“Son of Ireland, bright and black and black and bright may be the picture of your life, but I see for you brightness and sweet faces, and music and song. It’s not Irish music, and it’s not Irish song, but the soul of the thing is Irish. Grim things await you, but you will conquer where the eagle sways to the shore, where the white mist flees from the hills, where heroes meet, where the hand of Moira stirs the blue and the witches flee from the voice of God. There is honour coming to you in the world.”
Having said his say, with hand outstretched, having thrilled the air with the voice of one who had the soul of a prophet, the old man turned. Head bent forward, he shuffled away with Michael Clones along the stony street.
Dyck watched them go, his heart beating hard, his spirit overwhelmed.
It was not far to the Castle, yet every footstep had a history. Now and again he met people who knew him. Some bowed a little too profoundly, some nodded; but not one stopped to speak to him, though a few among them were people he had known well in days gone by. Was it the clothes he wore, or was it that his star had sunk so low that none could keep it company? He laughed to himself in scorn, and yet there kept ringing through his brain all the time the bells of St. Anselm’s, which he was hearing:
“Oh, God, who is the sinner’s friend,
Make clean my soul once more!”
When he arrived at the Castle walls he stood and looked long at them.
“No, I won’t go in. I won’t try to see him,” he said at last. “God, how strange Ireland is to me! The soil of it, the trees of it, the grass of it, are dearer than ever, but—I’ll have no more of Ireland. I’ll ask for nothing. I’ll get to England. What’s Ireland to me? I must make my way somewhere. There’s one in there”—he nodded towards the Castle—“that owes me money at cards. He should open his pockets to me, and see me safe on a ship for Australia; but I’ve had my fill of every one in Ireland. There’s nothing here for me but shame. Well, back I’ll go to the Hen and Chickens, to find a good dinner there.”
He turned and went back slowly along the streets by which he had come, looking not to right nor left, thinking only of where he should go and what he should do outside of Ireland.
At the door of the inn he sniffed the dinner Michael had ordered.
“Man alive!” he said as he entered the place and saw the two men with their hands against the bright fire. “There’s only one way to live, and that’s the way I’m going to try.”