Part 29 (1/2)
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 s.h.i.+p, and it's the grand cracks we'll have in the horse lat.i.tudes.... Or maybe I'll find one of them a young buck officer aboard a s.h.i.+p I'm on; and he'll come for'a'd and say: 'Lay aloft, old-timer, with the rest and be pretty G.o.d-d.a.m.ned quick about it.' And I'll say: 'Aye, aye, sir.' And thinks: Wait till you get ash.o.r.e, and I'll tell you who I am, and give you a tip about your seamans.h.i.+p, 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 n.o.body'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!