We were on our way home from Inishmore, where we had spent two days;
Peter O’Flaherty among his relatives--for everyone on the island was kin
to him--I among friends who give me a warm welcome when I go to them.
The island lies some seventeen miles from the coast. We started on our
homeward sail with a fresh westerly wind. Shortly after midday it backed
round to the north and grew lighter. At five o’clock we were stealing
along very gently through calm water with our mainsail boom out against
the shroud. The jib and foresail were drooping in limp folds. An hour
later the mainsheet was hanging in the water and the boat drifted with
the tide. Peter, crouching in the fore part of the cockpit, hissed
through his clenched teeth, which is the way in which he whistles for a
wind. He glanced all round the horizon, searching for signs of a breeze.
His eyes rested finally on the sun, which lay low among some light,
fleecy clouds. He gave it as his opinion that when it reached the point
of setting it “might draw a light air after it from the eastward.”
For that it appeared we were to wait. I shrank from toil with the heavy
sweeps. So, I am sure did Peter, who is a good man in a boat but averse
from unnecessary labour. And there was really no need to row. The tide
was carrying us homeward, and our position was pleasant enough. Save
for the occasional drag of a block against the horse we had achieved
unbroken silence and almost perfect peace.
We drifted slowly past Carrigeen Glos, a low, sullen line of rocks. A
group of cormorants, either gorged with mackerel fry or hopeless of an
evening meal, perched together at one end of the reef, and stared at
the setting sun. A few terns swept round and round overhead, soaring or
sliding downwards with easy motion. A large seal lay basking on a bare
rock just above the water’s edge. I pointed it out to Peter, and he said
it was a pity I had not got my rifle with me. I did not agree with him.
If I had brought the rifle Peter would have insisted on my shooting at
the seal. I should certainly not have hit it on purpose, for I am averse
from injuring gentle creatures; but I might perhaps have killed or
wounded it by accident, for my shooting is very uncertain. In any case
I should have broken nature’s peace, and made a horrible commotion.
Perhaps the seal heard Peter’s remark or divined his feeling of
hostility. It flopped across the rock and slid gracefully into the sea.
We saw it afterwards swimming near the boat, looking at us with its
curiously human, tender eyes.
“A man might mistake it for a mermaid,” I said.
“He’d have to be a fool altogether that would do the like,” said Peter.
He was scornful; but the seal’s eyes were human. They made me think of
mermaids.
“Them ones,” said Peter, “is entirely different from seals. You might
see a seal any day in fine weather. They’re plenty. But the other
ones--But sure you wouldn’t care to be hearing about them.”
“I’ve heard plenty about them,” I said, “but it was all poetry and
nonsense. You know well enough, Peter, that there’s no such thing as a
mermaid.”
Peter filled his pipe slowly and lit it. I could see by the way he puffed
at it that he was full of pity and contempt for my scepticism.
“Come now,” I said: “did you ever see a mermaid?”
“I did not,” said Peter, “but my mother was acquainted with one. That
was in Inishmore, where I was born and reared.”
I waited. The chance of getting Peter to tell an interesting story is to
wait patiently. Any attempt to goad him on by asking questions is like
striking before a fish is hooked. The chance of getting either story or
fish is spoiled.
“There was a young fellow in the island them times,” said Peter, “called
Anthony O’Flaherty. A kind of uncle of my father’s he was, and a very
fine man. There wasn’t his equal at running or lepping, and they say he
was terrible daring on the sea. That was before my mother was born, but
she heard tell of what he did. When she knew him he was like an old man,
and the heart was gone out of him.”
At this point Peter stopped. His pipe had gone out. He relit it
with immense deliberation. I made a mistake. By way of keeping the
conversation going I asked a question.
“Did he see a mermaid?”
“He did,” said Peter, “and what’s more he married one.”
There Peter stopped again abruptly, but with an air of finality. He had,
so I gathered, told me all he was going to tell me about the mermaid. I
had blundered badly in asking my question. I suppose that some note
of unsympathetic scepticism in my tone suggested to Peter that I was
inclined to laugh at him. I did my best to retrieve my position. I sat
quite silent and stared at the peak of the mainsail. The block on the
horse rattled occasionally. The sun’s rim touched the horizon. At last
Peter was reassured and began again.
“It was my mother told me about it, and she knew, for many’s the time
she did be playing with the young lads, her being no more than a little
girleen at the time. Seven of them there was, and the second eldest was
the one age with my mother. That was after herself left him.”
“Herself” was vague enough; but I did not venture to ask another
question. I took my eyes off the peak of the mainsail and fixed them
inquiringly on Peter. It was as near as I dared go to asking a question.
“Herself,” said Peter, “was one of them ones.”
He nodded sideways over the gunwale of the boat. The sea, though still
calm, was beginning to be moved by that queer restlessness which comes
on it at sunset. The tide eddied in mysteriously oily swirls. The rocks
to the eastward of us had grown dim. A gull flew by overhead uttering
wailing cries. The graceful terns had disappeared. A cormorant, flying
so low that its wing-tips broke the water, sped across our bows to some
far resting-place. I fell into a mood of real sympathy with stories
about mermaids. I think Peter felt the change which had come over me.
“Anthony O’Flaherty,” said Peter, “was a young man when he saw them
first. It was in the little bay back west of the island, and my mother
never rightly knew what he was doing there in the middle of the night;
but there he was. It was the bottom of a low spring tide, and there’s
rocks off the end of the bay that’s uncovered at the ebb of the springs.
You’ve maybe seen them.”
I have seen them, and Peter knew it well. I have seen more of them than
I want to. There was an occasion when Peter and I lay at anchor in that
bay, and a sudden shift of wind set us to beating out at three o’clock
in the morning. The rocks were not uncovered then, but the waves were
breaking fiercely over them. We had little room for tacking, and I am
not likely to forget the time we went about a few yards to windward of
them. The stretch of wild surf under our lee looked ghastly white in the
dim twilight of the dawn. Peter knew what I was thinking.
“It was calm enough that night Anthony O’Flaherty was there,” he said,
“and there was a moon shining, pretty near a full moon, so Anthony
could see plain. Well, there was three of them in it, and they playing
themselves.”
“Mermaids?”
This time my voice expressed full sympathy. The sea all round us was
rising in queer round little waves, though there was no wind. The boom
snatched at the blocks as the boat rocked. The sail was ghostly white.
The vision of a mermaid would not have surprised me greatly.
“The beautifulest ever was seen,” said Peter, “and neither shift nor
shirt on them, only just themselves, and the long hair of them. Straight
it was and black, only for a taste of green in it. You wouldn’t be
making a mistake between the like of them and seals, not if you’d seen
them right the way Anthony O’Flaherty did.”
Peter made this reflection a little bitterly. I was afraid the
recollection of my unfortunate remark about seals might have stopped him
telling the story, but it did not.
“Once Anthony had seen them,” he said, “he couldn’t rest content without
he’d be going to see them again. Many a night he went and saw neither
sight nor light of them, for it was only at spring tides that they’d be
there, on account of the rocks not being uncovered any other time.
But at the bottom of the low springs they were there right enough, and
sometimes they’d be swimming in the sea and sometimes they’d be sitting
on the rocks. It was wonderful the songs they’d sing--like the sound
of the sea set to music was what my mother told me, and she was told by
them that knew. The people did be wondering what had come over Anthony,
for he was different like from what he had been, and nobody knew what
took him out of his house in the middle of the night at the spring
tides. There was a girl that they had laid down for him to marry, and
Anthony had no objection to her before he seen them ones; but after
he had seen them he wouldn’t look at the girl. She had a middling good
fortune too but sure he didn’t care about that.”
I could understand Anthony’s feelings. The air of wind which Peter had
promised, drawn from its cave by the lure of the departing sun, was
filling our head-sails. I hauled in the main-sheet gently hand over hand
and belayed it The boat slipped quietly along close-hauled. The long
line of islands which guards the entrance of our bay lay dim before use.
Over the shoulder of one of them I could see the lighthouse, still a
distinguishable patch of white against the looming grey of the land. The
water rippled mournfully under our bows and a long pale wake stretched
astern from our counter. “Fortune,” banked money, good heifers and even
enduringly fruitful fields seemed very little matters to me then. They
must have seemed still less, far less, to Anthony O’Flaherty after he
had seen those white sea-maidens with their green-black hair.
“There was a woman on the island in those times,” said Peter, “a very
aged woman, and she had a kind of plaster which she made which cured the
cancer, drawing it out by the roots, and she could tell what was good
for the chin cough, and the women did like to have her with them when
their children was born, she being knowledgable in them matters. I’m
told the priests didn’t like her, for there was things she knew which it
mightn’t be right that anyone would know, things that’s better left to
the clergy. Whether she guessed what was the matter with Anthony, or
whether he up and told her straight my mother never heard. It could be
that he told her, for many a one used to go to her for a charm when
the butter wouldn’t come, or a cow, maybe, was pining; so it wouldn’t
surprise me if Anthony went to her.”
Peter crept aft. He took a pull on the jib-sheet and belayed it again;
but I do not believe that he really cared much about the set of the
sail. That was his excuse. He wanted to be nearer to me. There is
something in stories like this, told in dim twilight, with dark waters
sighing near at hand, which makes men feel the need of close human
companionship. Peter seated himself on the floorboards at my feet, and I
felt a certain comfort in the touch of his arm on my leg.
“Well,” he went on, “according to the old hag--and what she said was
true enough, however she learnt it--them ones doesn’t go naked all the
time, but only when they’re playing themselves on the rocks at low tide,
the way Anthony seen them. Mostly they have a kind of cloak that they
wear, and they take the same cloaks off of them when they’re up above
the water and they lay them down on the rocks. If so be that a man could
put his hand on e’er a cloak, the one that owned it would have to follow
him whether she wanted to or not. If it was to the end of the world
she’d have to follow him, or to Spain, or to America, or wherever he
might go. And what’s more, she’d have to do what he bid her, be the same
good or bad, and be with him if he wanted her, so long as he kept the
cloak from her. That’s what the old woman told Anthony, and she was a
skilful woman, well knowing the nature of beasts and men, and of them
that’s neither beasts nor men. You’ll believe me now that Anthony wasn’t
altogether the same as other men when I tell you that he laid his mind
down to get his hand down on one of the cloaks. He was a good swimmer,
so he was, which is what few men on the island can do, and he knew that
he’d be able to fetch out to the rock where them ones played
themselves.”
I was quite prepared to believe that Anthony was inspired by a passion
far out of the common. I know nothing more terrifying than the chill
embrace of the sea at night-time. To strike out through the slimy weeds
which lie close along the surface at the ebb point of a spring tide, to
clamber on low rocks, half awash for an hour or two at midnight, these
are things which I would not willingly do.
“The first time he went for to try it,” said Peter, “he felt a bit queer
in himself and he thought it would do him no harm if he was to bless
himself. So he did, just as he was stepping off the shore into the
water. Well, it might as well have been a shot he fired, for the minute
he did it they were off and their cloaks along with them; and Anthony
was left there. It was the sign of the cross had them frightened, for
that same is what they can’t stand, not having souls that religion would
be any use to. It was the old woman told Anthony that after, and you’d
think it would have been a warning to him not to make or meddle with the
like of them any more. But it only made him the more determined. He went
about without speaking to man or woman, and if anybody spoke to him he’d
curse terrible, till the time of the next spring tide. Then he was off
to the bay again, and sure enough them ones was there. The water was
middling rough that night, but it didn’t daunt Anthony. It pleased him,
for he thought he’d have a better chance of getting to the rocks without
them taking notice of him if there was some noise loud enough to drown
the noise he’d be making himself. So he crept out to the point of the
cliff on the south side of the bay, which is as near as he could get to
the rocks. You remember that?”
I did. On the night when we beat out of the bay against a rising
westerly wind we went about once under the shadow of the cliff, and,
almost before we had full way on the boat, stayed her again beside the
rocks. Anthony’s swim, though terrifying, was short.
“That time he neither blessed himself nor said a prayer, but slipped
into the water, and off with him, swimming with all his strength. They
didn’t see him, for they were too busy with their playing to take much
notice, and of course they couldn’t be expecting a man to be there.
Without Anthony had shouted they wouldn’t have heard him, for the sea
was loud on the rocks and their own singing was louder. So Anthony got
there and he crept up on the rock behind them, and the first thing his
hand touched was one of the cloaks. He didn’t know which of them it
belonged to, and he didn’t care. It wasn’t any one of the three in
particular he wanted, for they were all much about the same to look at,
only finer than any woman ever was seen. So he rolled the cloak round
his neck, the way he’d have his arms free for swimming, and back with
him into the water, heading for shore as fast as he was able.”
“And she followed him?” I asked.
“She did so. From that day till the day she left him she followed him,
and she did what she was bid, only for one thing. She wouldn’t go to
mass, and when the chapel bell rang she’d hide herself. The sound of it
was what she couldn’t bear. The people thought that queer, and there
was a deal of talk about it in the island, some saying she must be a
Protestant, and more thinking that she might be something worse. But
nobody had a word to say against her any other way. She was a good
enough housekeeper, washing and making and mending for Anthony, and
minding the children. Seven of them there was, and all boys.”
The easterly breeze freshened as the night fell I could see the great
eye of the lighthouse blinking at me on the weather side of the boat.
It became necessary to go about, but I gave the order to Peter very
reluctantly. He handled the head-sheets, and then, instead of settling
down in his old place, leaned his elbows on the coaming and stared into
the sea. We were steadily approaching the lighthouse. I felt that I must
run the risk of asking him a question.
“What happened in the end?” I asked.
“The end, is it? Well, in the latter end she left him. But there was
things happened before that. Whether it was the way the priests talked
to him about her--there was a priest in it them times that was too fond
of interfering, and that’s what some of them are--or whether there was
goings-on within in the inside of the house that nobody knew anything
about--and there might have been, for you couldn’t tell what one of them
ones might do or mightn’t. Whatever way it was, Anthony took to drinking
more than he ought. There was poteen made on the island then, and whisky
was easy come by if a man wanted it, and Anthony took too much of it.”
Peter paused and then passed judgment, charitably, on Anthony’s conduct.
“I wouldn’t be too hard on a man for taking a drop an odd time.”
I was glad to hear Peter say that. I myself had found it necessary from
time to time, for the sake of an old friendship, not to be too hard on
Peter.
“Nobody would have blamed him,” Peter went on, “if he had behaved
himself when he had a drop taken; but that’s what he didn’t seem able
to do. He bet her. Sore and heavy he bet her, and that’s what no woman,
whether she was a natural woman or one of the other kind, could be
expected to put up with. Not that she said a word. She didn’t. Nor
nobody would have known that he bet her if he hadn’t token to beating
the young lads along with her. It was them told what was going on.
But there wasn’t one on the island would interfere. The people did
be wondering that she didn’t put the fear of God into Anthony; but of
course that’s what she couldn’t do on account of his having the cloak
hid away from her. So long as he had that she was bound to put up with
whatever he did. But it wasn’t for ever.
“The house was going to rack and ruin with the way Anthony wouldn’t mind
it on account of his being three-parts drunk most of the time. At last
the rain was coming in through the roof. When Anthony saw that he came
to himself a bit and sent for my grandfather and settled with him to put
a few patches of new thatch on the worst places. My grandfather was the
best man at thatching that there was in the island in them days, and
he took the job though he misdoubted whether he’d ever be paid for it.
Anthony never came next or nigh him when he was working, which shows
that he hadn’t got his senses rightly. If he had he’d have kept an eye
on what my grandfather was doing, knowing what he knew, though of course
my grandfather didn’t know. Well, one day my grandfather was dragging
off the old thatch near the chimney. It was middling late in the
evening, as it might be six or seven o’clock, and he was thinking of
stopping his work when all of a sudden he came on what he thought might
be an old petticoat bundled away in the thatch. It was red, he said,
but when he put his hand on it he knew it wasn’t flannel, nor it wasn’t
cloth, nor it wasn’t like anything he’d ever felt before in all his
life. There was a hole in the roof where my grandfather had the thatch
stripped, and he could see down into the kitchen. Anthony’s wife was
there with the youngest of the boys in her arms. My grandfather was as
much in dread of her as every other one, but he thought it would be no
more than civil to tell her what he’d found.
“‘Begging your pardon, ma’am,’ he said, ‘but I’m after finding what
maybe belongs to you hid away in the thatch.’
“With that he threw down the red cloak, for it was a red cloak he had in
his hand. She didn’t speak a word, but she laid down the baby out of her
arms and she walked out of the house. That was the last my father seen
of her. And that was the last anyone on the island seen of her, unless
maybe Anthony. Nobody knows what he saw. He stopped off the drink from
that day; but it wasn’t much use his stopping it. He used to go round
at spring tides to the bay where he had seen her first. He did that five
times, or maybe six. After that he took to his bed and died. It could be
that his heart was broke.”
We slipped past the point of the pier. Peter crept forward and crouched
on the deck in front of the mast I peered into the gloom to catch sight
of our mooring-buoy.
“Let her away a bit yet,” said Peter. “Now luff her, luff her all you
can.”
The boat edged up into the wind. Peter, flat on his stomach, grasped the
buoy and hauled it on board. The fore-sheets beat their tattoo on the
deck. The boom swung sharply across the boat.
Ten minutes later we were leaning together across the boom gathering in
the mainsail.
“What became of the boys?” I asked.
“Is it Anthony O’Flaherty’s boys? The last of them went to America
twenty years ago. But sure that was before you came to these parts.”