§ 1

To him, for a long time now, the sea had been only water. All the immense pelagic plain, dotted with ships; with bergs of ice, like cathedrals; with waves that curled or swept in huge rhythms; with currents defined in lines and whorls; with gulls that mewed and whales that blew like pretty fountains; with the little Portuguese men-of-war; with the cleaving of flying fish and the tumbling of dolphins, all this was water. All this joyous green, this laughing white, the deep reflective blue, the somber exquisite gray, was water. An infinity of barrels of water, immense vats of water, water, wet water....

To him, for a long time now, a ship had been a means of keeping afloat on water, of going from place to place. All its brave strakes, its plunging bows, its healing beams, were wood, such as one makes a house of, or a tinker's cart. All the miracle of sails; the steady foresail; the sensitive jibs; the press canvas delicate as bubbles; the reliable main; the bluff topsails; topgallants like eager horses; the impertinent skysails; the jaunty moonraker, were just canvas stretched on poles. All the pyramidal wonder of them, fore, main, and mizzen, were not like a good rider's hands to a horse; compelling, coaxing, curbing the wind, they were utilities. The spinning wheel was a mechanical device. Port was left, and starboard only the right hand. The chiming of the ship's bell was not an old sweet ceremony but a fallible thing, not exact as the ticking of a cheap watch. And "The lights are burning bright, sir," was not a pÆan of comfort, but a mechanical artisans' phrase....

To him, for a long time now, they who went down to the sea in ships were men only; men such as sell things in shops or scrub poorhouse floors, or dig tracks for a railroad. The slovenly Achill man, who would face death with a grin, the shambling Highlander who on occasion could spring to the shrouds like a cat; the old bos'un who had been for years a castaway on Tierra del Fuego; the wizened chantey-man with his melodeon, who could put new vigor into tired backs, with his long-drag chanteys, like "Blow the Man Down," and "Dead Horse," and "Whisky Johnnie," and short-drags like "Paddy Doyle" and "Haul the Bowline," and capstans like "Homeward Bound" and "Wide Missouri," and pumping chanteys like "Storm Along"; the keen men at the wheel and the hawk-eyed lookout; the sailor swinging the lead in the bows, with a wrist and forearm of steel—all these were only men, following the sea because they knew no better. And the mate who would wade into a mob of twenty with swinging fists, and the navigator who could calculate to a hair's-breadth where they were by observing the unimaginable stars—they were not of the craft of Noah, they were men who knew their job ... just men ... as a ticket-clerk on a railroad is a man....

To him, for a long time now, ports were ports, only places whither one went to get or deliver cargo. Baltimore, like some sweet old lady; Para, heavy, sinister with rain; Rio, like some sparkling jewel; Belfast, dour, efficient, sincere; Hamburg, dignified, gemÜtlich; Lisbon, quiet as a cathedral—they were not entities, they were just collections of houses covering men and women. And men were either fools or crooks, and women were either ugly bores or pretty—bitches.... Men and women, they were born crudely, as a calf is born of a cow, they lived foolishly or meanly, and they died.... And they were hustled out of the house quickly.... They thought themselves so important, and they lacked the faithfulness of the dog, the cleanliness of wild animals, the strength of horses, the beauty of tropic birds, the mathematical science of the spider, the swiftness of fishes.... And they grew old abominably, the women's breasts falling, the men getting pot-bellies.... How the devil had they ever arrogated to themselves the lordship of created things?

To him, for a long time now, the world had been, was, one mean street....

§ 2

Of all cities, none was better calculated to foster this mood of his than the one to which his business now brought him—Buenos Aires on the Plate. Leaving Liverpool with steel and cotton, there was an immensity of ocean to be traversed, until one came to the river mouth. Then fifty leagues of hard sailing to the abominable anchorage....

Here now was a city growing rich, ungracefully—a city of arrogant Spanish colonists, of poverty-stricken immigrants, of down-trodden lower classes ... a city of riches ... a city of blood.... Here mud, here money....

Into a city half mud hovels, half marble-fronted houses, gauchos drove herd upon herd of cattle, baffled, afraid. Here Irish drove streams of gray bleating sheep. Here ungreased bullock carts screamed. From the blue-grass pampas they drove them, where the birds sang, and water rippled, where was the gentleness of summer rain, where was the majesty of great storms, clouds magnificently black and jagged lightning, where were great white moons and life-giving suns, where was the serpent in the grass, and the unique tree, where were swift horses.... Beeves that had once been red awkward calves, and then sullen, stupid little bullocks, and then proud young bulls, with graceful horns.... Such as earnest Christians believed had lowed at the manger of Christ born in Bethlehem.... And stupid, suspicious sheep, that had once been white gamboling lambs, playful as pups, and so ridiculously innocent looking!—didn't they call their Lord Agnus Dei, Lamb of God?—and gentle ewes and young truculent rams, like red-headed schoolboys, eager for a fray, and shamefaced wethers.... And by their thousands and their tens of thousands they drove them into Buenos Aires, and slew them for their hides....

But this was sentimental, Shane said. Bullocks and sheep must die, and the knife is merciful as any death. But oughtn't these things be done by night, privily, as they should bury the dead? Must they drive down these infinities of creatures, and slaughter them openly and callously, until the air was salt with blood, until the carrion crows hovered over the city in battalions? Had they no feeling, had they no shame? Must the pitiful machinery of life be exposed so airily?

Of course it must, he knew. These things had to be done in bulk. Now weren't the middle ages when one killed a cow because one had to eat: one killed a sheep because the winter was coming when woolens were needed. All Europe needed shoes, saddles, combs, anti-macassars, afghans—what not? And Europe was a big place, so in bulk they must bellow and bleat and die, and have their hides torn from their pitiful bodies, salted, and chucked in the hold of a ship.

Of course it must. That was civilization.

§ 3

From long ago, from far away, came the chime of old romance, but very thin, like the note of a warm silver bell, that could not hold its own against this blatancy. Came ancient immortal names—Magellan, that hound of the world, whining fiercely, nosing for openings that he might encircle the globe, he had been up the silver river. Sebastian Cabot, too, the grim marauder, seeking to plunder the slender Indians, he had been here. It was he had christened the great stream—Rio de la Plata, the river where silver is. And Pedro Gomez, who headed the greatest expedition the Argentine ever saw, and founded and named the city. And fighting Beresford, the British general who took it from Spain, and Whitelock who lost it again.... Campbell could see his bluff grenadiers, their faces blackened with powder, their backs to the wall, a strange land, a strange enemy, and blessed England so far away.... And the last of the Spanish viceroys, with a name like an organ peal, Baltazar Hidalgo de Cisneros y Latorre—a great gentleman, he had been wounded fighting Nelson off Cape Trafalgar. Campbell could almost see his white Spanish face, his pointed fingers, his pointed beard, his pontifical walk.... And of them nothing remained. Nothing of Magellan, nothing of Cabot, nothing of Gomez, nothing of staunch Beresford, or bluff John Whitlock, or of the great hidalgo.... Stat magni nominis umbra? ... No, not even that. The shadows of the great names had gone. The dim chime of a silver bell drowned by the lowing of dying cattle, by the screech of bullock-carts, by the haggling of merchants over the price of hides....

But he could not remain on board ship in port. Ships, he had enough of them! There was nothing to do but go ashore, landing at high tide at one of the two lugubrious piers, and make his way toward the squares ... past the blazing water-front where the prostitutes chanted like demented savages, past the saloons where the sailors drank until they dropped, or were knifed, or robbed, or crimped. Down the ill-lit streets, which must be trodden carefully, lest one should stumble into a heap of refuse. Down to the Plaza Victoria, with its dim arcades, or to the 25 de Mayo, with its cathedral, its stunted paradise trees. And from the houses came shafts of light, and the sound of voices, thump of guitars like little drums, high arguments, shuffle of cards.... Dark shadows and lonely immigrants, and the plea of some light woman's bully—"cosa occulta...." A dim watery moon, the portico of the cathedral, a woman exaggerating her walk.... Pah!... immigrants fearful of the coming snow.... A vigilante strutting like a colonel.... Mournful pampa winds....

The theaters? Sugary Italian opera; a stark Spanish drama, too intense for any but Latins, foreign; debauched vaudeville, incredibly vulgar; or at the concert-hall, sentimental Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon songs, with an audience of grave uncritical exiles—a little pathetic. No!

The clubs? Oh, damn the clubs! A blaze of light and raucous voices, ships' masters, ships' chandlers, merchants, discussing the riddle of local politics, and the simony of office; or the price of hides, and freight charges; how a ship's master could turn a pretty penny in bringing out shoddy clothes, or pianos—Jesus! they were crazy for pianos here! Rattle of glasses and striking of matches. Bluff, ceremonious salutations.

"Well, captain, what kind of a trip did you make out?"

"Pretty fair, captain."

"Will you have a little snifter, captain?"

"Well, captain, seeing that it's you—"

"Paddy, a little of what ails him for the captain—"

And after a while the whisky would dissolve the ceremony, and would come nauseating intimacies.

"We shipped a stewardess in Hull—" or "There was an Irish girl in the steerage, a raving beauty, and when I saw her, I said: Wait. So—"

They were all the same. Give them whisky and time and the talk would come around to easy money and easy women. All were the same, bluff, sentimental, animal, all but the one or two hawk-eyed, close-lipped men who came and went silently, who drank little and drank by themselves. These men made the really big money, but it wasn't easy; they took a chance with their lives, smuggling slaves from Africa for the Argentine plantations, or silver from Chile and Peru. But as for the rest, easy money, easy women!

Well, what was Campbell fussing about? Wasn't he too making easy money, bringing agricultural steel and cotton goods here and taking away his tally of hides?

And as to easy women, wasn't there Hedda Hagen?

§ 4

A ship's master had introduced him to her at a band concert in one of the public squares—a tall Amazonian woman with her hair white as corn, and eyes the strange light blue of ice. Her head was uptilted—a brave woman. The introduction had a smirking ceremony about it that defined Fro̊ken Hagen's position as though in so many words. Her bow was as distant to Shane as his salutation was curt to her. Shane was suddenly annoyed.

The captain of the American boat talked incessantly while the band blared on. Strolling Argentines eyed the woman's blond beauty at a respectful distance. They trotted to and fro. They loped. They postured. She paid no attention. To her they were nonexistent. To the American skipper's conversation she replied only with a flicker of the eyelids, a fleeting smile of her lips. Shane she seemed to ignore. She was so clean, so cool, so damnably self-possessed.

"Fro̊ken Hagen," Campbell ventured, "aren't you sick of all this? Captain Lincoln says you have been here for five years. Aren't you dead tired of it?"

"No." Her voice was a strong soprano timbre.

"Don't you want to get back to the North again?"

"Often." She had a quiet aloof smile. Somewhere was the impression of a gentlewoman. She did not mean to be abrupt. She was just immensely self-possessed.

It occurred to Shane suddenly that he liked this woman. He liked her dignity, her grave composure. He liked her coolness, her almost Viennese grace. He liked her features; but for the wideness of her mouth, and the little prominence of chin, she would have been immensely beautiful. Her corn-like hair, massively braided, must be like a mane when down, and beneath her Paris frock he could sense her deep bosom, great marble limbs. Her voice had the cool sweet beauty of Northern winds.... Her eyes were steady, her chin uptilted. Somewhere, some time, somehow she had mastered fate.

About, in the gas-lit square, escorted, guarded, went other women, reputable women. Great rawboned women, daughters of Irish porteÑos, with the coarseness of the Irish peasant in their faces, the brogue of the Irish peasant on their Spanish, but punctiliously Castilian as to manners; gross Teutonic women; fluffy sentimental Englishwomen, bearing exile bravely, but thinking long for the Surrey downs; gravid Italian women, clumsy in the body, sweet and wistful in the face; Argentines, clouded with powder, liquid of eyes, on their lips a soft little down that would in a few years be an abomination unto the Lord; women of mixed breed, with the kink of Africa in their hair, or the golden tint of the Indian in their skin. Good women! And yet.... For grace, for coolness, for cleanliness, the venal Swedish girl outshone them all....

"Fro̊ken Hagen," Campbell said, "may I call on you some time?"

"If you like."

"Does that mean you don't want me to come?"

She smiled at him.

"Mr. Campbell," she laughed gently, "you know very well what I am. If you don't call on me it won't mean anything to me. If you do call I think I'll be rather glad. Because on first appearances I like you. But do whatever you like. I have no wiles."

"Thank God for that!"

Lincoln, master of the Katurah Knopp, listened in with a silent chuckle. She was a queer one, Hedda was. And Campbell, he was a queer one, too. Two queer ones together. Hedda was all right, but a man sickened of her quick. She wasn't what you might call warm. No affection; that's what a man missed far from home, affection. Yes, affection. Hedda had none. She was a fine woman, but she had no affection. He liked to see men get stung. In a few days Campbell would be down at the club with a face as long as to-day and to-morrow. He would call for a drink angrily.

"Well, captain, what's got into you? You don't look happy."

And Campbell, like the others, would grumble something about a God-damned big Swede.

"Hey, what's wrong? Ain't Hedda treated you right?"

"Sure, she treated me right," he would say as the others said, "but God damn! that woman's not human. Take away that rot-gut and gi' me whisky. I got a touch o' chill."

Lincoln had seen it all before. He liked to see it all the time. He chuckled as Shane turned to him.

"Lincoln, are you seeing this lady home?"

"Not if you want to."

"I don't want to break up any arrangements of yours."

"Tell the truth," Lincoln said, "I've got a little party to-night. A party as is a party—Spanish girls, Spanish dancers ... I wish I could take you, but it ain't my party...."

"Then I'll see Miss Hagen home."

Dog-gone, Lincoln would have to go down to the club and tell 'em how Campbell of the Maid of the Isles got stuck with the human iceberg!

§ 5

Without, the west wind had increased suddenly, a cold steady wind, coasting down the Argentine pampas, bending the sparse trees and giant thistle, ruffling the river, shallowing it, until to-morrow many a poor sailorman would regret his optimistic anchorage ... Shane shivered.... To-morrow October would be making a din in the streets.... And the poor skippers fighting their way round the Horn, icy winds and head seas and immense gray dirty-bearded waves.... To-morrow three men were to be shot in the 25 de Mayo for a political offense, and Shane could see them in the bleak dawn, three frightened stanch figures; the soldiers would be blowing their fingers in the cold air, and their triggers would be like ice to the touch ... the shoddy tragedy....

But within the room was warm, a little fire of coal in the unusual grate, and the soft and mellow lights of candles, and here and there gauchos' blankets on the wall, and here a comfortable chair and there a table of line, and brass things ... clean and ascetic, and yet something womanly about the place, the grace and composition of things.... And with her coming into her house, Hedda Hagen's manner had changed gently.... She was no longer frigid, aloof.... She unbent into calm smiles, and the grace of a hostess of the big world ... the quiet masonic signal of a certain caste....

"I wonder," he said; "am I dreaming?"

She paused suddenly. She had taken her hat off, and was touching things on the tables with her large fine hands. She turned her head toward him. There was a half smile in her eyes.

"Why?"

"It doesn't seem right."

"That you never saw me before, that you are here in this house after meeting me half an hour ago, and that you can stay here the night?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's true."

She was once more the hostess. It was as if some one had sprung nimbly from a little height to the ground.

"I can't give you any whisky. But I can make you tea. Or have my maid brew you some coffee."

"Is that a Russian samovar?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll have tea."

So queer! Without the wind blustered and the little din of it crept into the room somehow, and within was warmth, and the stillness of still trees. And grace. Beauty moved like an actress on the stage. All her motions were harmonious, could have gone to some music on the violin. Now it was the easy dropping to her knees as she lit the quaint Russian teapot, now an unconscious movement of her hand to push back a braid of her hair, now the firm certain motion of her strong white unringed fingers. Now her large graceful body moved like some heroic statue that had become quick with life. The thought came into his head, somehow, that if he had had a sister he would have liked her to have been like this splendid blond woman....

Yet into this house, where she had settled like some strange bird in an alien land, came ships' masters, reeking with drink, came merchants with their minds full of buying and selling and all the petty meannesses of trade, came dark Latins who hankered for blond women....

"God! I can't understand."

She came toward him frankly....

"Amigo mÍo, have you a right to understand?"

"I'm sorry."

"No, but—see! You and I have often met. I mean: there is a plane of us, who must be loyal to one another. You understand. And to you, to one of us, I don't want to lie. Only certain persons have a right to ask. A father, a mother, a child, a sister or brother or husband. But our destinies touch only, hardly even that. Will never grip, bind. There is no right you have, beyond what—you buy; and there are things—I don't sell."

"I'm sorry," Shane turned aside. "I was just carried away. But I should go."

"Do you want to go?"

"No."

"Then stay. Others stay."

"But—"

"Are you better than the others? Think."

"No," he thought. "Of course not. Worse perhaps. I know better."

"You are nearly as honest as I am," she laughed. She put her hand out in a great frank gesture.

"If I can smile, surely you can." Her fingers beckoned. "Come, don't be silly."

He caught her hands and laughed with her. He had been acting like a boy in his twenties, and he a man of forty-two....

§ 6

He had thought somehow that in this affair of Hedda he would find—oh, something: that once more the moon would take on its rippling smile and the sun its sweet low laughter, and the winds be no longer a matter of physics, but strong entities. Quickly, unconsciously, the thought had come to him.... With the wife of his young days had come the magic of romance, and with Claire-Anne of Marseilles had come a sublime storm of passion, and with the Arab lady had come the scheme of an ordered life, good composition and rich color.... They had lasted but little and gone as a rainbow goes.... With Hedda there was nothing.... It was just abominably wrong....

Here he was, young—for his forty-two he was young,—supple, successful in his way, rich if you wanted to put it in that word. And no heart for life; listless. It was wrong.... All he could think of doing was to be intimate with an easy woman. No zest for her great noble frame, her surge of flaxen hair. The veneer of conventional good manners, conventional good taste, only made the actuality of it more appalling ... she with the gifts of life and grace, he with his, and all they could do was be physically intimate.... And she took money with a little smile, contemptuous of herself, contemptuous of him.... They both knew better, yet there you were ... God! Even animals had the excuse of nature's indomitable will!

Yes, this made him face things he had been trying to pass casually by. Forty-two, a touch of gray at the temples, a body like a boy's, hooded eyes like a hawk's, and a feeling in him somehow that an organ—his heart maybe—was dead: not ailing—just unalive. Once he had zest, and he didn't even have despair now. If he could only have despair....

Despair was healthy. It meant revolt. A man might sob, gnash his teeth, batter walls with his bare fists, but that only meant he was alive in every fiber. He might curse the stars, but he was aware of their brilliance. He might curse the earth that would one day take his lifeless body, but he must know its immense fecundity. A man in revolt, in despair, was a healthy man.

But despair was so futile. Ah, there it was! Life's futility. It was the sense of that which had eaten him like a vile leprosy. Mental futility, spiritual futility. Of physical he did not know. All that was left him of his youth was a belief in God. At sea he was too close to the immense mechanism of the stars, on land too close to milling millions, not to believe, not to accept him as an incontrovertible fact.

But the God of degenerate peoples, the antagonistic, furious, implacable God—that was a ridiculous conception. A cheap, a vain one. "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods." Wasn't that how Shakspere's blind king had uttered it? "They kill us for their sport." How strangely flattering—to believe that the Immensity that had conceived and wrought the unbelievable universe should deign to consider man, so weak that a stone, a little slug of lead, could kill him, an enemy worth bothering about. Man with his vanity, his broad fallibility, his poor natural functions!

And as to the God of the optimists, how ridiculous, too. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." So pathetic! They never saw that they did want. That for every well-filled body, there were a hundred haggard men. They thought of him as benevolent, firm but benevolent, like Mr. Gladstone. To them he was an infinitely superior vestryman with a tremendous power for dispensing coal and food to the poor. And the poor devils were so patient, so loyal. And so stupid; they thought that much flattery, much fear, would move Him. Their conception never even rose to considering God as a gentleman, despising flattery and loathing fear. Poor, poor devils!

To Shane He existed, though how to think of Him was difficult. Why a man? Why not some strange thing of the air, as a cuttlefish is of the sea? Something tenuous, of immense brain power, of immense will. Something cold. But why even that? Why not, as the cabalists had it, a Figure, arithmetical or geometrical, a Sound.... A Formula of some great undiscoverable indefinable Thought.... He was cold, He was efficient. He had so much brains....

It seemed to Shane that this optimism, this despair were strange mental drugs, going through the mental system as a depressant or a stimulant would go through the physical, creating illusions ... illusions ... and the sane man was one who had no illusions, not the meaning a man uses of the phrase when he has been jilted by a woman or wronged out of money by a friend, but actually, finitely, no illusions.... He was sane, a few other men in the world must be sane, but the rest were drugged for their hell or their Fiddlers' Green....

Fiddlers' Green! Good God! Fiddlers' Green!

His mind flashed back a moment to the shining isle, the green sward, the singing waves, the sunlight on the green jalousies, but strangely his mind could see nothing. He could no longer make a picture for himself. Symbols were barren algebraic formulÆ. Not enchanters' words. No light. No glamour. Only strange sounds reverberating in the gray caverns of his head.... Once in the dead past he could see the Isle of Pipers—no more! It wasn't his past that was dead. The past lived. It was he was dead, he, his present, his future.

Out of the gray caverns of his head came a thin echo of a word he had known and he a boy. The Valley of the Black Pig. A phrase from some old folk-tale heard on a wintry Antrim coast. Some prophecy of old wives that when the Boar without Bristles would appear in the Valley of the Black Pig, then the end of all things was nigh.... He had a faint memory that somewhere in Roscommon was the Valley of the Black Pig.... But that didn't matter; what mattered was the memory it evoked.... Gray, gray, gray.... Gray hills, gray boulders, gray barren trees, a gray mist sluggishly rising from the ground, and a gray drizzle of rain, falling, so slowly.... And gray rotting leaves beneath his feet.... A little wind that moaned among the boulders, and the cawing of unseen, horrible birds.... Neither was there direction, nor time, nor space.... Everything gray like the grayness of old women's bodies.... There was no sun, and the moon abhorred the valley. In such a place as this wandered the souls of women who had killed their children, of monks who at dark of night had said the Black Mass.... Here were masters who had deserted tall, gallant ships.... Hither witches rode on the bleak east wind, to be flogged by their masters and horribly caressed.... The Valley of the Black Pig.... Here were those who had read the frightful inscription on the altar of the Unknown God ... Gilles de Rais, marshal of France, and Avicenna; Nicolas Flamel and his wife Petronella; Lady Alice Kyteler of Kilkenny, and Gerald of Desmond, the Great Earl; and newer names, Dee and Edward Kelly.... Degraded majesty with soiled beards.... Gray, gray.... And the faint ghosts in cerecloths, and the horrible shapes of the mist.... The drizzle of the rain, and the rustle of the Feet of the Goat.... The cawing of strange birds and the wind among the boulders and souls, weeping, weeping—unhoping, undespairing, weeping, weeping.... The Valley of the Black Pig....

What was it? In God's name what was it that had made him this way, his being suddenly lifeless, like a cow that goes dry, or a field that is mysteriously, suddenly fallow.... And weariness seemed immortal.... What had led him into this dreadful cemetery of the mind? Had he gone too far in thought and emotion and come to a dreadful desert plane within himself ...? Had he eaten of the tree of which the cabalist wrote:

Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat;
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Had he blundered on it unwittingly, eaten ignorantly and surely died?... Or was he going mad? Good God! Could that be it? Was there something they hadn't told him—a strange taint in his blood, or his mother's blood.... Would he end his days in a madhouse.... What a fate, what a dreadful fate! A slavering gray-headed man, wandering through the Valley of the Black Pig, forever and forever?

Better to end it now.

Yes, but would that end it? The material envelope of cells and fluids gone, might there not ...? Christ! Worse off yet, if anything were left.... There might be something left; there was the trouble.... One knew so little, so abominably little.... Only material wisdom was certain, and that said: Don't chance it....

Drink? He had his men to think of, his ship.... It might grip him.

But was he forever doomed to this mournful weeping place, place of rain, place of mists, gray boulders, and moaning winds? Must he abide in the Valley of the Black Pig until the Boar without Bristles came lumbering out of the red west, and went grunting, eating ravenously, eating prey of souls, until he lay down in obscene sleep, and the stars one by one guttered like candles, and the sun shot into a vast explosion, and the moon was a handful of peat ashes, and the whole great universe snapped like a gunshot and the dÉbris of all created things fell downward like a shattered wall, faster, faster, faster, to where, where, where?

§ 7

In the streets now the June snow fell, not the soft and flaky petals of the North, but a bitter steel-like snow, that whirled. And the winds of the pampas hurried like Furies through the sordid streets, and stopped to snarl, as a dog snarls, and now moaned, and now howled sharply, as a wolf howls. There was something cold, malignant, about it all ... Old Irish writers said that hell was cold. An Ait Fuar, they called it, the Cold Place. Ait gan chu gan chat, gan leanbh, ait gan ghean, gan ghaire, a place without a dog, or cat, or child, a place without affection or laughter.... Had sainted Brendan come on Buenos Aires in winter on his voyage to Hy Brazil, and thought in his naÏvetÉ that here was hell ...? And was he wrong?

Cold of wolves! It must have been like this in ancient Paris when Villon thieved and sang, and the wolves came clamoring at the gates ... and the crusaders in warm Palestine.... Or in Russia—Siberia, a cold name.... Here it was hell, but in Europe ... oh, different there! The heavy flakes, so solid, so wonderful, the laden trees, the great stretch of white. And in the houses the farmers blessing the snow, that would keep the ground warm and fertile for the coming year, that the blue flax might arise, and the fields of corn, with the great pleasance of the clover, and the golden-belted bees.... And the turf fires of Ulster, and Christmas coming, and after that Candlemas, and then March of the plowing, and glossy crows busy in the fields.... Always something to see ahead.... Not in Ireland only, but England, the jingle of bells and the people of ruddy faces.... And in Germany, too, the bluff important burghers having their houses heated by quaint porcelain stoves, huddling themselves in furs, and waddling obesely.... Very pleasant.... And in France, too, in the assommoirs, the tang of wine in the air and the blue hue of smoke, excited Latin voices. "Encore un bock! T'es saoÛl, mon vieux! FlÛte! Je suis comme le Pont Neuf!" A raucous voice singing a political skit:

Cordieu, Madame! Que faites-vous ici?
Cordieu, Madame! Que faites-vous ici?
Je danse le polka avec tous mes amis!
Je danse le polka avec tous mes amis!

Buenos Aires, hell!

And the worst was the strange inversion of time. Here winter was, cold streets, steely snow, garbage frozen to stone.... And in Europe was sane June. Purple flower of the heather in Ulster, and white flower of the bogs, and in the little bays of Antrim, men spearing flounders from boats in the long summer evenings. And the bairns hame from school, with a' their wee games, fishing for sticky-backs wi' pins, and the cummers spinning. Eigh, Ulster! And in England, they punting on the Thames, among the water-lilies. Soft Norman days, and in Germany the young folks going to the woods.... In Buenos Aires, hell!

Within the house a cold that the little fire could only gallantly fight against. Without, cold of wolves.

"Hedda, you come from a cold country. Tell me, is it like this in Sweden, any time?"

She was sitting in the candle-light, doing the needlework she took such quietness in. Her firm white hands moving rhythmically, her body steady, her eyes a-dream. It was hard ever to think that she was—what she was. It was hard for him to think the word now, knowing her. She looked up and smiled.

"No, Shane, not like this. It's cold, very cold. But very beautiful. By day the country-side is quiet, white, ascetic, like some young nun. And at night there are lights and jollity. It is like a child's idea of fairy-land. One wishes one were further north, where the reindeer are. One is not enemy to the cold, as you are here. One accepts it. It has dignity. Here it is naked, malevolent. That's the difference."

"Naked, with awful hands.... A cold that seizes...."

"Yes, Shane." She took up her work again. "Sometimes I think long until I get back to Sweden."

"You—you are going back?"

"Of course, Shane."

"When?"

"Five, six, seven years, unless I die, or am killed. Certainly I shall go back."

"Yes, but in five, six—hum!"

"But what, Shane?"

"I once knew a woman, Hedda. She was—as you are. Just having friends. And she was as handsome as you are, too. She didn't have your head, your poise. She liked beauty, as you do. But this woman looked forward, as I don't think you do. She saw herself always going down. She saw herself in the end like the helmet-maker's daughter, in some archway of the city, seeking a couple of pence.... And she was afraid, horribly afraid...."

"She was a silly woman."

"How, Hedda?"

"She didn't know two things. That luck changes; destiny is sometimes as kind as it is cruel. And also, when you are old, the money of the archway will bring you as much joy, a drink, a bed, a meal for the morrow, as do the diamonds of youth. The old don't need much, Shane. They haven't far to go."

"But you, Hedda. Aren't you afraid of—the archway, and the few pence—"

"No, Shane. That will not be my way." The broidery dropped to her lap. Her eyes, blue as winter, looked away, away. "I shall survive it all, barring death of course, and in seven, eight, ten years, I shall drop all this and go back, and be a lady in the land of my birth, a quiet, soft-voiced woman in a little house that has glinting brass in winter and flowers around it in summer. And I shall be very kind to the poor, Shane.... And all young things that are baffled or hurt can come to me, and tell their troubles, and I shall understand. And oftentimes, sitting in the long Northern twilights, I shall think: Is this Fro̊ken Hagen, who is all the world's friend, the girl who was once despised in Buenos Aires?... And I shall choke a little, and think: 'God is good!'"

"You are very sure of yourself, Hedda."

"Yes, Shane. I know my own capabilities. I know, too, my own limitations. I know I can always be of service. But I know, too, that there will be no love ever for me, nor any little children of my body, nor any big man to protect me and my house ..."

"This other woman—I killed her to save her from the archway—she dreaded so much ..."

"You were very silly, Shane," she snipped off a thread with the scissors. "People outgrow fear, and it may only have been a passing mood, that would have gone with the moon or the season. You know very little about women, Shane."

He laughed bitterly. "I have been married twice, and once I loved a woman greatly."

"From what you tell me," her voice was calm, "you have never been married. You made a mistake as a boy. And once again you bought a woman, as you might a fine dog, admired her, as you might admire a fine dog, and gave her a little passion, which comes and goes, knocks, passes on—but no trust. And once you were infatuated with a hysterical woman, and it all ended hysterically. No, Shane. I don't think you know much about women."

"You know so many things." He was irritated. "Perhaps you know what is wrong with me."

"Of course I do, Shane. Anybody would know. You are so important to yourself. All the world is in relation to you, not you in relation to the world. And people are not very important, Shane ... I know.... You look for things. You don't make them. You want everything. You give nothing. You haven't a wife, a house. Your father gave poems. But you haven't a house, a child, a wife, a book. You only have a trading-ship."

"But I trade. I do my share of the world's work."

"Any shop-keeper!"

"I handle my ship."

"Any mathematician...."

"I brave all the perils of the sea."

"Are you afraid of death?"

"Of course not."

"Well?"

"Hedda, I handle men."

"Any little braggadocio lieutenant...."

His anger rose in hot waves. "So I am not worth anything in life, Hedda. How much are you?"

"O, Shane," she stood up and looked at him seriously, "my calling is the oldest in the world, they say, but to me it's not the least honorable. It is sordid or not just as one makes it. I want you to think of men going to sea, and weary of the voyage, and from me somehow they get a glimpse of home. Are this house and myself more evil than the dram-shop and the gambling-hell? And aren't there women in England and France who would rather have their menfolk with me than leaning on some sodden counter? They might hate the choice, but it's better.... Shane, if you knew how weary men have talked to me of families abroad, their hearts burdened. They cannot talk to men ... and sometimes I exorcise devils, Shane, that young girls may walk safely in the dark.... And sometimes a man is athirst for a flash of beauty.... Think, Shane—you are not small.... Even yourself, Shane, I have helped you. There were times this month when you were close to the river, terribly, terribly close.... I said nothing, but I knew. And I held you. I willed. I prayed even ... Shane, Shane, amigo, when the time came that I had to work I chose this with my eyes open."

"I'm sorry," Campbell lowered his head. "I can only say I'm sorry I said—hinted.... But Hedda, weren't there other things you could have done?"

"A sempstress, maybe. But I think it's more important to ease a man's mind than to cover his back."

"But children. You love children, Hedda. You know so much. Couldn't you have been a governess in some great house?"

"O Shane, Shane mÍo, when will you understand?" Her calm voice had a note of distress in it. "None can judge of another's life. None can tell. None direct. What do you know of what passed before—I came to a mean house in a mean town? I once opened a door I shouldn't have, and left the lighted room ... for a warm blue darkness.... And I closed the door behind me.... And daylight came. I am not of a breed that sues for mercy. So I went ahead ... through the world. And I never look back, Shane. I am no Lot's wife, to become a pillar of her own salt tears...."

"But Hedda, you are good. And this life—"

"Of course I am good, Shane. There is no man can say I did him wrong in mind or body, or heart, either. And I am a comfort to many.... All I have done is to outrage a convention of property that I don't believe ... Shane, do you know people cover greed with sentimentality and call it virtue?"

"But, Hedda, the women don't see. They scorn you—"

"Do they? Poor souls. Let them! Amigo mÍo, I have a life. I have to think, gage, act, concentrate. And when I want time of my own, Shane, I have it. The housewife with her frowsy duties, being kissed perfunctorily on the mat, the man who wears a stilted mask to the world, and before her—lets go.... Ugh! And the mondaine with her boredom ... the hatred in wide houses.... Oh, I know. Sometimes I think it's so wonderful, being free....

"O Shane, please don't be absurd, sentimental ... please, I know my way, and find yours.... Tell me, do you know yet what day you sail?"

§ 8

A sailor in a jersey and reefer caught his arm in the Avenida de Mayo....

"All filled up." Campbell uttered brusquely.

"It was no' that."

Campbell put his hand in his pocket looking for a coin.

"You'll be forgetting the Antrim glens, Shane Campbell." Shane flushed. The coin in his fingers burned him.

"How did I know you were fro' the Antrim glens?"

"You've seen me a few times, though you'd hardly know me. Simon Fraser of Ballycastle. You would no' recognize me, if you knew me, on account of my hair being white. I was lost on the coast of Borneo for four years. When I was lost my hair was black—maybe a wee sprinkle o' gray—but what you might call black; and when I was picked up, and saw myself in a looking-glass, it was white. They did no' know me when I got back to Ballycastle."

"Would you care for a drink, Simon?"

"I don't care much either way, Shane Campbell. And if I wanted a drink bad, I always have the silver for 't. I would no' have you think I stopped you for to cadge a drink. I'm no' that kind of man. But I was wi' your uncle Alan when he died. Or to be exact, I saw him just before he died. I was visiting in Cushendun. I have a half-brither there you might know, Tamas McNeil, Red Tam they ca' him. And whiles I was there, I saw Alan Donn go down."

"My uncle Alan dead! Why, man, you're crazy—"

"Your uncle Alan's a dead man."

"You're mistaken, man. It's some one else."

"Your uncle Alan's a dead man. And what's more: I have a word from him for ye."

"But I'd have heard."

"I cam' out in steam. It went against the grain a bit, but I cam' out in steam. From Belfast.... With a new boat out of Queen's Island ... Alan Donn's a dead man. That's why I stopped you. For to tell you your uncle Alan's gone...."

"Come in, here," Shane said dazedly. He pulled the man into a bar, and sat down in a snug. "Tell me."

"It was about nine in the morning, and an awful gray day it was, wi' a heavy sea running and a nor'easter, and this schooner was getting the timbers pounded out o' her. Her upper gear was gone entirely, and we could no' see how she was below, on account of the high seaway. She was a Frenchman, or a Portuguese. And she was gone. And we were all on shore, wondering why she had no' put into Greenock or Stranraer, or what kind of sailors they were at all, at all.

"Up comes your uncle Alan; and he says: 'Has anybody put out to give those poor bastards a hand?' says he.

"'There's no chance, Alan Donn,' says we.

"And he says: 'How the hell do you know?' says he.

"And we say: 'Can't you see for youself, Alan Donn, wi' the sea that's in it, and the wind that's in it, and the currents, there's no chance to help them?'

"'So you're not going,' says he.

"'Och, Alan Donn, have sense,' says we.

"'If you aren't, then by Jesus, I am.'

"He turns to one of the men there, a fisherman by the name of Rafferty, and he says: 'Hughie, get ready that wee boat o' yours, wi' the spitfire foresail, and the wee trisail.'

"Then we said: 'You're not going, Alan Donn.'

"'Who's to stop me?' says he. All this time we had to shout on account of the great wind was in it.

"'We think too much of you, Alan Donn, to let you go.'

"'If one o' you stinking badgers lays a finger on me to stop me, I'll break his God-damned neck.'

"Says Hughie Rafferty to us—you know Hughie Rafferty, a silent man, a wise man—says he: 'He'll get out fifty yards, a hundred yards from shore and be stuck. And he'll say: "Well, I've done my best. Good-by and to hell with ye, and die like men!" And he'll come back. And if the boat turns over,' says Hughie Rafferty, 'he can swim like a rat, and he'll be back among us cursing, like his ain kind sel', within a wheen o' minutes.'

"Says Hughie Rafferty, says he: 'I'll go wi' your Honor's Lordship, Alan Donn.'

"'You will like hell,' says Alan Donn. 'You'll stay here wi' your childer and the mother o' your childer.'

"Then a wee old man, that was a piper, speaks up. He was bent in two over an ash plant was in his right hand, and his left hand held his back.

"'It's a foolish thing you are doing, Alan Donn,' says he. 'How can you bring off the poor people?'

"'I don't want to bring off the poor people, Shamus-a-Feeba, James of the Pipes. But there's not a rock, a wind, a current, a wave itself of Struth na-Maoile that I don't know. I'm figuring on rigging up some kind of sea-anchor,' says Alan Donn, says he, 'and getting the ignorant foreigners to chop their gear overboard, and riding the storm out. Don't worry yourself, Shamus-a-Feeba.'

"That was the way of your uncle, Alan Donn Campbell. He was very rough with the strong, but he was ay considerate of the old and over-young. He'd be rough with the king of England but he'd be awfu' polite to an ould man."

"God, is Alan Donn dead?" Shane was near tears. "Do people like Alan Donn die?"

"Aye, they die, too," said Simon Fraser. "And rogues live. It's queer.

"The boat was a'ready to be put into the sea, when your uncle sees mysel' on the edge o' the gathering. He comes straight to me. You mind how Alan Donn used to go through a crowd.

"'Are you the sailing man,' says he, 'wha's a half-brither to Red Tam McNeil of the Ten-Acre?'"

"'I am, sir, Alan Donn.'

"'Is it go wi' ye in the boat?' says I. 'I'll go.'

"'No, no,' quo' he. 'It's no' that. So'thin' different. You ken my brither's son, Shane Oge Campbell, wha's a master on the seas?'

"'I've met him once or twice, and I've heard tell.'

"'If you see him, gi'e him a message. I'm sure you'll see him. I'm sure,' says Alan Donn, 'this morn I'm fey.'

"'Tell him,' says Alan Donn, and he puts his hand on my shoulder. 'Tell him this: I've been intending to write him this long time. There's a thought in my head,' says he, 'that all's not well with him.

"'Tell him this: I've been thinking and I've thought: There's great virtue to the place you're born in. Tell him he ought no' stay so long frae the braes o' Ulster. Tell him: The sea's not good for the head. A man's alone wi' himself too long, wi' his ain heid. Tell him that's not good.

"'Tell him,' says he, 'there's great virtue and grand soothin' to the yellow whins and the purple heather. That's a deep fey thing. Tell him to try.'

"'Is that all, sir, Alan Donn,' says I?

"'You might tell him,' says he, 'aye, you might tell him: "'Your uncle Alan was not a coward, and he was a wise man."'

"At that I was puzzled—I tell you without, offense meant—it sounded like boasting. And it was no' like Alan Donn to boast.

"'Can I come along wi' you, sir, Alan Donn?' says I.

"With that he gies me a look would knock you down. 'Did na I tell you to do so'thin' for me?' says he.

"Then I kent he was na coming back.

"'Aye, aye, sir,' said I.

"He goes to the boat on the edge of the water. You could hardly keep your footing with the wind, nor hear your neighbor with the sea. And Alan Donn laughs: 'By Christ, 't is myself that must be fond o' boating,' says he. 'And to-day is the grand day for it, surely. Hi horo, push her off,' says he. 'Horo eile! Horo, heroes, horo eile!' We pushed with the water up to our waists. The keel ground. The sand sucked. We pushed with the water up to our shoulders. Then the trisail caught the wind. And Alan Donn was off.

"And Hughie Rafferty was wrong: Not at fifty, not at a hundred did he turn. Not at half a mile. He must have had the arms of Finn McCool, Alan Donn, and the hands of a woman. He'd take the high waves like a hunter taking a wall. Then you could nearly feel him easing her to the pitch. Apart from the waves themselves you could see the wee fountain of water when the bows slapped. Then he'd come up again. The trisail would belly and again he'd dive.

"And then he came to the ninth wave—tonn a' bhaidhte, the drowning wave. Even away off you could see it rise like a wall, and curl at the top. We were watching. There was the crippled schooner, and Alan Donn, and the great sea. And the wave curled and broke. And then was only the schooner and the great sea....

"And we waited for a minute, although we knew there was no call.

"And after a while an ould one falls to her knees and raises the keening cry:

"'Mavrone! my sorrow! Mavrone dhu! my black sorrow! Mo chead vrone dhu! my hundred black sorrows.

"'Is it gone you are, Alan Donn? Is it gone you are in the cruel sea? My black curse on it. It is between you and the people of your heart, between you and the land of your desire. Och, sea, isn't it cruel you are? Ruined Ireland is this day. The star of Ulster is out. And the little moon of Antrim shines no more. Och, a 'airrge! My sorrow, O sea!

"'Who will be good to us, now, Alan Donn? You were good to the poor. God's gain and our loss. Who will make the young maids flush, and the young men throw back their shoulders, from pride at your having talked to them? Avourneen dherelish, mur nAlan Donn, our Alan! Who will make the men of the South stand back, and you not striding through a gathering, ever, any more? And the dealing men of Scotland will miss you, you they could never get the better of in any fair, night noon or morning. Peader agas Pol, Muire. Padraig agas Brighid! Peter and Paul, Mary, Patrick and St. Bride, let you be coming quickly now, and take up Alan Donn Campbell from the cold sea!

"'Your horse in the stable will miss you, Alan Donn. Poor beastie, he'll miss you sore. Your servant boys will miss you, they that would jump if you but dropped your pipe. The green fairways of Portrush will miss you when spring comes, and you not hitting the ball against the champions of the world. The lambs will miss you, wee lambs of the fields, and the colts. They'll be missing you, but't will be nothing to our missing you. This night your dogs will be crying, and we'll be crying too.

"'Young woman look back of you, and see if the nine glens of Antrim are there. I wouldn't be surprised if they were gone, now Alan Donn's in the bitter sea.'

"Then up comes this woman, and she had a great cloak on—"

"What woman, Simon Fraser?"

"The woman there was talk of Alan Donn marrying. The woman from over the sea."

"'Has anybody seen Mr. Campbell?' And we don't understand.

"It's Alan Donn she means,' says Hughie Rafferty.

"Then the ould one on her knees takes up her keening. And this woman understands. Her face goes white. She sees the schooner being battered by the Moyle.

"'Did he go out to that?' she asks.

"'Yes, ma'am, your Ladyship's Honor.'

"'He didn't get there?'

"'The drowning wave caught Alan Donn,' says Hughie Rafferty.

"For a moment you'd think she hadn't heard. Then—a strange thing—a wee smile came on her face, and suddenly it changed to a queer twist, all over the face of her. Then she stood up proudly and looked out to sea ... and two tears came to the eyes of her and she raised her head higher still.... The tears came in spite of her ... and suddenly she gave a wee gulp like a person who's sick.... And she turned and began to stumble away in the sand.... A couple of the young ones went as if to help her, but she turned.

"'Please,' was all she said. And she went off on her lee lone.

"And then says Hughie Rafferty: 'The tide will bring him to Cushendall.'

"And at Cushendall next day we found the corp. There wasn't a mark on him. Even the things of the deep water had respect for Alan Doon."

"What was this woman like, Simon Fraser? This woman there was talk of Alan Donn marrying?"

"This woman was not a woman of Alan Donn's age. An' she was not a young woman. Her face was showing not the face of a girl but the face of herself. She had a proud face and a brave face. This woman would be around twenty-five.

"She was a brown woman: she had brown eyes and brown hair. She was not an Irishwoman. She was an Englishwoman. She had no Gaelic. And her English was not our English. This woman could ride a horse, though not too well. She would put a horse at a jump, though she was afeared of it.

"This woman had money. She was a niece of the admiral's, and she was on a long visit to the admiral's house.

"I've heard tell a queer thing about this woman. She would play at the piano for hours on a stretch, reading from a book. For hours she would play, all by herself. The people passing the road and the servant girls of the house couldn't make head or tail of her music. But our folk ken nothing of the piano. The pipes, the melodeon, the fiddle, they know that—and a few ould ones have heard the harp. They couldn't tell whether it was good music or bad music was in it.

"There's another queer thing about this woman. When she walked you'd think she was dancing. Not our reels or hornpipes, but queer ould dances you'd be walking to, not stepping. She had wee feet, though she was not a small woman.

"Your uncle Alan's dogs took to this woman, and you ken how Alan's terriers had little liking for any but his ain sel'. I was told also to tell you that she had the dogs, and that they were comfortable, and would be well looked after. So that you need not be worritin' about your uncle Alan's dogs....

"I'm afeared I've given you a poor picture of this woman, Shane Campbell: but it's a queer thing, you'd feel this woman more nor you'd see her. In a great deal of people, you wouldn't note her at all. But were you coming along the road, and a fey feeling come over you, and you say: Around the next corner is something kindly, something brave, something fine; as you turned the corner you'd meet this woman.

"Your uncle Alan liked this woman, liked her fine, but this woman was sick with love for your uncle Alan.

"You'll blame me sore, Shane Campbell, and rightly too; it was very careless of me, me who's got a careful name—it didn't seem to matter, though! The name of this woman is not at me ..."

All the tears in Shane's eyes, all the emptiness in his heart was gone now. A sudden elation seized him. He understood. Alan Donn had done a fine brave thing; Alan Donn had done the strong thing, the right thing, as Alan always did.

He thought: Alan was in love with this woman and this woman with Alan, and Alan had looked ahead sanely, seen, decided. Thirty years difference of age. Dignified strong wisdom and beautiful brave youth, one firm as a great firm rock, the other with the light wings of birds; spiritually never could they mate. Youth spiritual is like a gosling of yellow down, age spiritual is an eagle of great wings.... If the spirit has not died.... Alan would never be an irritated, jealous, paretic old man, nor would he see "this woman" grow stern with repression and ache, and loneliness of heart and spirit....

Ah, he had done it well! A line of Froissart's came to Shane: "They were very noble; they cared nothing for their lives!" He had given her no shattered marriage, no empty explanation that breeds only bitterness and perhaps contempt. He had given her a very gallant memory that would exalt her in the coming days.... The world, the flesh, and the devil had played at cards with Alan Donn, and Alan had won....

He thought: Were it I now, I should have drifted into this, and come to ancient tortured days, and not having strength maybe, should have ended, not before as Alan Donn did, gallantly, but afterward, meanly, leaving bitterness and desolation.... Ah, wise Alan.

And it occurred to him suddenly, wise Alan, fey on the threshold of death, remembering him: There is virtue in the yellow gorse of Ulster, in the purple Ulster heather. Come back to where you were born, and rest, and get strength.... This is a deep thing.... Alan knew something.... The rain and the mist and the wind among the rushes had taught him natural secrets.... Maybe from the ground man drew strength, and maybe strange ground was alien to other than its own ... a motherland—why did they call a place a motherland ...? AntÆus, the Libyan wrestler, was invincible so long as his feet were on mother earth, and Heracles had lifted him into the air and the air had crushed him.... What did the Greek parable mean ...? It meant something ... the purple hills ... the purple heather.... The Moyle purple in the setting sun....

"I'll go back," he decided. Scots superstition welled up in him. "A man seeing death sees more than death. Sees life. The Keepers of the Door maybe anoint his eyes, and if he looks back for an instant, God knows what he sees ... I'll go."

"Can I give you a lift back to Ballycastle, Simon Fraser? Or a lift anywhere you want. It's the least I can do and you coming this long way to tell me news."

"I'm very thankful to you, Shane Campbell, very thankful indeed. It's just the way of you to ask a poor sailor man does he want a lift halfway across the world. But I'll never again see Ballycastle with living eyes."

"And why not, man Simon?"

"It's this way, Shane Campbell. It's this way. When I came back after six years—four years lost on the coast of Borneo—my three fine sons were gone—twenty and nineteen and seventeen they were. Gone they were following the trade of the sea. And herself the woman of the house was gone, too. I didn't mind the childer, for 't is the way of the young to be roving. But herself went off with another man. A great gift of making a home she had, so there was many would have her, in spite of her forty year. Into the dim City of Glasgow she went, and there was no word of her. And she might have waited, Shane Campbell; she might so. Four years lost on the coast of Borneo to come and find your childer scattered, and your wife putting shame on you. That's a hard thing."

"You're a young man, Simon Fraser. You're as young as I am, forty-two. 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 ship, and it's the grand cracks we'll have in the horse latitudes.... Or maybe I'll find one of them a young buck officer aboard a ship I'm on; and he'll come for'a'd and say: 'Lay aloft, old-timer, with the rest and be pretty God-damned quick about it.' And I'll say: 'Aye, aye, sir.' And thinks: Wait till you get ashore, and I'll tell you who I am, and give you a tip about your seamanship, 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 nobody'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!
'S mo shlan do gach baile raibh me riamh ann.

"My curse forever on you, O town of the trees," an old song came to him, "and my farewell to every town I was ever in—"

A great nostalgia for Ulster, for the whins and heather, choked him:

"S iomaidh bealach fliuch salach agas boithrin cam—

"There's many a wet muddy highways and crooked half-road, eader mise, between me, eader mise, eader mise—" He had forgotten.

"Between me and the townland that my desire is in," the Oran steersman prompted. "Eader mise agas an baile bhfuil mo dhuil ann!"

"Mind your bloody wheel," Shane warned. "This is a ship, not a poetry society. Look at the way you're letting her come up, you Highland bastard. Keep her off—and lam her!"

"Lam her it is, sir," the steersman grinned....