The Wind Bloweth | Page 5

afraid, Napper Tandy. I shall keep my word and send General
Hoche to Ireland."
"It's not that, sir; it's not that." And Tandy could not keep the tears back.
"Och, County Antrim, it's far I'm from you now!"
§ 3
He had reached the cairn of round stones that marks the town land of
Drimsleive, and was turning the brae when a voice called to him:

"Eh, wee fellow, is it mitching from school you are?"
An old woman in a plaid shawl was coming slowly down the hillside.
He recognized her for Bridget Roe MacFarlane of Cushendhu, a cotter
tenant of his Uncle Alan's.
"No, cummer," he told her; "I'm not mitching. I got the day off."
"For God's sake! if it isn't wee Shane Campbell! And what are doing up
the mountain, wee Shane?"
"Ah, just dandering."
"I was up mysel'," she went on, "to the top of it, because I heard tell
there was a cure for sore eyes in the bit lake on the top. Not that I put
much store in such cures, but there's no use letting anything by. I got a
pair of specs from a peddling man of Ballymena," said she, "but they
don't seem to do me much good. I'm queer and afeared about my eyes,
hinny. It would be a hard thing for me to go blind and none about the
wee bit house but mysel'."
"Ay! I should think it would be a terrible thing to be a dark person,"
wee Shane nodded.
"Och, it wouldn't be so bad if you were born that way, for you'd know
no different. And if you went blind and you young, there's things you
could take up to take the strain from your head like a man takes up
piping. When you're old it's gey hard. If you're an old man itself, it's not
so bad, for there'll always be a soft woman to take care of you. But if
you're an old cummer, without chick or child, it's hard, agra vig. My
little love, it's hard."
"Maybe it's in your head, Bridget Roe. My Uncle Robin says there's a
lot of sickness that's just in your head."
"I trust to my God so, and maybe your Uncle Robin's right, for there
does be a lot in my head, and it going around like a spinning-wheel. I'm
a experienced woman, wee Shane, too experienced, and that's the

trouble. You've no' heard because you're too young and you would no'
understand. I was away from here for twenty years," she said, "for more
nor twenty. And I knew a power of men in my time, big men, were
needful of me. And a power of trouble I raised, too, and it does be
coming back to me and me in my old days.... But you'll be wanting to
be getting on?"
"Och, no, Bridgeen Roe; there's no hurry."
"It does me good to have a wee crack, the folk I see are so few ... Aye!
There was a power of trouble. There were two men killed themselves
and families broken up all by reason of me. I meant no harm, wee
Shane, but it happened, and it does be troubling me in my old days.
And I sit there afeared by the peat fire, and when I've thought too much
on it, I get up and go to the half-door. And I look out on the Moyle,
wee Shane, and I think: that's been roaring since the first tick of time,
and I see the stars so many of them, and the moon that never changed
its shape or size, and it comes to me that nothing matters in the long run,
that the killed men were no more nor caught trout, and the rent families
no more nor birds' nests fallen from a tree.... None of us are big enough
that anything we do matters.... And then another feeling comes on me,
that God is around, and that He'll be dreadful hard.... And a wee bit of
luck comes my way. The hens, maybe, are laying well, and there's a
high price on the eggs, and I think, sure He's the Kindly Man, after all....
But if my eyes leave me, Shane Beg, what will I do? Sure, I won't have
the moon or the stars or the waters of Moyle to put things in their place.
And there'll be no luck about me, so as I'll know Himself is the
Unforgiving Man."
"But some one will take care of you, Bridget Roe."
"And who, agra? 'Tis not me to go to the poorhouse, and take charity
like a cold potato. And my name is MacFarlane, wee Shane, and they're
a clan that fights till it dies, that never gives in. And it