§ 8
His Uncle Robin had gone off to discuss with some Belfast crony the strange things he used to discuss, like the origin of the Round Tower of Ireland or the cryptic dialect of the Gaelic masons or whether the Scots came to Scotland from Ireland or to Ireland from Scotland, all very important for a member of the Royal Irish Academy. And his mother had gone off shopping to buy linen for the house at Cushendhu, poplin for dresses, delft from Holland for the kitchen and glass from Waterford for the sideboard in the dining-room. And because he was to go to the boarding-school that night and thereafter would be harsh discipline, and because his Uncle Robin had known he was on the point of crying, he had been allowed to wander around Belfast by himself for a few hours with a silver shilling in his pocket. And wee Shane had made for the quays....
The four of them had sat in a cold, precise room that morning, his Uncle Robin, his mother, wee Shane, and the principal, a fat, gray-eyed, insincere Southerner, with a belly like a Chinese god's, dewlaps like a hunting hound's, cold, stubby, and very clean hands, and a gown that gave him a grotesque dignity. And he had eyed wee Shane unctuously. And wee Shane did not like fat, unctuous men. He liked them lean and active, as glensmen are.
And the principal had spoken in stilted French to his mother, who had responded in French that cracked like a whip. And the principal had licked the ground before Uncle Robin. It was "Yes, Dr. Campbell!" And, "No, Dr. Campbell!" where the meanest glensman would have said "Aye, maybe you're right, Robin More," or, "Na, na, you're out there, Robin Campbell."
"The old hypocrite!" It was the only word wee Shane could describe the master by, a favorite word of his Uncle Alan's.
And in the corridors he had met some of the scholars, white-faced fellows; and the masters—they had mean eyes, like the eyes of badgers.
"I dinna want to go!" He blurted out on the quays of Belfast.
"Where dinna you want to go, wee laddie?" A black, curly-headed man with gray eyes and a laugh like a girl's stopped short. He had blue clothes and brass buttons and stepped lightly as a cat.
"I dinna want to go to school."
"Sure, all wee caddies go to school."
"I ken that. But I don't want to go to school with a bunch of whey-faced gets, and masters lean and mean as rats, and a principal puffed out like a setting hen."
"Oh, for God's sake! is that the way you feel about it? Laddie, you don't talk like a townsman. Where are you from?"
"I'm from the Glens of Antrim. From Cushendhu."
"I'm a Raghery man myself. Tha an Gaidhlig agad?
"Tha, go direach!"
"So you've got the Gaidhlig too? Who are your people, wee laddie?"
"I'm a Campbell of Cushendhu."
"For God's sake! you're no' a relation of Alan Campbell's, wha sailed with Sir John Franklin for the pole?"
"I'm his nephew."
"I've sailed under your Uncle Alan. He's the heart o' corn. And so they're going to make a scholar out of you, like your Uncle Robin. Oh, well, oh, well. Would you like to come around with me and see the ships?"
"I'd like fine to see the ships."
"You'll see all manner of ships here. Square-riggers, fore-and-afters, hermaphrodites. You'll see Indiamen and packets from Boston. You'll see ships that do be going to Germany, and some for the Mediterranean ports. You'll see a whaler that's put in for repairs. You'll see fighting ships. You'll see fishers of the Dogger Banks, and boats that go to Newfoundland, where the cod do feed. All manner of sloops and schooners, barkantines and brigs, but the bonniest of them all lies off Carrickfergus."
"And who's she, Raghery man?"
"The Antrim Maid is her nomination."
"And do you sail her?"
"I sail in her, laddie. Sail and sail in her. Mine from truck to keelson she is, and I'm master of her. Father and mother and brother to her, and husband, too. I'm proud of her." The Rathliner laughed. "You may notice."
"And why for shouldn't you be? She must be the grand boat surely, man who sailed with my Uncle Alan."