A conversation that took place between Eoineen of the Birds and his
mother, one evening of spring, before the going under of the sun. The
song-thrush and the yellow-bunting that heard it, and (as I think) told
it to my friends the swallows. The swallows that told the story to me.
“Come on in, pet. It’s rising cold.”
“I can’t stir a while yet, little mother. I’m waiting for the swallows.”
“For what, little son?”
“The swallows. I’m thinking they’ll be here this night.”
Eoineen was high on the big rock that was close to the gable of the
house, he settled nicely on top of it, and the white back of his head
against the foot of the ash-tree that was sheltering him. He had his
head raised, and he looking from him southward. His mother looked up at
him. It seemed to her that his share of hair was yellow gold where the
sun was burning on his head.
“And where are they coming from, child?”
“From the Southern World--the place it does be summer always. I’m
expecting them for a week.”
“And how do you know that it’s this night they’ll come?”
“I don’t know, only thinking it. ’Twould be time for them to be here
some day now. I mind that it was this day surely they came last year. I
was coming up from the well when I heard their twittering--a sweet,
joyful twittering as they’d be saying: ‘We’ve come to you again,
Eoineen! News to you from the Southern World!’--and then one of them
flew past me, rubbing his wing to my cheek.”
There’s no need to say that this talk put great wonder on the mother.
Eoineen never spoke to her like that before. She knew that he put a
great wish in the birds, and that it’s many an hour he used spend in the
wood or by the strand-side, “talking to them,” as he’d say. But she
didn’t understand why there should be that great a wish on him to see
the swallows coming again. She knew by his face, as well as by the words
of his mouth, that he was forever thinking on some thing that was making
him anxious. And there came unrest on the woman over it, a thing that’s
no wonder. “Sure, it’s queer talk from a child,” says she in her own
mind. She didn’t speak a breath aloud, however, but she listening to
each word that came out of his mouth.
“I’m very lonely since they left me in the harvest,” says the little boy
again, like one that would be talking to himself. “They had that much to
say to me. They’re not the same as the song-thrush or the yellow-bunting
that do spend the best part of their lives by the ditch-side in the
garden. They do have wonderful stories to tell about the lands where it
does be summer always, and about the wild seas where the ships are
drowned, and about the lime-bright cities where the kings do be always
living. It’s long, long the road from the Southern World to this
country. They see everything coming over, and they don’t forget
anything. I think long, wanting them.”
“Come in, white love, and go to sleep. You’ll be perished with the cold
if you stay out any longer.”
“I’ll go in presently, little mother. I wouldn’t like them to come, and
I not to be here to give them welcome. They would be wondering.”
The mother saw that it was no good to be at him. She went in, troubled.
She cleaned the table and the chairs. She washed the vessels and the
dishes. She took the brush, and she brushed the floor. She scoured the
kettle and the big pot. She trimmed the lamp, and hung it on the wall.
She put more turf on the fire. She did a hundred other things that she
needn’t have done. Then she sat before the fire, thinking to herself.
The “piper of the ashes” (the cricket) came out, and started on his
heartsome tune. The mother stayed by the hearthside, pondering. The
little boy stayed on his airy seat, watching. The cows came home from
the pasture. The hen called to her her chickens. The blackbird and the
wren, and the other little people of the wood went to sleep. The buzzing
of the flies was stopped, and the bleating of the lambs. The sun sank
slowly till it was close to the bottom of the sky, till it was exactly
on the bottom of the sky, till it was under the bottom of the sky. A
cold wind blew from the east. The darkness spread on the earth. At last
Eoineen came in.
“I fear they won’t come this night,” says he. “Maybe, with God’s help,
they might come to-morrow.”
* * * * *
The morning of the next day came. Eoineen was up early, and he watching
out from the top of the rock. The middle of day came. The end of day
came. The night came. But, my grief! the swallows did not come.
“Maybe we might see them here to-morrow,” says Eoineen, and he coming in
sadly that night.
But they didn’t see them. Nor did they see them the day after that, nor
the day after that again. And it’s what Eoineen would say every night
and he coming in:
“Maybe they might be with us to-morrow.”
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