bring off the poor people?'
"'I don't want to bring off the poor people, Shamus-a-Feeba, James of
the Pipes. But there's not a rock, a wind, a current, a wave itself of
Struth na-Maoile that I don't know. I'm figuring on rigging up some kind
of sea-anchor,' says Alan Donn, says he, 'and getting the ignorant
foreigners to chop their gear overboard, and riding the storm out. Don't
worry yourself, Shamus-a-Feeba.'
"That was the way of your uncle, Alan Donn Campbell. He was very rough
with the strong, but he was ay considerate of the old and over-young.
He'd be rough with the king of England but he'd be awfu' polite to an
ould man."
"God, is Alan Donn dead?" Shane was near tears. "Do people like Alan
Donn die?"
"Aye, they die, too," said Simon Fraser. "And rogues live. It's queer.
"The boat was a'ready to be put into the sea, when your uncle sees
mysel' on the edge o' the gathering. He comes straight to me. You mind
how Alan Donn used to go through a crowd.
"'Are you the sailing man,' says he, 'wha's a half-brither to Red Tam
McNeil of the Ten-Acre?'"
"'I am, sir, Alan Donn.'
"'Is it go wi' ye in the boat?' says I. 'I'll go.'
"'No, no,' quo' he. 'It's no' that. So'thin' different. You ken my
brither's son, Shane Oge Campbell, wha's a master on the seas?'
"'I've met him once or twice, and I've heard tell.'
"'If you see him, gi'e him a message. I'm sure you'll see him. I'm
sure,' says Alan Donn, 'this morn I'm fey.'
"'Tell him,' says Alan Donn, and he puts his hand on my shoulder. 'Tell
him this: I've been intending to write him this long time. There's a
thought in my head,' says he, 'that all's not well with him.
"'Tell him this: I've been thinking and I've thought: There's great
virtue to the place you're born in. Tell him he ought no' stay so long
frae the braes o' Ulster. Tell him: The sea's not good for the head. A
man's alone wi' himself too long, wi' his ain heid. Tell him that's not
good.
"'Tell him,' says he, 'there's great virtue and grand soothin' to the
yellow whins and the purple heather. That's a deep fey thing. Tell him
to try.'
"'Is that all, sir, Alan Donn,' says I?
"'You might tell him,' says he, 'aye, you might tell him: "'Your uncle
Alan was not a coward, and he was a wise man."'
"At that I was puzzled--I tell you without, offense meant--it sounded
like boasting. And it was no' like Alan Donn to boast.
"'Can I come along wi' you, sir, Alan Donn?' says I.
"With that he gies me a look would knock you down. 'Did na I tell you to
do so'thin' for me?' says he.
"Then I kent he was na coming back.
"'Aye, aye, sir,' said I.
"He goes to the boat on the edge of the water. You could hardly keep
your footing with the wind, nor hear your neighbor with the sea. And
Alan Donn laughs: 'By Christ, 't is myself that must be fond o'
boating,' says he. 'And to-day is the grand day for it, surely. _Hi
horo_, push her off,' says he. '_Horo eile! Horo_, heroes, _horo eile!_'
We pushed with the water up to our waists. The keel ground. The sand
sucked. We pushed with the water up to our shoulders. Then the trisail
caught the wind. And Alan Donn was off.
"And Hughie Rafferty was wrong: Not at fifty, not at a hundred did he
turn. Not at half a mile. He must have had the arms of Finn McCool, Alan
Donn, and the hands of a woman. He'd take the high waves like a hunter
taking a wall. Then you could nearly feel him easing her to the pitch.
Apart from the waves themselves you could see the wee fountain of water
when the bows slapped. Then he'd come up again. The trisail would belly
and again he'd dive.
"And then he came to the ninth wave--_tonn a' bhaidhte_, the drowning
wave. Even away off you could see it rise like a wall, and curl at the
top. We were watching. There was the crippled schooner, and Alan Donn,
and the great sea. And the wave curled and broke. And then was only the
schooner and the great sea....
"And we waited for a minute, although we knew there was no call.
"And after a while an ould one falls to her knees and raises the keening
cry:
"'_Mavrone!_ my sorrow! _Mavrone dhu!_ my black sorrow! _Mo chead vrone
dhu! my_ hundred black sorrows.
"'Is it gone you are, Alan Donn? Is it gone you are in the cruel sea? My
black curse on it. It is between you and the people of your heart,
between you and the land of your desire. Och, sea, isn't it cruel you
are? Ruined Ireland is this day. The star of Ulster is out. And the
little moon of Antrim shines no more. Och, _a 'airrge!_ My sorrow, O
sea!
"'Who will be good to us, now, Alan Donn? You were good to the poor.
God's gain and our loss. Who will make the young maids flush, and the
young men throw back their shoulders, from pride at your having talked
to them? _Avourneen dherelish, mur nAlan Donn_, our Alan! Who will make
the men of the South stand back, and you not striding through a
gathering, ever, any more? And the dealing men of Scotland will miss
you, you they could never get the better of in any fair, night noon or
morning. _Peader agas Pol, Muire. Padraig agas Brighid!_ Peter and Paul,
Mary, Patrick and St. Bride, let you be coming quickly now, and take up
Alan Donn Campbell from the cold sea!
"'Your horse in the stable will miss you, Alan Donn. Poor beastie, he'll
miss you sore. Your servant boys will miss you, they that would jump if
you but dropped your pipe. The green fairways of Portrush will miss you
when spring comes, and you not hitting the ball against the champions of
the world. The lambs will miss you, wee lambs of the fields, and the
colts. They'll be missing you, but't will be nothing to our missing you.
This night your dogs will be crying, and we'll be crying too.
"'Young woman look back of you, and see if the nine glens of Antrim are
there. I wouldn't be surprised if they were gone, now Alan Donn's in the
bitter sea.'
"Then up comes this woman, and she had a great cloak on--"
"What woman, Simon Fraser?"
"The woman there was talk of Alan Donn marrying. The woman from over the
sea."
"'Has anybody seen Mr. Campbell?' And we don't understand.
"It's Alan Donn she means,' says Hughie Rafferty.
"Then the ould one on her knees takes up her keening. And this woman
understands. Her face goes white. She sees the schooner being battered
by the Moyle.
"'Did he go out to that?' she asks.
"'Yes, ma'am, your Ladyship's Honor.'
"'He didn't get there?'
"'The drowning wave caught Alan Donn,' says Hughie Rafferty.
"For a moment you'd think she hadn't heard. Then--a strange thing--a wee
smile came on her face, and suddenly it changed to a queer twist, all
over the face of her. Then she stood up proudly and looked out to sea
... and two tears came to the eyes of her and she raised her head higher
still.... The tears came in spite of her ... and suddenly she gave a wee
gulp like a person who's sick.... And she turned and began to stumble
away in the sand.... A couple of the young ones went as if to help her,
but she turned.
"'Please,' was all she said. And she went off on her lee lone.
"And then says Hughie Rafferty: 'The tide will bring him to Cushendall.'
"And at Cushendall next day we found the corp. There wasn't a mark on
him. Even the things of the deep water had respect for Alan Doon."
"What was this woman like, Simon Fraser? This woman there was talk of
Alan Donn marrying?"
"This woman was not a woman of Alan Donn's age. An' she was not a young
woman. Her face was showing not the face of a girl but the face of
herself. She had a proud face and a brave face. This woman would be
around twenty-five.
"She was a brown woman: she had brown eyes and brown hair. She was not
an Irishwoman. She was an Englishwoman. She had no Gaelic. And her
English was not our English. This woman could ride a horse, though not
too well. She would put a horse at a jump, though she was afeared of it.
"This woman had money. She was a niece of the admiral's, and she was on
a long visit to the admiral's house.
"I've heard tell a queer thing about this woman. She would play at the
piano for hours on a stretch, reading from a book. For hours she would
play, all by herself. The people passing the road and the servant girls
of the house couldn't make head or tail of her music. But our folk ken
nothing of the piano. The pipes, the melodeon, the fiddle, they know
that--and a few ould ones have heard the harp. They couldn't tell
whether it was good music or bad music was in it.
"There's another queer thing about this woman. When she walked you'd
think she was dancing. Not our reels or hornpipes, but queer ould dances
you'd be walking to, not stepping. She had wee feet, though she was not
a small woman.
"Your uncle Alan's dogs took to this woman, and you ken how Alan's
terriers had little liking for any but his ain sel'. I was told also to
tell you that she had the dogs, and that they were comfortable, and
would be well looked after. So that you need not be worritin' about your
uncle Alan's dogs....
"I'm afeared I've given you a poor picture of this woman, Shane
Campbell: but it's a queer thing, you'd feel this woman more nor you'd
see her. In a great deal of people, you wouldn't note her at all. But
were you coming along the road, and a fey feeling come over you, and you
say: Around the next corner is something kindly, something brave,
something fine; as you turned the corner you'd meet this woman.
"Your uncle Alan liked this woman, liked her fine, but this woman was
sick with love for your uncle Alan.
"You'll blame me sore, Shane Campbell, and rightly too; it was very
careless of me, me who's got a careful name--it didn't seem to matter,
though! The name of this woman is not at me ..."
All the tears in Shane's eyes, all the emptiness in his heart was gone
now. A sudden elation seized him. He understood. Alan Donn had done a
fine brave thing; Alan Donn had done the strong thing, the right thing,
as Alan always did.
He thought: Alan was in love with this woman and this woman with Alan,
and Alan had looked ahead sanely, seen, decided. Thirty years difference
of age. Dignified strong wisdom and beautiful brave youth, one firm as a
great firm rock, the other with the light wings of birds; spiritually
never could they mate. Youth spiritual is like a gosling of yellow down,
age spiritual is an eagle of great wings.... If the spirit has not
died.... Alan would never be an irritated, jealous, paretic old man, nor
would he see "this woman" grow stern with repression and ache, and
loneliness of heart and spirit....
Ah, he had done it well! A line of Froissart's came to Shane: "They were
very noble; they cared nothing for their lives!" He had given her no
shattered marriage, no empty explanation that breeds only bitterness and
perhaps contempt. He had given her a very gallant memory that would
exalt her in the coming days.... The world, the flesh, and the devil had
played at cards with Alan Donn, and Alan had won....
He thought: Were it I now, I should have drifted into this, and come to
ancient tortured days, and not having strength maybe, should have ended,
not before as Alan Donn did, gallantly, but afterward, meanly, leaving
bitterness and desolation.... Ah, wise Alan.
And it occurred to him suddenly, wise Alan, fey on the threshold of
death, remembering him: There is virtue in the yellow gorse of Ulster,
in the purple Ulster heather. Come back to where you were born, and
rest, and get strength.... This is a deep thing.... Alan knew
something.... The rain and the mist and the wind among the rushes had
taught him natural secrets.... Maybe from the ground man drew strength,
and maybe strange ground was alien to other than its own ... a
motherland--why did they call a place a motherland ...? Antæus, the
Libyan wrestler, was invincible so long as his feet were on mother
earth, and Heracles had lifted him into the air and the air had crushed
him.... What did the Greek parable mean ...? It meant something ... the
purple hills ... the purple heather.... The Moyle purple in the setting
sun....
"I'll go back," he decided. Scots superstition welled up in him. "A man
seeing death sees more than death. Sees life. The Keepers of the Door
maybe anoint his eyes, and if he looks back for an instant, God knows
what he sees ... I'll go."
"Can I give you a lift back to Ballycastle, Simon Fraser? Or a lift
anywhere you want. It's the least I can do and you coming this long way
to tell me news."
"I'm very thankful to you, Shane Campbell, very thankful indeed. It's
just the way of you to ask a poor sailor man does he want a lift halfway
across the world. But I'll never again see Ballycastle with living
eyes."
"And why not, man Simon?"
"It's this way, Shane Campbell. It's this way. When I came back after
six years--four years lost on the coast of Borneo--my three fine sons
were gone--twenty and nineteen and seventeen they were. Gone they were
following the trade of the sea. And herself the woman of the house was
gone, too. I didn't mind the childer, for 't is the way of the young to
be roving. But herself went off with another man. A great gift of making
a home she had, so there was many would have her, in spite of her forty
year. Into the dim City of Glasgow she went, and there was no word of
her. And she might have waited, Shane Campbell; she might so. Four years
lost on the coast of Borneo to come and find your childer scattered, and
your wife putting shame on you. That's a hard thing."
"You're a young man, Simon Fraser. You're as young as I am, forty-two.
There's a quarter-century ahead of you. Put the past by and begin again.
There'd be love at many a young woman for you. And a house, and new
bairns."
"I'm a back-thinking man, Alan's kinsman, a long back-thinking man. And
I'd always be putting the new beside the old and the new would not seem
good to me. The new bairns would never be like the old bairns, and it
would na be fair. And as for women, I've had my bellyful of women after
her I was kind to, and was true to for one and twenty years, going off
with some sweating landsman to a dingy town.... I was ay a good sailor,
Shane Oge....
"It's by now, nearly by.... So I'll be going up and down the sea on the
chance of meeting one of my new braw bairns. And maybe I'll come across
one of them on the water-front, and him needing me most.... And maybe
I'll sign articles wi' the one aboard the same ship, and it's the grand
cracks we'll have in the horse latitudes.... Or maybe I'll find one of
them a young buck officer aboard a ship I'm on; and he'll come for'a'd
and say: 'Lay aloft, old-timer, with the rest and be pretty God-damned
quick about it.' And I'll say: 'Aye, aye, sir.' And thinks: Wait till
you get ashore, and I'll tell you who I am, and give you a tip about
your seamanship, too, my grand young fello'.... Life has queerer things
nor that, Shane Oge, as maybe you know.... The only thing that bothers
me is that I'll never see Ballycastle any more."
"Is there nothing I can do for you, Simon Fraser?"
"There's a wee thing, Shane Campbell; just a wee thing?"
"What is it, man Simon?"
"Maybe you'd think me crazy--"
"Of course not, Simon."
"Well then, when you're home, and looking around you at the whins and
purple heather, and the wee gray towns, maybe you'll say: 'Glens of
Antrim, I ken a man of Antrim, and he'll never see you again, but he'll
never forget you.' Will you do that?"
"I'll do that."
"Maybe you'll be looking at Ballycastle, the town where I was born in."
"Yes, Simon."
"You don't have to say it out loud. You can stop and say it low in
yourself, so as nobody'll hear you, barring the gray stones of the town.
Just remember: 'Ballycastle, Simon Fraser's thinking long ...'"
§ 9
A cold southerly drove northward from the pole, chopping the muddy waves
of the river. Around the floating _camolotes_, islands of weeds, were
little swirls. The poplars and willows of the banks grew more distant,
as _Maid of the Isles_ cut eastward under all sail. As he tramped fore
and aft, Buenos Aires dropped, dropped, dropped behind her counter,
dropped ... became a blur....
_Maid of the Isles_ was only going home, as she had gone home a hundred
times before, from different ports, as she had gone home a dozen times
from this one. But never before had it seemed significant to Shane....
Back, back the city faded.... If the wind lasted, and Shane thought it
would last, by to-morrow they would have left the Plate and be in the
open sea. Back, back the city dropped.... It couldn't drop too fast....
It was like a prison from which he was escaping, fleeing.... A great
yearning come on him to have it out of sight ... definitely, forever.
Once it was gone, he would know for a certain thing, he was free....
He was surprised to be free. As surprised as an all but beaten wrestler
is when his opponent's lock weakens unexpectedly, and dazedly he knows
he can get up again and spar. A fog had lifted suddenly, as at sea. And
he had thought the mist of the Valley of the Black Pig could never lift,
would remain, dank and cold and hollow, covering all things like a
cerecloth, binding all as chains bind ... and that he must remain with
the weeping population, until the Boar without Bristles came ... forever
and forever and forever....
But the nearest and dearest had died gallantly, and somehow the fog had
lifted. And then he was dazed and weak, but free. Where was he going?
What to do? He didn't know, but hope, life itself had come again, like a
long awaited moon.
Buenos Aires faded.... Faded the Valley of the Black Pig.... Buenos
Aires its symbol ... Buenos Aires with bleak squares, its hovels, its
painted trees--_timbo_ and _tipa_ and _palo barracho_....
He stood aft of the steersman, and suddenly raised his head.
_Mo mhallacht go deo leat, a bhaile nan gcrann!
'S mo shlan do gach baile raibh me riamh ann._
"My curse forever on you, O town of the trees," an old song came to him,
"and my farewell to every town I was ever in--"
A great nostalgia for Ulster, for the whins and heather, choked him:
"_S iomaidh bealach fliuch salach agas boithrin cam_--
"There's many a wet muddy highways and crooked half-road, _eader mise_,
between _me_, _eader mise_, _eader mise_--" He had forgotten.
"Between me and the townland that my desire is in," the Oran steersman
prompted. "_Eader mise agas an baile bhfuil mo dhuil ann!_"
"Mind your bloody wheel," Shane warned. "This is a ship, not a poetry
society. Look at the way you're letting her come up, you Highland
bastard. Keep her off--and lam her!"
"Lam her it is, sir," the steersman grinned....
PART SIX
THE BOLD FENIAN MEN
§ 1
The worst of it all, Campbell smiled, was this: that life was so
immensely healthy now, immensely peaceful, immensely sane. Here he was
in the house of his fathers, built from the angle of a turret of King
John's time. Here he was by the purple hills, by the purple Moyle. Five
springs had come since he had given up the sea. Five times he had seen
the little mountain streams swell with the import of the season,
hurrying from the summit of the eagles, carrying water on nature's
business. Five times had the primrose come, and the cuckoo. The faint
delicate blue of early grass turned to green. The heat haze of summer on
the silent glens. The Moyle thick with fish. Then autumn, a deep-bosomed
grave woman moving through the reddening woods, the turf-cutters with
their spades, the pillars of blue smoke from the cottages in the stilly
September sky. And the three great moons of autumn, silver as sixpence.
Five times the distant trumpeting of the wild swans and winter came, in
great galloping winds, and sweeping sheets of sea-rain. And Moyle tossed
like a giant troubled in his sleep. And on the mountain-sides the rowan
stood up like a proud enemy, and the ash bent humbly, and the dwarf oak
crouched under fury. And the wind whistled in the frozen reeds. And with
the snow came out the hunted ones unafraid, the red fox, and the badger
of dark ways, and the cantering hare.
Without, the wind might roar like cannon, and the sea rise in great
engulfing waves. Within the old house with its corner dating from King
John's time--so long ago!--was comfort. Here was the library where Robin
More--God rest his soul!--had puzzled over the round towers of Ireland
and written his monograph on the Phenician colony of the County Down,
and bothered about strange quaint old things, comparing the Celtic cross
to the sistrum of Egypt, and wondering whether the round towers of
Ireland had aught to do with worship of the sun, and writing of Gaelic
occultism to Bulwer Lytton, and dreaming of the friend of his youth,
Goethe, in the dusk. And down in the gun-room were the cups of Alan
Donn, cups for sailing and cups for golf, and ribbons that horses won.
And in the drawing-room was the needlework of his mother, the precise
beautiful broidery ... so like herself, minute, mathematical, not
significant.... And in the kitchen was the red turf, and the flitches of
bacon in the eaves, and the thick servant girls hustling impatiently,
and the servant boys in their corduroy trousers bound with rushes at the
knee ... their heavy brogues, their honest jests of Rabelais ... and in
the fold the silent sheep, and great solemn cows warm in their
manger....
Five years, going on six now, since he had left the sea, and invested
his fortune in a Belfast shipyard, and taken over the homestead of Clan
Campbell to run as it had always been run, wisely, sanely, healthily....
There were the servant boys and girls, with a comfortable roof above
them. There were the cotter tenants, satisfied, certain of justice. At
the shows his shorthorns took ribbons. For local charities, his duty was
done.... But there was something, something lacking....
It wasn't peace. Peace he had in plenty. The spring of the heather, the
tang of the sea brought peace. The bats of twilight, and the sallow
branches, and the trout leaping in the river at the close of day. And
the twilight itself, like some shy girl.... Out of all these came an
emanation, a cradle-song, that lulled like the song of little waves....
And as for pleasure, there was pleasure in listening to the birds among
the trees, to seeing the stooking of barley, to watching the blue banner
of the flax, to walking on frosty roads on great nights of stars.... To
riding with the hunt, clumsily, as a sailor does, but getting in at the
death, as pleased as the huntsman, or the master himself.... To the whir
of the reel as the great blue salmon rushed ... Pleasure, and peace, and
yet not satisfaction.
He thought, for a while, that what he missed was the ships, and that,
subconsciously, there was some nostalgia for the sea on him. He had gone
to Belfast thinking that with live timbers beneath his feet, the--the
vacuum within him would be filled, but the thought of a ship somehow,
when he was there, failed to exalt him. He loved them always, the long
live ships, the canvas white as a gull, the delicacy of spars--all the
beautiful economy.... But to command one again, to go about the world,
aimlessly but for the bartering of cargo, and to return at the voyage's
end, with a sum of money--no! no! not enough!
And so he came back to the peace and pleasure of the glens, the purple
heather, and the red berries, the chink of pebbles on the strand. To
the hunts on frosty mornings, to the salmon-fishing, to the showing of
cattle. To peace: to pleasure....
And he suddenly asked himself what had he done to deserve this peace,
these pleasant days? What right had he to them? What had he given to
life, what achieved for the world, that he should have sanctuary?
The answer put him in a shiver of panic. Nothing!
He had no right, no title to it. Here he was drawing on to fifty, close
on forty-eight; and he had done, achieved, nothing. He had no wife, no
child; had achieved no valorous unselfish deed. Had not--not even--not
even a little song.
§ 2
Strange thing--it hadn't occurred to him at first; but it did now when
he thought over it in the winter evenings--was this: that Alan Donn
Campbell, for all that he was dead these six years and more, existed
still, was bigger now than he had ever been in life....
Because Shane had hated to see the fine boat drawn up, he had put _Righ
nam Bradan_, the _Salmon King_, Alan Donn's great thirty-footer, into
commission, and raced her at Ballycastle and Kingstown, losing both
times. He had ascribed it to sailing luck, the dying of a breeze, the
setting of a tide, a lucky tack of an opposing boat. But at Cowes he
should have won. Everything was with him. He came in fifth.
"I can't understand," he told one of Alan's old crew.
"Man," the Antrim sailor told him bluntly, "ye have na' the gift."
"But, Feardoracha, I'm a sailor."