ver would a space in the
watery horizon open and show him a threshold of beauty with quiet,
brooding face.... And when he came home, either late or early, or on
time to the moment, it was, "Och, is it yourself?" And the only
interruption to the house was the little more trouble he caused. And his
gifts were treated tepidly, though with cupidinous eyes. In the evening,
if he stood on the threshold, it was: "Wisha, is it going out you are?
And isn't it enough of the fresh air you have, and you on the salt
water?" And her embraces were half chastity, half sin, tepidly
passionate, unintimate ... so that shame was on him, and no pride or
joyousness.... Cold! cold! cold!... A cold house, a cold woman.... No
light or warmth or graciousness....

And the old woman whom he had thought of as warm and peaceful by the
fire was a hag with a peasant's cupidity: "And isn't it a little more
you can be leaving us, darling lad, what with the high price that does
be on things in this place and you not spending a brown ha'penny aboard
ship?... And herself might be taken sick now, and wouldn't it be a grand
thing, a wee store of money in the house? Or the wars might come, find
you far on the sea! An extra sovereign now, brave fellow, a
half-sovereign itself!"

And when he left it was of less import than the cow going dry. Only one
mourned him, the old dog. Only one remembered him, the half-blind badger
hound, that dreamed of ancient hunting days....

And he would go down to his ship, heartbroken, when none was looking a
mist of tears in his eyes,--he was not yet twenty-one,--but in a day or
so that would pass, and the sea that was so strong would give him of its
strength and heal him, so that after a few days he could stand up and
say: "Well.... Huuh.... Well...."

A trick had been played him, like some tricks the sea and sun play. Afar
off he had seen an island like an appointed dancing place, like the
Green of Fiddlers, and he had asked to be put ashore there, to live and
be a permanent citizen. And when he was landed, he found that his
dancing place was only a barren rock where the seagulls mourned. Past
the glamour of the sun and sea mists, there were only cold, searching
winds and dank stone....

But he came of a race that are born men, breed men, and kill men. Crying
never patched a hole in a brogue, and a man who's been fooled is no
admirable figure, at least to Antrim men. So shut your mouth! When a
master loses a ship he gets