Our Casualty, and Other Stories / 1918

by George A. Birmingham

“The beautifulest ever was seen,” said Peter, “and neither shift nor shirt on them, only just themselves, and the long hair of them. Straight it was and black, only for a taste of green in it. You wouldn’t be making a mistake between the like of them and seals, not if you’d seen them right the way Anthony O’Flaherty did.”

Peter made this reflection a little bitterly. I was afraid the recollection of my unfortunate remark about seals might have stopped him telling the story, but it did not.

“Once Anthony had seen them,” he said, “he couldn’t rest content without he’d be going to see them again. Many a night he went and saw neither sight nor light of them, for it was only at spring tides that they’d be there, on account of the rocks not being uncovered any other time. But at the bottom of the low springs they were there right enough, and sometimes they’d be swimming in the sea and sometimes they’d be sitting on the rocks. It was wonderful the songs they’d sing—like the sound of the sea set to music was what my mother told me, and she was told by them that knew. The people did be wondering what had come over Anthony, for he was different like from what he had been, and nobody knew what took him out of his house in the middle of the night at the spring tides. There was a girl that they had laid down for him to marry, and Anthony had no objection to her before he seen them ones; but after he had seen them he wouldn’t look at the girl. She had a middling good fortune too but sure he didn’t care about that.”

I could understand Anthony’s feelings. The air of wind which Peter had promised, drawn from its cave by the lure of the departing sun, was filling our head-sails. I hauled in the main-sheet gently hand over hand and belayed it. The boat slipped quietly along close-hauled. The long line of islands which guards the entrance of our bay lay dim before use. Over the shoulder of one of them I could see the lighthouse, still a distinguishable patch of white against the looming grey of the land. The water rippled mournfully under our bows and a long pale wake stretched astern from our counter. “Fortune,” banked money, good heifers and even enduringly fruitful fields seemed very little matters to me then. They must have seemed still less, far less, to Anthony O’Flaherty after he had seen those white sea-maidens with their green-black hair.

“There was a woman on the island in those times,” said Peter, “a very aged woman, and she had a kind of plaster which she made which cured the cancer, drawing it out by the roots, and she could tell what was good for the chin cough, and the women did like to have her with them when their children was born, she being knowledgable in them matters. I’m told the priests didn’t like her, for there was things she knew which it mightn’t be right that anyone would know, things that’s better left to the clergy. Whether she guessed what was the matter with Anthony, or whether he up and told her straight my mother never heard. It could be that he told her, for many a one used to go to her for a charm when the butter wouldn’t come, or a cow, maybe, was pining; so it wouldn’t surprise me if Anthony went to her.”

Peter crept aft. He took a pull on the jib-sheet and belayed it again; but I do not believe that he really cared much about the set of the sail. That was his excuse. He wanted to be nearer to me. There is something in stories like this, told in dim twilight, with dark waters sighing near at hand, which makes men feel the need of close human companionship. Peter seated himself on the floorboards at my feet, and I felt a certain comfort in the touch of his arm on my leg.

“Well,” he went on, “according to the old hag—and what she said was true enough, however she learnt it—them ones doesn’t go naked all the time, but only when they’re playing themselves on the rocks at low tide, the way Anthony seen them. Mostly they have a kind of cloak that they wear, and they take the same cloaks off of them when they’re up above the water and they lay them down on the rocks. If so be that a man could put his hand on e’er a cloak, the one that owned it would have to follow him whether she wanted to or not. If it was to the end of the world she’d have to follow him, or to Spain, or to America, or wherever he might go. And what’s more, she’d have to do what he bid her, be the same good or bad, and be with him if he wanted her, so long as he kept the cloak from her. That’s what the old woman told Anthony, and she was a skilful woman, well knowing the nature of beasts and men, and of them that’s neither beasts nor men. You’ll believe me now that Anthony wasn’t altogether the same as other men when I tell you that he laid his mind down to get his hand down on one of the cloaks. He was a good swimmer, so he was, which is what few men on the island can do, and he knew that he’d be able to fetch out to the rock where them ones played themselves.”

I was quite prepared to believe that Anthony was inspired by a passion far out of the common. I know nothing more terrifying than the chill embrace of the sea at night-time. To strike out through the slimy weeds which lie close along the surface at the ebb point of a spring tide, to clamber on low rocks, half awash for an hour or two at midnight, these are things which I would not willingly do.

“The first time he went for to try it,” said Peter, “he felt a bit queer in himself and he thought it would do him no harm if he was to bless himself. So he did, just as he was stepping off the shore into the water. Well, it might as well have been a shot he fired, for the minute he did it they were off and their cloaks along with them; and Anthony was left there. It was the sign of the cross had them frightened, for that same is what they can’t stand, not having souls that religion would be any use to. It was the old woman told Anthony that after, and you’d think it would have been a warning to him not to make or meddle with the like of them any more. But it only made him the more determined. He went about without speaking to man or woman, and if anybody spoke to him he’d curse terrible, till the time of the next spring tide. Then he was off to the bay again, and sure enough them ones was there. The water was middling rough that night, but it didn’t daunt Anthony. It pleased him, for he thought he’d have a better chance of getting to the rocks without them taking notice of him if there was some noise loud enough to drown the noise he’d be making himself. So he crept out to the point of the cliff on the south side of the bay, which is as near as he could get to the rocks. You remember that?”

I did. On the night when we beat out of the bay against a rising westerly wind we went about once under the shadow of the cliff, and, almost before we had full way on the boat, stayed her again beside the rocks. Anthony’s swim, though terrifying, was short.