§ 2
To his nostrils, sterilized as they were by the salt air of the sea, the rich scents of Louth came in a rushing profusion. The wild roses of June were like the high notes of a violin, and there was clover, and mown hay. In the southeast the clouds were banking, but still the moon rose high, and the cottage was clear as in daylight, clearer even in the mind's eye—the whitewashed walls, the thatch like silver, the swallows' nests beneath the eaves. The hard round sea-cobbles beneath his feet were clear and individual, and to where he sat in the haggard came a girl's song from down the road:
"Oh, Holland is a wondrous place and in it grows much green.
It's a wild inhabitation for my young love to be in.
There the sugar-cane grows plentiful, and leaves on every tree,
But the low, lowlands of Holland are between my love and me."
He listened with a cocked ear, and smiled as he thought how easy it would be to stroll down the road to where the singing girl was, and accost her pleasantly: "So he's in Holland, is he? That's the queer and foolish place for him to be, and I here!" There would be banter, quick and smart as a whip, a scuffle, a clumsily placed kiss, laughter, another scuffle, and a kiss that found its mark somehow, then a saunter together down the scented loaning while the June moon rode high and the crickets sang.
O my God! here he was thinking about love, and his wife lay inside and she dead!
And a new light wonder sprang up and whirled within the big dumb wonder that was on him: that here was he, a lad not yet twenty-two, with a dead wife on his hands, while his shipmates were off with the laughter of young women in their ears after the silent and tense watches of the sea. His captain had gone home to Newry to where his wife awaited him, the tall, graceful woman with the hair like black silk and the black eyes and the black ear-rings and the slim, white, enigmatic hands. And the first mate had gone to Rostrevor with a blond, giggling girl, and the crew were at Sally Bishop's in Dundalk, draining the pints of frothy porter and making crude material love to Sally Bishop's blowsy brown girls, some chucking their silver out with a laugh—the laugh of men who had fought hurricanes, and some bargaining shrewdly.... But here he was, home, with his wife, and her dead. And if she hadn't been dead, she would have been half loving, half inimical toward him, her arms and bosom open, but a great stranger.... He couldn't understand. Well, she was dead, and ... he didn't know....
A bent, fattish figure in a shawl came toward him through the haggard, his wife's mother. There was the sweetish, acrid odor of whisky.
"Shane avick, are you there all alone, mourning for the pleasant, beautiful one who's gone?"
"I was just sitting down."
"You wouldn't like a wee drop of consolation?"
"Whisky? No, thanks."
"Just the least taste?"
"No, thanks."
"And I after bringing it out to you in a naggin bottle. Just the wetting of your lips, agra, would cheer you up, and you down to the ground."
"No!"
The old woman sat on the stone ditch beside him and began swaying backward and forward, and the keening note came into her voice:
"Is it gone? Is it gone you are, Moyra a sthore? Sure, 't was the kindly daughter you were to me, and me old and not worth my salt, a broken cailleach hobbling on a stick. Never did you refuse me the cup o' tea so strong a mouse could walk on it. And the butcher's meat o' Christmas, sure your old ma must have a taste, too. And many's the brown egg you let me have, and they bringing a high price on the Wednesday market. And the ha'porth o' snuff—sure you never came home without it, and you at Dundalk fair. Kindly you were as the rains of April, and my heart is ashes now you're gone...."
Shane paced off through the haggard. There was the glug-glug of a bottle, and again the sweetish, acrid odor of whisky. He turned back.
"Only to one were you kinder nor to myself and that was to the lad here, whose heart is broken for you. Dumb with grief he is, now you're gone. And all you did for him! You might have married a strong farmer would have a dozen cows, horses would pull a cart or plow, hens by the dozen, and flitches of bacon hanging in the kitchen. Or you might have married a man had a shop and sat at your ease in the back room, like a lady born. Or you might have married a gager and gone to Dublin and mixed with the grand quality. And your mother would have a black silk dress, and shoes with buttons on them. But you married this young fellow goes to sea, so much was the great love on you for him. Love came to you like a thunder-storm, and left you trembling like a leaf, and now you're dead—ochanee! ochanee! ochanee o!"
Her voice changed from the shrill keen to a shrewd whine:
"You'll be leaving me something to remember her by, Shane Oge, and her a fathom deep beneath me in the cold ground. And a trinket or two, or a dress, maybe, or a bangle would keep my heart warm?"
"You can have them all."
"All is it? Ah, sure, it's the grand big heart is in you, lad o' the North. And are they all to be mine, the silver brooch you bought her from the Dutch city, and the ring with the pearl in it, and the dresses of silk from France, and the shoes that have buckles? Are they for me, hinny?"
"Yes, yes. Take them."
"And the wee furnishings of the house, the feather-bed is soft to lie on, and the dresser with the delft, and the creepy stool beside the fire, the noble chairs? You wouldn't be selling them to the stranger, Shane Oge?"
"No, you can have those, too."
"And the house, too? Young noble fellow, where is your wife's mother to lay her gray hairs? Couldn't you fix the house, too?"
"The house is not mine, and I can't afford to buy it."
"But 't is you you are the rich Protestant family. Your uncles and your mother, hinny. Rotten with gold they are, and me just a poor old cailleach that gave you the white lamb o' the flock."
"We'll look after you. My uncle Alan Campbell will be here in a day or so and fix everything. But I'm afraid the house is out of the question."
"Oh, sure it would be a noble thing to have the house, and they around me dying with envy of my state and grandeur. At fair or at wake great respect they would pay me, and the priests of God would be always calling. The house, fine lad, give me the house!"
"You'll have to speak to my Uncle Alan."
"Alan Campbell is a hard Northern man."
"Nevertheless, you'll have to speak to him."
"A mhic mheirdrighe!" Her mouth hissed. "O son of a harlot!"
Shane wheeled like a sloop coming about.
"You forget I've got the Gaelic myself, old woman."
"Oh, sure, what did I say, fine lad, but avick machree, son of my heart? Avick machree, I said. O son of my heart, that's what you are. You wouldn't take wrong meaning from what an old woman said, and her with her teeth gone, and under the black clouds of sorrow!"
A glint in the moonlight caught Shane's eyes. He gripped her right hand.
"Is that Moyra's wedding-ring you have on? Did you—did you—take it—from her hand?"
"Oh, sure, what use would she have for it, and she in the sods of Ballymaroo? And the grand Australian gold is in it, worth a mint of money. And what use would you have for it, and you in strange parts, where a passionate foreign woman would be giving you love, maybe? The fine lad you are, will draw the heart of many. But it's drawing back coldly they'd be, and they seeing that on your finger, or on a ribbon around your neck. Drawing back they'd be, and giving the love was yours to another fellow. A sin to waste the fine Australian gold it is. And you wouldn't begrudge me the price of a couple o' heifers would grow into grand cows? You wouldn't, fine lad—"
He flung her hand from him so savagely that she fell, and he went swiftly toward the house where the dead woman was. Back of him in the haggard came the glug-glug of the naggin bottle, and from down the loaning came the rich, untrained contralto of the singing girl:
"Nor shoe nor stocking will I put on, nor comb go in my hair.
And neither coal nor candle-light shine in my chamber fair.
Nor will I wed with any young man until the day I die,
Since the low lowlands of Holland are between my love and me."