The Mockers and other Verses :: :: University of Virginia Library

Quare and black and white it looks along by the strand this day,
Wid the snow lit like foam on the foam, and the sky's dark as dark on the say—
There's a little white gull sittin' out on it, swimmin' and swimmin' away—
And the weeds all tossed up on the edge of the wet like a layer of fire-scorched hay,
Turf-black through the froth and the flakes. Faith, 'tis heaped up a won'erful height;
You could tell by the same that the beach got a great ould lambastin' last night
Wid the win' and the waves. Look ye yonder they've tumbled a cartload of stones
From the ind of the Callaghans' bit of a boat-slip, that nobody owns.

But I see th' ould boat's lyin' there yet, right enough, ne'er a hurt has she tuck—
She'd that hole in her ribs for this long while. That's only the nathur of luck:
If it's good for a thraneen she was, she'd be sunk the first blusther that blew,
But the storms let the likes of her rest, till there's no better harm they can do.

II

That's another ould wreck up above there, crouched under the rock in a cleft:
Just the eye-holes of windows and doors, and the bones of the rafters is left.
'Twas the Callaghans' house, they that owned the ould boat, but it's many a year
Since they quit, and the last folks they'll be, sartin sure, will try housekeepin' here;
For—the Saints be among us—a somethin' there was at that doorway went in
Makes the sorrow a soul of us wishful a fut to set through it agin.

III

They were dacint poor men, the two Callaghans, both of them, father and son,
Ould Dan and Young Dan, and his slip of a lad; there was niver a one
Had a word's breath agin them. 'Twas fishin' they lived by, and fishin' ye might say
Just destroyed them. That's raison; for keepin' on livin' 's the sartinest way
To your dyin' at last. Howane'er, they rowed out wid their nets for a try,
The two Dans, on a day towards the winter, mistrustin' the look of the sky,
And considerin' they'd take aught they could, ere a storm riz upon them outright;
So they left little Mick in the house there, and said they'd be home afore night.

And they pulled out beyant Inish Cranagh, but scarcely a fin did they take,
And the most that they had was a dab of a brill, and a couple of hake,

When they turned to run in: for they seen out to say 'twas a ruffle of black,
Like a hin when she sets up her feathers on ind wid the win' in her back,
And the Bay they well knew 'ud be rowlin' around them, and thickenin' wid foam,
If they gave it a minyit. “Bedad,” says Ould Dan, “we'd been better at home
For what all we'll bring in, lad, this night.” Aye, true for him, and better indeed.
So they presently come where the low shelvin' rocks is all welterin' wid weed,
And 'twas there they tuck somethin'—God help them, the crathurs, they'd better ha' sted
To the world's ind at home, if 'twas starvin' itself, aye, or under the tide drowndin' dead.

IV

Some misfort'nit poor lad of a sailor it was, lyin' there on the wrack,
Where the waves, drainin' off, left him tossed, and they thinkin', mayhap, to run back

At the tide's turn, and streel him away, like a cat when she's playin' around
Wid a wee little mouse she's half kilt, lettin' on that it's lost and it's found,
Pouncin' after it. But, wirra, the len'th of three days they'd been havin' their game
Wid the crathur adrift through the wild lonesome says from wherever he came.

Well, Young Dan spied the bit of blue jacket, lapt up in the weed that was spread
Like a net on the rocks; 'twas th' unluckiest sight the two eyes in his head
Ever seen. So they laid him—what else could they do?—in the bows of the boat,
For the last of his farin' by say, and they covered the face wid a coat
From the rays that were reachin' their longest far out of the west, red and low,
O'er the roll of the ridges; and home wid them straightways they settled to row.
And the sorrow a word did the two of them spake any more than the one

That had said all he would: and a cloud riz behind them and put out the sun,
Till the shadows slid after them, runnin' a race wid the moan of the win';
And it's leppin' the say was, and droppin' the darkness before they got in.

V

But they'd seen burnin' bright on the water and brighter the light through their door,
You'd ha' thought 'twas a spark from the sunset blown into a nook on the shore;
Ne'er a soul better plaised than themselves to be comin' in reach of it all,
When they'd made the ould slip there, and fastened the boat to the ring in the wall;
And they legged it up over them sayweedy tussocks wid fut and wid hand,
Like a couple of crabs clamberin' back to the tide o'er a width of wet sand
In a hurry for 'fraid 'twould run out on them fast. For the say and the sky

Had got roarin' and whirlin' and driftin' together afar and anigh,
Till the one thing sted still was the crathur they'd left; but the place where he lay
Seemed the roost of the dark and the dread that flew wild through the sky and the say.
So it's hot-fut each followed the blink of the hearth wid the thought in his mind
'Twas the night and the storms and the cold and the dead they were lavin' behind.

VI

And widin in their bit of a house you might aisy forget all the like,
Though the win' howled as mad as a wolf, and the black dark stood thick as a dyke.
For the firelight danced over it, round and around like the shine of bright waves
When they blink at you up through the boughs, where the sun's blown about in the laves;
And stars' blazes it lit in the delft on the wall, and the supper things set,

That poor Micky, the spalpeen, had waitin' this great while, wid wishin' to get
To the ind of his long lonesome day. But it's hungry they grew to behold
The big wheatenmeal cake, and their jar of the crathur that keeps out the cold.
And they sat themselves down by the flare of their hearth, wid their bit and their drink,
And the comfort drew out of their minds every thought that was dreary to think.

VII

But Ould Dan, says he: “Musha, where's Mick?” and Young Dan says: “I bid him to skyte
And fetch in th' ould oars out of her; safer they'll be under cover this night;
Wid this win' drivin' flurries before it, the waves 'ill come ridin' our strand
Like a hunt at a twenty-inch dyke, fit to sweep o'er the breadth of the land.
Bottom up she belike might be floatin' 'gin morn, or broke fine on the shore.

He'll be back now,” says Dan. And wid that come the oar's butt-ind bumpin' the door,
And the gossoon ducked under it, liftin' it up, and the most he could do,
Till he leaned it down slantin' along by the wall; and says he to the two:
“And who's he then at all you have lyin' below in the bows of the boat?
Fast asleep he is body and bones, wid the head of him lapt in his coat.
So I told him the supper was ready widin, but I'm doubtin' he heard
Through the blasts of the win'; 'twas a great shout I let, but himself never stirred.
Is it drinkin' he was? He'd do right anyway to wake up and git home,
For the storm's comin' fierce wid the tide; out to say's all a lather of foam.
He might safer go sleep in his coffin,” says Mick, “than the boat where she lies.”

Sure the Divil's the same as ourselves: he can't tell what he'll do till he tries;

And it's fairly surprised some odd whiles he must be wid the folks that he finds
He can fool. Who'd ha' guessed the two Dans 'ud go take such a thought in their minds,
And they dacint poor men all the while? But they let a coarse laugh at the lad,
And says Young Dan to him: “Was it drinkin' you said? Ay, true for you, bedad—
Just a drop he's been takin' too much in a place where there's drinkin' galore;
That's what ails him. But run you, and bid him step in if he's wishful for more.
He'll be hard-set to hear you, for into his dreams he's gone terrible deep;
Mind you wake him,” says Dan; and “No fear,” says the lad, “I'll not lave him asleep.”

VIII

Ah now, what was it else save the Divil's own trick put that plan in their head,
To be sendin' the innicent child after makin' a mock of the Dead?

And themselves that had often enough come as nigh as the shore to the say
To ha' gone the same road, when a squall caught them suddint out sailin' away,
Or they'd seem to be strokin' stone walls wid a straw, rowin' home for their lives
Through the waves that the win' turned agin them like flocks that the Ould Fellow drives,
Till they scarce could believe in their luck, when they'd left them rampagin' behind,
And got off wid the breath in their bodies, bone-drenched, and half dazed, and half blind.
So themselves sittin' warm by the hearth, in their own little house, safe and sound,
Might be sorry, you'd think, for the lad lyin' cold in the dark dead and drowned,
Let alone risin' laughs on him. Och but 'twas laughin' they'd raison to rue:
For a cruel bad job it was surely; aye, in troth 'twas no thing to go do.

IX

Howane'er Micky ran as they bid him, and back he came peltin' as fast,
Wid his face shinin' wet, for the spray was like handfuls of rain on the blast,
And the surf on the shingle roared behind him hard by as he opened the door;
So Ould Dan says: “Sure now you weren't long over wakenin' him, Micky asthore.
What at all did he say then? A notion we had he was bothered or dumb.”
And says Mick: “He said little enough; ne'er a word but just only: ‘I'll come.’”

X

And wid that for a minyit the men saw the thought growin' black in their eyes,
Starin' each at the other, and Young Dan roared to Mick: “Arrah whist wid your lies!”
And the gossoon slunk back in the dark of the corner afeared of his look,

For no better or worser he knew. But the two sinful crathurs were took
Wid a dread they'd no hole to be hidin' from in, though their souls they'd ha' gave
To be findin' one. Aye, if the Divil himself up and offered them lave
Through a chink of the door to his own place, behind it they'd liefer ha' crep'
Than bide still where they were. Says a one of them: “That was a step, man, a step
There outside on the shingle.” And th' other says: “Sorrow a sound did you hear
Save the say breakin' high on the rocks. Troth, it's comin' unnathural near;
But it's never a step. What was that though? Och Dan, what at all might you see?
Somethin' dark there was went past the window.” “You fool, you, what else would it be
Only just some quare flicker of the firelight that's glimpsin' there flapped on the pane
Like a shadow? But hark you to that—Saints above, how it's pourin' wid rain.

For there's somethin' drip-drippin' outside.” “And what else would the thatch do but drip
In a shower? Else you'd say—Faith, the win' 's got the door in a powerful grip,
'Twill be apt to blow in on us, rattlin' and shakin'”—“Ochone, look you man,
Would the win' lift the latch? But it's liftin', it's liftin' in somebody's han'.”
Aye 'twas openin' the door was. They craved for their boat, and she settlin' to sink.
For what come through it—Mercy betwixt us and harm!—you'd be wise not to think.

XI

Well, next mornin', it happint, come two or three lads passin' here on the shore,
And seen somethin' amiss wid the Callaghans' place, and went up to the door;
But they found it flat-fallen, and the house-floor streeled over wid wisps of wet wrack,
Like as if 'twas a share of the beach, and a wave after just runnin' back.

And the table stood set for the supper. They said it 'ud turn your head white
To behold what was standin' up leanin' agin it. God help them that night,
The poor souls, when they seen what they'd brought wid their jeerin' and foolin' the child.
And Young Dan was crouched up in a corner, clean daft, wid his eyes starin' wild,
And the sorrow a sinsible word, only screechin' to keep it away.
But Ould Dan and poor Mick man nor mortal's seen trace of by lan' or by say.

XII

'Twas Young Dan told the story. He's up at the 'Sylum this ten or twelve year,
And the most of the time you might talk till you're tired; he'll not see you nor hear,
But sit mopin' and lost. Only now and agin it comes clear in his head,
And he'll tell you the whole, fit to freeze your heart cold in its beatin' wid dread.

Then mayhap the next minyit 'twill clever and clean be slipped out of his mind,
Like the bubbles that break in their clouts of white foam, and lave nothin' behind.

Sure it's luckier he is disremimberin' than some that keep hold of their wit;
For there's many a black trouble, God knows, you'd go mad for the chance to forgit.