e 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.