbell of Cushendhu."
"For God's sake! you're no' a relation of AlanCampbell's, wha sailed with Sir John Franklin for the pole?"
"I'm his nephew."
"I've sailed under your Uncle Alan. He's the heart o' corn. And so they're going to make a scholar out of you, like your Uncle Robin. Oh, well, oh, well. Would you like to come around with me and see the ships?"
"I'd like fine to see the ships."
"You'll see all manner of ships here. Square-riggers, fore-and-afters, hermaphrodites. You'll see Indiamen and packets from Boston. You'll see ships that do be going to Germany, and some for the Mediterranean ports. You'll see a whaler that's put in for repairs. You'll see fighting ships. You'll see fishers of the Dogger Banks, and boats that go to Newfoundland, where the cod do feed. All manner of sloops and schooners, barkantines and brigs, but the bonniest of them all lies off Carrickfergus."
"And who's she, Raghery man?"
"TheAntrim Maidis her nomination."
"And do you sail her?"
"I sail in her, laddie. Sail and sail in her. Mine from truck to keelson she is, and I'm master of her. Father and mother and brother to her, and husband, too. I'm proud of her." The Rathliner laughed. "You may notice."
"And why for shouldn't you be? She must be the grand boat surely, man who sailed with my Uncle Alan."
"Raghery man, you who've sailed the high seas and the low seas, did you ever put into an island that has great coolth to it and great sunshine, a town quiet as a mouse, a strip of sand like silver, the waves turning with a curl and chime?"
"Where did you hear tell of that island, wee laddie? Was it in the books you do be reading at school?"
"I saw it, and it dancing in the sun. From Slievenambanderg I saw it, and it over the waters of Moyle."
The Rathliner sat on a mooring bitt on the quay and filled his pipe.
"I ken that island," he said. "I ken it well."
"And what name is on it, Raghery man?"
"The name that's on it is Fiddlers' Green."
"Were you ever there, Raghery man?" There was a sinking in wee Shane's heart.
"I was never there, laddie, never there. Oftentimes I thought I'd raised it, but it was never there, wee laddie, never there. There's men as says they've been there, but I could hardly believe them, though there's queer things past belief on the sea. There's a sea called Sargasso, and if I told you half the things about it, you'd think me daft. And there's the ghost of ships at sea, and that's past thinking. And there's the great serpent, that I've seen with my own eyes....
"Aye, Fiddlers' Green! Where is it, and how do you get there? The sailormen would give all their years to know."
"Why for do they call it Fiddlers' Green?"
"It's Fiddlers' Green, laddie, because it's the place you come to at the cool of the day, when the bats are out, and the cummers put by their spinning. And there's nou't there but sport and music. A lawn like a golf green, drink that is not ugly, women would wander with you on to the heather when the moon's rising, and never a thought in their mind of the money in your pocket, but their eyes melting at you, and they thinking you're the champion hero of the world.... And all the fiddlers fiddling the finest of dance music: hornpipes like 'The Birds among the Trees' and 'The Green Fields of America'; reels like 'The Swallow-tail Coat' and 'The Wind thatShakes the Barley'; slip-jigs would make a cripple agile as a hare.... And you go asleep with no mate to wake you in a blow, but the sound of an old piper crooning to you as a cummer croons. And the birds will wake you with their douce singing.... Aye, Fiddlers' Green...."
And they were silent for a minute in the soft Ulster sunshine.
"Would you have any use for a lad like myself aboard your ship, Raghery man?"
"Och, sure, what would you do with the sea, wee fellow?"
"I ken it well already, Raghery man. And I'm no clumsy in a boat. I can sail a sloop with any man. On a reach or full and by, I'll keep her there. With the breeze biting her weather bow, I'll hold her snout into it. Or with the wind behind me, I'll ride her like you'd canter a horse."
"I might take you to learn you seamanship and navigation, but you'd be no use as a sailor, wee laddie, and it's not for a Campbell to be a cabin-boy."
"Take me to learn the trade, then. Take me now."
"I'd like fine, wee fellow, but I couldn't do it. You might be cut out for a scholar for all you think you're not. Or it might be a soldier you'remeant for. I couldn't interfere with your life. It's an unco responsibility, interfering with a destiny, a terrible thing."
"Will you talk to my Uncle Robin? Will you?"
"Och, now, how could I talk to your Uncle Robin, him that's written books, and is counted one of the seven learned men of Ireland? Sure, I wouldn't understand what he'd be saying, and he'd have no ear for a common sailing man. If it was your Uncle Alan, now—"
"There's not a person in the world but has the ear of my Uncle Robin. And there's none easier to talk to, not even the apple woman at the corner of the quay. Will you come with me and talk to him?"
"I couldn't, laddie. Your Uncle Alan, now—"
"I'll do the talking, then; but will you come?"
"Och, wee fellow, it would be foolish."
"You wouldn't have me think hard of a man of Raghery?"
"No, I wouldn't have any one think hard of the folk of Raghery, so I suppose I'll have to come. I don't know what your Uncle Robin will say to me for putting notions in your head. It's awful foolish. But I'll come."
"So there'd never be the making of a scholar in me, Uncle Robin. A ship on the sea or a new strange person would be always more to me nor a book. I can read and write and figure; what more do I want? And, och, sir, the school would be a prison to me, the scholars droning and ink on their fingers, and the hard-faced masters at the desk. I'd be woe for the outside, for the sunshine and the water and the bellying winds—"
His Uncle Robin tapped the window-pane of the club and thought hard. The Rathlin sailor stood by, puzzled.
"But, childeen asthore, sure you don't know now what you want. Your career, laddie! Think a bit! The church, for instance—"
"Och, Uncle Robin, is it me in the church that must say my prayers by my lee lone, so loath am I to let the people see what's in me? I'd be the queer minister, dumb as a fish—"
"You once had a notion for the army, laddie."
"So I had, sir, and fine I'd like the uniforms and the swords and the horses, but I wouldn'thave the heart to kill a man, and me never seeing him before. If a man did me a wrong, I'd kill him quick as I'd wash my hands, but never seeing him before, I could na, I just could na—"
"It's a clean thing, the sea," the Raghery man ventured.
"He's so very young," objected Uncle Robin.
"There's nothing but that or the books for me, Uncle Robin. A sailor or a scholar—and I don't think I'd make out well with the books."
"The books aren't all they're cracked up to be, wee Shane. I've written books myself, and who reads them but a wheen of graybeards, and they drowsing by the fire? Knowledge, laddie, I have that.... And it isn't even wisdom. Knowledge is like dry twigs you collect with care to make a bit fire you can warm your shins at, and wisdom is the gift of God that's like the blossom on the gorse. I've searched books and taken out the marrow of dead men's brains, and after all, even all my knowledge may be wrong.... Your father's name will be remembered as long as the Gaidhlig lasts, for songs that came to him as easily as a woman's kiss. And your Uncle Alan's footprints are near the pole. And Mungo is remembered forever because he died with a laugh. Not that I'm saying anything against them, wee Shane; better men will neverbe seen. But Daniel Donelly's name is remembered because he beat Cooper in a fight, and songs were made about it. And I'll be remembered only when some old librarian dusts a forgotten book. And I was supposed to be the wise pup o' the litter, with my books and my study. And all I have now is a troubled mind in my latter days. Aye, the books!..."
"Shall I go to sea, sir?"
"Is it up to me? And how about your mother, laddie?"
"Oh, there's little warmth within her for me, sir. She's a bitter woman. She does na like my father's breed."
"Are you your father's breed through, wee caddie? Are you Campbell all? Here, gi' us a look at your face. Aye, the eyes, the nose, the proud throw to the head of you. I'm afeared there's little of your mother in you, laddie; afeared there's none at all."
"I'm no' ashamed o' my kind, sir."
"And you're set on going to sea?"
"I'd like it fine, sir."
"And if it does na turn out the way you thought it would, you're not going to cry or turn sour?"
"I thought you knew me better nor that, Uncle Robin."
"I do." The big man laid his hand on the boy's shoulder and smiled at the shipmaster. "Take him, Raghery man!"
Though all was wonder to wee Shane, there was so much of it that it flicked through his head like a dream: the hazy September afternoon; the long, lean vessel like a greyhound; the sails white as a swan's wing; the cordage that rattled like wood; the bare-footed, bearded sailors; the town of Carrickfergus in the offing; thelap-lap-lapof water; the silent man at the wheel; the sudden transition of the friendly Raghery man into a firm, authoritative figure, quick as a cat, rapping out commands like a sergeant-major.
The town of Carrickfergus began to slip by as if drawn by horses. The mate ran up the ladder of the poop.
"Topsails, McCafferty!" the Raghery man ordered.
"Topsails, sir."
A minute later there came the mate's voice from amidships:
"Sheet home the topsails—and put your backs into it!"
Patter of feet. An accordion began to whine like a tinker. Creak and strain. Faster lapping of water. A song raised in chorus:
As I came a-tacking down Paradise Street—Yo-ho! Blow the man down!As I came a-tacking down Paradise Street—Give us some time till we blow the man down!A trim little bumboat I chanced for to meet!Blow, bullies, blow the man down!A trim little bumboat I chanced for to meet!Give us some time till we blow the man down!She was round in the counter and bluff in the bows!Yo-ho! Blow the man down!She was round in the counter and bluff in the bows!Give us some time till we blow the man down.Blow the man down!Blow, bullies! Blow the man down!
The feeling that was uppermost in him as he sat outside the thatched cottage in the moonlight, while the wake was within, was not grief at his wife's death; not a shattered mind that his life, so carefully laid out not twelve months before, was disoriented; not any self-pity; notany grievance against God, such as little men might have: but a strange dumb wonder. There she lay within, in her habit of a Dominican lay sister, her hands waxy, her face waxy, her eyelids closed. And six guttering candles were about her, and women droned their prayers with a droning as of bees. There she lay with her hands clasped on a wooden crucifix. And no more would the robins wake her, and they fussing in the great hawthorn-tree over the coming of dawn. No longer would she rake the ash from the peat and blow the red of it to a little blaze. No longer would she beat his dog out of the house with the handle of the broom. No longer would she forgather with the neighborsover a pot of tea for a pleasant vindictive chat. No longer would she look out to sea for him with her half-loving, half-inimical eyes. No longer in her sharpish voice would she recite her rosary and go to bed.
And to-morrow they would bury her—there would be rain to-morrow: the wind was sou'east,—they would lower her, gently as though she were alive, into a rectangular slot in the ground, mutter alien prayers in an alien tongue with business of white magic, pat the mound over as a child pats his castle of sand on the sea-shore, and leave her there in the rain.
A month from now they would say a mass for her, a year from now another, but to-morrow, to-day, yesterday even, she was finished with all of life: with the fussy, excited robins of dawn; with the old dog that wanted to drowse by the fire; with the young husband who was either too much or too little of a man for her; with the clicking beads she would tell in her sharpish voice; with each thing; with everything.
And here was the wonder of it, the strange dumb wonder, that the snapping of her life meant less in reality to him than the snapping of a stay aboard ship. The day after to-morrow he would mount the deck of Patrick Russell's boat, and after a few crisp orders would set out on theeternal sea, as though she were still alive in her cottage, as though indeed she had never even lived, and northward he would go past the purple Mull of Cantyre; past the Clyde, where the Ayrshire sloops danced like bobbins on the water; past the isles, where overhead drove the wedges of the wild swans, trumpeting as on a battle-field; past the Hebrides, where strange arctic birds whined like hurt dogs; northward still to where the northern lights sprang like dancers in the black winter nights; eastward and southward to where the swell of the Dogger Bank rose, where the fish grazed like kine. Over the great sea he would go as though nothing had happened, not even the snapping of a stay—down to the sea, where the crisp winds of dawn were, and the playful, stupid, short-sighted porpoises; the treacherous sliding icebergs; and the gulls that cried with the sea's immense melancholy; and the great plum-colored whales....
To his nostrils, sterilized as they were by the salt air of the sea, the rich scents of Louth came in a rushing profusion. The wild roses of Junewere like the high notes of a violin, and there was clover, and mown hay. In the southeast the clouds were banking, but still the moon rose high, and the cottage was clear as in daylight, clearer even in the mind's eye—the whitewashed walls, the thatch like silver, the swallows' nests beneath the eaves. The hard round sea-cobbles beneath his feet were clear and individual, and to where he sat in the haggard came a girl's song from down the road:
"Oh, Holland is a wondrous place and in it grows much green.It's a wild inhabitation for my young love to be in.There the sugar-cane grows plentiful, and leaves on every tree,But the low, lowlands of Holland are between my love and me."
He listened with a cocked ear, and smiled as he thought how easy it would be to stroll down the road to where the singing girl was, and accost her pleasantly: "So he's in Holland, is he? That's the queer and foolish place for him to be, and I here!" There would be banter, quick and smart as a whip, a scuffle, a clumsily placed kiss, laughter, another scuffle, and a kiss that found its mark somehow, then a saunter together down the scented loaning while the June moon rode high and the crickets sang.
O my God! here he was thinking about love, and his wife lay inside and she dead!
And a new light wonder sprang up and whirled within the big dumb wonder that was on him: that here was he, a lad not yet twenty-two, with a dead wife on his hands, while his shipmates were off with the laughter of young women in their ears after the silent and tense watches of the sea. His captain had gone home to Newry to where his wife awaited him, the tall, graceful woman with the hair like black silk and the black eyes and the black ear-rings and the slim, white, enigmatic hands. And the first mate had gone to Rostrevor with a blond, giggling girl, and the crew were at Sally Bishop's in Dundalk, draining the pints of frothy porter and making crude material love to Sally Bishop's blowsy brown girls, some chucking their silver out with a laugh—the laugh of men who had fought hurricanes, and some bargaining shrewdly.... But here he was, home, with his wife, and her dead. And if she hadn't been dead, she would have been half loving, half inimical toward him, her arms and bosom open, but a great stranger.... He couldn't understand. Well, she was dead, and ... he didn't know....
A bent, fattish figure in a shawl came toward him through the haggard, his wife's mother.There was the sweetish, acrid odor of whisky.
"Shaneavick, are you there all alone, mourning for the pleasant, beautiful one who's gone?"
"I was just sitting down."
"You wouldn't like a wee drop of consolation?"
"Whisky? No, thanks."
"Just the least taste?"
"No, thanks."
"And I after bringing it out to you in a naggin bottle. Just the wetting of your lips,agra, would cheer you up, and you down to the ground."
"No!"
The old woman sat on the stone ditch beside him and began swaying backward and forward, and the keening note came into her voice:
"Is it gone? Is it gone you are, Moyraa sthore? Sure, 't was the kindly daughter you were to me, and me old and not worth my salt, a brokencailleachhobbling on a stick. Never did you refuse me the cup o' tea so strong a mouse could walk on it. And the butcher's meat o' Christmas, sure your old ma must have a taste, too. And many's the brown egg you let me have, and they bringing a high price on the Wednesday market. And the ha'porth o' snuff—sure you never came home without it, and you at Dundalk fair. Kindly you were as the rains of April,and my heart is ashes now you're gone...."
Shane paced off through the haggard. There was theglug-glugof a bottle, and again the sweetish, acrid odor of whisky. He turned back.
"Only to one were you kinder nor to myself and that was to the lad here, whose heart is broken for you. Dumb with grief he is, now you're gone. And all you did for him! You might have married a strong farmer would have a dozen cows, horses would pull a cart or plow, hens by the dozen, and flitches of bacon hanging in the kitchen. Or you might have married a man had a shop and sat at your ease in the back room, like a lady born. Or you might have married a gager and gone to Dublin and mixed with the grand quality. And your mother would have a black silk dress, and shoes with buttons on them. But you married this young fellow goes to sea, so much was the great love on you for him. Love came to you like a thunder-storm, and left you trembling like a leaf, and now you're dead—ochanee! ochanee! ochanee o!"
Her voice changed from the shrill keen to a shrewd whine:
"You'll be leaving me something to remember her by, Shane Oge, and her a fathom deep beneath me in the cold ground. And a trinket ortwo, or a dress, maybe, or a bangle would keep my heart warm?"
"You can have them all."
"All is it? Ah, sure, it's the grand big heart is in you, lad o' the North. And are they all to be mine, the silver brooch you bought her from the Dutch city, and the ring with the pearl in it, and the dresses of silk from France, and the shoes that have buckles? Are they for me, hinny?"
"Yes, yes. Take them."
"And the wee furnishings of the house, the feather-bed is soft to lie on, and the dresser with the delft, and the creepy stool beside the fire, the noble chairs? You wouldn't be selling them to the stranger, Shane Oge?"
"No, you can have those, too."
"And the house, too? Young noble fellow, where is your wife's mother to lay her gray hairs? Couldn't you fix the house, too?"
"The house is not mine, and I can't afford to buy it."
"But 't is you you are the rich Protestant family. Your uncles and your mother, hinny. Rotten with gold they are, and me just a poor oldcailleachthat gave you the white lamb o' the flock."
"We'll look after you. My uncle Alan Campbell will be here in a day or so and fix everything. But I'm afraid the house is out of the question."
"Oh, sure it would be a noble thing to have the house, and they around me dying with envy of my state and grandeur. At fair or at wake great respect they would pay me, and the priests of God would be always calling. The house, fine lad, give me the house!"
"You'll have to speak to my Uncle Alan."
"Alan Campbell is a hard Northern man."
"Nevertheless, you'll have to speak to him."
"A mhic mheirdrighe!" Her mouth hissed. "O son of a harlot!"
Shane wheeled like a sloop coming about.
"You forget I've got the Gaelic myself, old woman."
"Oh, sure, what did I say, fine lad, butavick machree, son of my heart?Avick machree, I said. O son of my heart, that's what you are. You wouldn't take wrong meaning from what an old woman said, and her with her teeth gone, and under the black clouds of sorrow!"
A glint in the moonlight caught Shane's eyes. He gripped her right hand.
"Is that Moyra's wedding-ring you have on? Did you—did you—take it—from her hand?"
"Oh, sure, what use would she have for it, and she in the sods of Ballymaroo? And the grand Australian gold is in it, worth a mint of money. And what use would you have for it, and you in strange parts, where a passionate foreign woman would be giving you love, maybe? The fine lad you are, will draw the heart of many. But it's drawing back coldly they'd be, and they seeing that on your finger, or on a ribbon around your neck. Drawing back they'd be, and giving the love was yours to another fellow. A sin to waste the fine Australian gold it is. And you wouldn't begrudge me the price of a couple o' heifers would grow into grand cows? You wouldn't, fine lad—"
He flung her hand from him so savagely that she fell, and he went swiftly toward the house where the dead woman was. Back of him in the haggard came theglug-glugof the naggin bottle, and from down the loaning came the rich, untrained contralto of the singing girl:
"Nor shoe nor stocking will I put on, nor comb go in my hair.And neither coal nor candle-light shine in my chamber fair.Nor will I wed with any young man until the day I die,Since the low lowlands of Holland are between my love and me."
As he paused at the half-door, the laughter and the chatter in the kitchen ceased, and he was aware of the blur of faces around the room, white faces of men and women and alien eyes. Over the peat fire—there was a fire even in June—the great black kettle sang on the crane, to make tea for the mourners. Here and there were bunches of new clay pipes scattered, and long rolls of twisted tobacco, for the men to smoke, and saucers full of snuff for both men and women. A great paraffin lamp threw broad, opaque shadows, making the whole a strange blur in the kitchen, while in the bedroom opening off it, where the tense, dead woman lay, was a glare of candles as from footlights, and there gathered the old women of the neighborhood, discussing everything in hushed, vindictive whispers—the price of cows, morbid diseases, the new wife some man had, and whether such a girl was with child.... And the dead woman, who had loved talk such as this, as a drunkard loves the glass, gave no heed.... Strange!... And every hour or so they would flash to their knees, like some quickinstinctive movement of birds, and now carelessly, now over-solemnly they would say a rosary for the dead woman's soul:
"Ar n-Athair, ta ar neamh—" they would gabble. "Our Father, Who art in Heaven—" and then a long suspiration: "'Se do bheatha, 'Mhuire!" "Hail, Mary! Full of grace!"
But in the kitchen they would be laughing, chatting, playing crude forfeits, telling grotesque stories, giving riddles, and now, to the muted sound of a melodeon, a man would dance a hornpipe.... And men would sneak out to the byre in twos and threes for a surreptitious glass of whisky.... And suddenly they would rush in and join in the rosary:
"Ar n-Athair, ta ar neamh....Se do bheatha, 'Mhuire!..."
It was all so grotesque, so empty, so play-actor-like—so inharmonious with Death! Death was very terrible or very peaceful, thought Shane Campbell of the sea and the Antrim Glens. "Down from your horse when Death or the King goes by," went the Antrim old word. But here the house of death was a booth of Punchinello.