§ 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....