"That's the only thing that a Glenmornan man could do," said Micky's Jim, when I told him of the fight.
Afterwards we sauntered along the wharf together, waiting for the other members of the party, who had gone to the Catholic chapel in 'Derry to say their prayers before leaving their own country. Everything I saw was a source of wonder to me. I lived many miles from the sea at home, and only once did I even see a fishing-boat. That was years before, when I passed Doon Ferry on my way to the Holy Well of Iniskeel. There did I see the fishing-boats of Trienna lying by the beach while the fishermen mended their nets on the foreshore. Out by the rim of the deep-sea water the bar was roaring, and a line of restless creamy froth stretched across the throat of the bay, like the bare white arms of a girl who bathes in a darksome pool. I asked one of the fishers if he would let me go with him across the bar. He only laughed at me and said that it would suit me far better to say my prayers.
For the whole of the evening I could not take my eyes off the boats that lay by 'Derry Pier. Micky's Jim took no notice of them, because he had seen them often enough before.
"Ye'll not wonder much at ships when ye've seen them as much as I've seen them," he said.
We sought out our own boat, and Jim said that she was a rotten tub when he had examined her critically with his eyes for a moment.
"It'll make ye as sick as a dog goin' roun' the Moils o' Kentire," he said. "Ye'll know what it is to be sea-sick this night, Dermod."
We went on board, and waited for the rest of the party to come along. While waiting Jim prowled into the cook's galley and procured two cups of strong black tea, which we drank together on deck.
It was, "Under God, the day an' the night, ye've grown to be a big man, Dermod," and "Ye're a soncy rung o' a fellow this minute, Dermod Flynn," when the people from my own arm of the Glen came up the deck and saw me there along with Micky's Jim. Many of the squad were old stagers who had been in the country across the water before. They planted their patch of potatoes and corn in their little croft at home, then went to Scotland for five or six months in the middle of the year to earn money for the rent of their holding. The land of Donegal is bare and hungry, and nobody can make a decent livelihood there except landlords.
The one for whom I longed most was the last to come, and when I saw her my heart almost stopped beating. She was the same as ever with her soft tender eyes and sweet face, that put me in mind of the angels pictured over the altar of the little chapel at home. Her hair fell over her shawl like a cascade of brown waters, her forehead was white and pure as marble, her cheeks seemed made of rose-leaf, of a pale carnation hue, and her fair light body, slender as a young poplar, seemed too holy for the contact of the cold world. She stepped up the gang-plank, slowly and timidly, for she was afraid of the noise and shouting of the place.
The boat's derricks creaked angrily on their pivots, the gangways clattered loudly as they were shifted here and there by noisy and dirty men, and the droves of bullocks, fresh from the country fairs, bellowed unceasingly as they were hammered into the darkness of the hold. On these things I looked with wonder, Norah looked with fright.