I enjoyed the passage. Down in this shallow trough of canvas that
bent and trembled with the motion of the men, I had a far more
intimate feeling of the glory and power of the waves than I have
ever known in a steamer.
Old Mourteen is keeping me company again, and I am now able to
understand the greater part of his Irish.
He took me out to-day to show me the remains of some cloghauns, or
beehive dwellings, that are left near the central ridge of the
island. After I had looked at them we lay down in the corner of a
little field, filled with the autumn sunshine and the odour of
withering flowers, while he told me a long folk-tale which took more
than an hour to narrate.
He is so blind that I can gaze at him without discourtesy, and after
a while the expression of his face made me forget to listen, and I
lay dreamily in the sunshine letting the antique formulas of the
story blend with the suggestions from the prehistoric masonry I lay
on. The glow of childish transport that came over him when he
reached the nonsense ending - so common in these tales - recalled me
to myself, and I listened attentively while he gabbled with
delighted haste: 'They found the path and I found the puddle. They
were drowned and I was found. If it's all one to me tonight, it
wasn't all one to them the next night. Yet, if it wasn't itself, not
a thing did they lose but an old back tooth ' - or some such
gibberish.
As I led him home through the paths he described to me - it is thus
we get along - lifting him at times over the low walls he is too
shaky to climb, he brought the conversation to the topic they are
never weary of - my views on marriage.
He stopped as we reached the summit of the island, with the stretch
of the Atlantic just visible behind him.
'Whisper, noble person,' he began, 'do you never be thinking on the
young girls? The time I was a young man, the devil a one of them
could I look on without wishing to marry her.'
'Ah, Mourteen,' I answered, 'it's a great wonder you'd be asking me.
What at all do you think of me yourself?'
'Bedad, noble person, I'm thinking it's soon you'll be getting
married. Listen to what I'm telling you: a man who is not married is
no better than an old jackass. He goes into his sister's house, and
into his brother's house; he eats a bit in this place and a bit in
another place, but he has no home for himself like an old jackass
straying on the rocks.'
I have left Aran. The steamer had a more than usually heavy cargo,
and it was after four o'clock when we sailed from Kilronan.
Again I saw the three low rocks sink down into the sea with a moment
of inconceivable distress. It was a clear evening, and as we came
out into the bay the sun stood like an aureole behind the cliffs of
Inishmaan. A little later a brilliant glow came over the sky,
throwing out the blue of the sea and of the hills of Connemara.
When it was quite dark, the cold became intense, and I wandered
about the lonely vessel that seemed to be making her own way across
the sea. I was the only passenger, and all the crew, except one boy
who was steering, were huddled together in the warmth of the
engine-room.
Three hours passed, and no one stirred. The slowness of the vessel
and the lamentation of the cold sea about her sides became almost
unendurable. Then the lights of Galway came in sight, and the crew
appeared as we beat up slowly to the quay.
Once on shore I had some difficulty in finding any one to carry my
baggage to the railway. When I found a man in the darkness and got
my bag on his shoulders, he turned out to be drunk, and I had
trouble to keep him from rolling from the wharf with all my
possessions. He professed to be taking me by a short cut into the
town, but when we were in the middle of a waste of broken buildings
and skeletons of ships he threw my bag on the ground and sat down on
it.
'It's real heavy she is, your honour,' he said; 'I'm thinking it's
gold there will be in it.'
'Divil a hap'worth is there in it at all but books,' I answered him
in Gaelic.
'Bedad, is mor an truaghe' ('It's a big pity'), he said; 'if it was
gold was in it it's the thundering spree we'd have together this
night in Galway.'
In about half an hour I got my luggage once more on his back, and we
made our way into the city.
Later in the evening I went down towards the quay to look for
Michael. As I turned into the narrow street where he lodges, some
one seemed to be following me in the shadow, and when I stopped to
find the number of his house I heard the 'Failte' (Welcome) of
Inishmaan pronounced close to me.
It was Michael.
'I saw you in the street,' he said, 'but I was ashamed to speak to
you in the middle of the people, so I followed you the way I'd see
if you'd remember me.'
We turned back together and walked about the town till he had to go
to his lodgings.
