With a pitcher of milk to the fair of Coleraine
And her right fol the dol right fol the doddy,
Right fol the dol, right fol the dee."
I could not understand what "right fol the dol," etc., meant, but I joined in the chorus when I found Micky's Jim roaring out for all he was worth along with the rest.
There were many on board who were full of drink and fight, men who were ready for quarrels and all sorts of mischief. One of these, a man called O'Donnel, paraded up and down the deck with an open clasp-knife in his hand, speaking of himself in the third person, and inviting everybody on board to fistic encounter.
"This is young O'Donnel from the County Donegal," he shouted, alluding to himself, and lifting his knife which shone red with the blood hues of the sinking sun. "And young O'Donnel doesn't care a damn for a man on this bloody boat. I can fight like a two-year-old bullock. A blow of me fist is like a kick from a young colt, and I don't care a damn for a man on this boat. Not for a man on this boat! I'm a Rosses man, and I don't care a damn for a man on this boat!"
He looked terrible as he shouted out his threats. One eyebrow was cut open and the flesh hung down even as far as his cheekbone. I could not take my eyes away from him, and he suddenly noticed me watching his antics. Then he slouched forward and hit me on the face, knocking me down. The next instant Micky's Jim was on top of him, and I saw as if in a dream the knife flying over the side of the vessel into the sea. Then I heard my mate shouting, "Take that, you damned brat—and that—and that!" He hammered O'Donnel into insensibility, and by the time I regained my feet they were carrying the insensible man below. I felt weak and dizzy. Jim took me to a seat, and Norah Ryan bathed my cheek, which was swollen and bleeding.
"It was a shame to hit ye, Dermod," she said more than once as she rubbed her soft fingers on the wound. Somehow I was glad of the wound, because it won such attention from Norah.
The row between O'Donnel and Jim was only the beginning of a wild night's fighting. All over the deck and down in the steerage the harvestmen and labourers fought one with another for hours on end. Over the bodies of the women who were asleep in every corner, over coils of ropes, trunks and boxes of clothes, the drunken men struggled like demons. God knows what they had to quarrel about! When I could not see them I could hear them falling heavily as cattle fall amid a jumble of twisted hurdles, until the drink and exertion overpowered them at last. One by one they fell asleep, just where they had dropped or on the spot where they were knocked down.
Towards midnight, when, save for the thresh of the propellers and the pulsing of the engines, all was silent, I walked towards the stem of the boat. There I found Norah Ryan asleep, her shawl drawn over her brown hair, and the rising moon shining softly on her gentle face. For a moment I kept looking at her; then she opened her eyes and saw me.