Most of the men were drunk; a few lying stretched on the deck were already asleep, and the rest were singing and quarrelling. Micky’s Jim stopped in the middle of an interesting story, a new one, but also about a fight, and joined in a song; old Maire a Glan helped him with the chorus.
III
A man, full of drink and fight, paraded along the deck, his stride uncertain and unsteady, a look born of the dark blood of mischief showing in his eyes. He had already been fighting; in his hand he carried an open clasp-knife; one eyebrow had been gashed and the strip of torn flesh hung down even as far as his high cheekbones. He was dressed in a dirty pea-jacket and moleskin trousers; a brown leather belt with a huge, shiny buckle was tied round his waist, and the neck of a half-empty whisky bottle could be seen peeping over the rim of his coat pocket. His shoulders were broad and massive, his neck short and wrinkled and the torn shirt showed his deep chest, alive with muscles and terribly hairy, more like an animal’s than a man’s. His hands, which seemed to have never been washed, were knotted and gnarled like the branches of an old and stunted bush.
“This is young O’Donnel from the County Donegal, and young O’Donnel doesn’t give a damn for any man on this boat!” he roared, speaking of himself in the third person, and brandishing the knife carelessly around him. “I can fight like a two year old bullock, and a blow from young O’Donnel is like a kick from a young colt that’s new to the grass. I’m a Rosses man and I don’t care a damn for any soul on this bloody boat—not one damn! So there ye are!”
Suddenly observing Dermod Flynn staring at him, he slouched forward and struck the boy heavily across the face with a full swing of his left fist. Dermod dropped quietly to the deck; Micky’s Jim, who was suggesting to Willie the Duck that the fiddle should be flung into the sea, threw down the instrument which he held and, jumping on the top of O’Donnel, with a sudden movement of his hand sent the knife flying into the sea.
“Ye long drink of water, I’ll do for ye!” shouted Jim, and with feet and fists he hammered O’Donnel into insensibility.
Dermod Flynn regained his feet with a swollen cheek and a long red gash stretching along his face from ear to chin. He was helped to a seat by one of the party; Norah Ryan procured some water and bathed his face, rubbing her fingers tenderly over the sore.
“It was a shame to hit ye, Dermod,” she said. “One would think that a big man like that wouldn’t hit a small boy like yourself!”
Dermod flushed and his eyes lit up as if he was going to say something cutting, but Norah checked the words by pressing her hand across his brow and looking at him with eyes of womanly understanding.
“I know what ye are goin’ to say, Dermod,” she said. “Ye’re goin’ to tell me that ye are a man: and no one can deny that. Ye were a man when ye were at school and hit the master. Sure I know meself what ye had in yer head to say.”