There came a delightful evening in the end of April. The air was clear
and cool after a shower of rain. There was a wonderful light in the
western heavens. The birds sang a strain of music in the wood. The waves
were chanting a poem on the strand. But loneliness was on the heart of
the boy and he waiting for the swallows.
There was heard, suddenly, a sound that hadn’t been heard in that place
for more than a half-year. A little, tiny sound. A faint,
truly-melodious sound. A pert, joyous twittering, and it unlike any
other twittering that comes from the mouth of a bird. With fiery
swiftness a small black body drove from the south. It flying high in the
air. Two broad, strong wings on it. The shaping of a fork on its tail.
It cutting the way before it, like an arrow shot from a bow. It swooped
suddenly, it turned, rose again, swooped and turned again. Then it made
straight for Eoineen, it speaking at the top of its voice, till it lay
and nestled in the breast of the little boy after its long journey from
the Southern World.
“O, my love, my love you are!” says Eoineen, taking it in his two hands
and kissing it on the little black head. “Welcome to me from the strange
countries! Are you tired after your lonely journey over lands and over
seas? _Ora_, my thousand, thousand loves you are, beautiful little
messenger from the country where it does be summer always! Where are
your companions from you? Or what happened you on the road, or why
didn’t ye come before this?”
While he was speaking like this with the swallow, kissing it again and
yet again, and rubbing his hand lovingly over its blue-black wings, its
little red throat and its bright, feathered breast, another little bird
sailed from the south and alighted beside them. The two birds rose in
the air then, and it is the first other place they lay, in their own
little nest that was hidden in the ivy that was growing thickly on the
walls of the house.
“They are found at last, little mother!” says Eoineen, and he running in
joyfully. “The swallows are found at last! A pair came this night--the
pair who have their nest over my window. The others will be with us
to-morrow.”
The mother stooped and drew him to her. Then she put a prayer to God in
a whisper, giving thanks to Him for sending the swallows to them. The
flame that was in the eyes of the boy, it would put delight on the heart
of any mother at all.
It was sound the sleep of Eoineen that night.
* * * * *
The swallows came one after another now--singly at first, in pairs then,
and at last in little flocks. Isn’t it they were glad when they saw the
old place again! The little wood and the brook running through it; the
white, sandy beach; the ash-trees that were close to the house; the
house itself and the old nests exactly as they left them half a year
before that. There was no change on anything but only on the little boy.
He was quieter and gentler than he used to be. He was oftener sitting
than running with himself about the fields, as was his habit before
that. He wasn’t heard laughing or singing as often as he used be heard.
If the swallows took notice of this much--and I wouldn’t say they
didn’t--it’s certain that they were sorry for him.
The summer went by. It was seldom Eoineen would stir out on the street,
but he sitting contentedly on the top of the rock, looking at the
swallows and listening to their twittering. He’d spend the hours like
this. ’Twas often he was there from early morning till there came
“_tráthnóna gréine buidhe_,”--the evening of the yellow sun; and going
within every night he’d have a great lot of stories, beautiful,
wonderful stories, to tell to his mother. When she’d question him about
these stories, he’d always say to her that it’s from the swallows he’d
get them.
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