August and September went. October was half out. As the days were
getting shorter, Eoineen was rising sadder. ’Twas seldom he’d speak to
his mother now, but every night before going to sleep he’d kiss her
fondly and tenderly, and he’d say:
“Call me early in the morning, little mother. It’s little time I have
now. They’ll be departing without much delay.”
A beautiful day brightened in the middle of the month. Early in the
morning, Eoineen took notice that the swallows were crowding together on
the top of the house. He didn’t stir from his seat the length of that
day. Coming in in the evening, says he to his mother:
“They’ll be departing to-morrow.”
“How do you know, white love?”
“They told me to-day.... Little mother,” says he again, after a spell of
silence.
“What is it, little child?”
“I can’t stay here when they’re gone. I must go along with them ... to
the country where it does be summer always. You wouldn’t be lonely if
I’d go?”
“O! treasure, my thousand treasures, don’t speak to me like that!” says
the mother, taking him and squeezing him to her heart. “You’re not to be
stolen from me! Sure, you wouldn’t leave your little mother, and go
after the swallows?”
Eoineen didn’t say a word, but to kiss her again and again.
* * * * *
Another day brightened. The little, wee boy was up early. From the start
of day hundreds of swallows were gathered together on the ridge of the
house. From time to time one or two of them would go off and they’d
return again, as if they’d be considering the weather. At last a pair
went off and they didn’t return. Another pair went off. The third pair
went. They were going one after another then, till there didn’t remain
but one little flock only on the horn of the house. The pair that came
first on yon evening of spring six months before that were in this
little flock. It’s like they were loath to leave the place.
Eoineen was watching them from the rock. His mother was standing beside
him.
The little flock of birds rose in the air, and they faced the Southern
World. Going over the top of the wood a pair turned back,--the pair
whose nest was over the window. Down with them from the sky, making on
Eoineen. Over with them then, they flying close to the ground. Their
wings rubbed a cheek of the little boy, and they sweeping past him. Up
with them in the air again, they speaking sorrowfully, and off for ever
with them after the other crowd.
“Mother,” says Eoineen, “they’re calling me. ‘Come to the country where
the sun does be shining always,--come, Eoineen, over the wild seas to
the Country of Light,--come, Eoineen of the Birds!’ I can’t deny them. A
blessing with you, little mother,--my thousand, thousand blessings to
you, little mother of my heart. I’m going from you ... over the wild
seas ... to the country where it does be summer always.”
He let his head back on his mother’s shoulder and he put a sigh out of
him. There was heard the crying of a woman in that lonely place--the
crying of a mother keening her child. Eoineen was departed along with
the swallows.
* * * * *
Autumn and winter went by and the spring was at hand again. The woods
were in leaf, and the lambs bleating, and the sun shining on the
bawn-fields. One glorious evening in April the swallows came. There was
a wonderful light at the bottom of the sky in the west, as it was a year
from that time. The birds sang a strain of music in the wood. The waves
chanted a poem on the strand. But there was no little white-haired boy,
sitting on the top of the rock under the shadow of the ash-trees. Inside
in the house there was a solitary woman, weeping by the fire.
“... And, darling little son,” says she, “I see the swallows here again,
but I’ll never, never see you here.”
The swallows heard her, and they going past the door. I don’t know did
Eoineen hear her, as he was thousands of miles away ... in the country
where it does be summer always.
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