A Son of Aran by Martin Gormally Page B

rim
    The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim.
    The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay,
    And it looked like an Eden, away far away.
    â€˜Wouldn’t it be lovely to sail away for ever to that legendary land?’ he exclaimed to Tadhg who awakened to the singing. My mother claimed that my father found the place and stayed there. He never came back; his body was never found.’
    â€˜I don’t go along with that tale,’ replied Tadhg. ‘If there was such an island we’d have come across it all those years when we fished half way to Newfoundland.’
    â€˜Still, Tadhg, there are lots of things we don’t know. What about Oisín who was absent for a whole lifetime and came back to find his companions had all passed away? Where did he go in the meantime?’
    Tadhg had no answer. Peadar continued with his song about the man who was said to have found Hy Brasil and never returned:
    A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale,
    In the breeze of the Orient loosened his sail.
    From Ara, the holy, he turned to the west,
    For though Ara was holy, Hy Brasil was blest.
    Suddenly he stopped. ‘Hush,’ he said to Tadhg, ‘what is that sound coming out of the mist?’ ‘It’s like as if somebody was moaning or calling for help. Listen; there it is again. Can you hear it?’
    Both men strained their ears to listen—only the cry of a gull and the wash of waves against the boat reached them.
    â€˜It must be a seal,’ said Tadhg, ‘the call of the mother seal to her young is like the cry of a human being. What person would be calling for help at this hour in any case? We haven’t seen sight of a boat since we left Connemara.’
    Peadar wasn’t convinced. Saying no more, he remained alert for any repetition of the sound. None came. It was well past midnight when they got their first glimpse of land.
    â€˜Begorra, Tadhg, we’re on the right course after all. If I’m not mistaken that’s the island ahead to starboard; we should reach it within the hour.’
    Kilronan and the village above the pier were silent as a grave when they tied up the hooker at the quay wall.
    â€˜Come on, Eileen, we’re home at last,’ said Peadar, as he raised the girl on his shoulder and set out on the half mile trek to his house, with Tadhg following close behind. There was no welcoming hearth fire to greet them. Máirtín or his mother had no forewarning of their arrival. They partook of whatever food they had brought with them and, having prepared sleeping quarters for Tadhg and Eileen, Peadar threw himself down on a mat of straw on the kitchen floor. Tomorrow he would make arrangements for fuel and food; to-night all would sleep soundly after their voyage.
    Cackling of hens and heavy footsteps aroused him from his dreams; he figured that either Máirtín or his mother had arrived to feed the poultry and milk the cow. Without waking the others, he pulled on his corduroy trousers and homespun jacket, and tried to open the door. Someone had bolted it on the outside. Looking through the window he alerted Máirtín and signed to him to undo the bolt. Máirtín was astonished to see him—he felt sure nobody was in residence when he secured the door late the night before after returning from a wake on the other side of the island. He greeted him warmly and asked where had he been these past months. Taking him to one side, Peadar related to him in confidence the story of his wife’s infidelity and departure to Spain. Máirtín was silent as he listened. Two nights previously when he came to close the hens’ coop, he suspected somebody was in the house but he didn’t disturb them. At this stage he decided not to mention the incident to Peadar.
    â€˜Better by far for everyone that she’s gone,’ he said. ‘Who wants a wife or a mother of her kind? Eileen will come to realise that in her own time. On the