"'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.