The Wind Bloweth | Page 6

isn't to the big
ones I knew I'd be writing for help.... Sure I see them now, what's left
alive of them, sitting by their firesides, figuring out their life, and tired
with the puzzle of it; and then they'll remember me for an instant, and a
wee joy will come to them in the dim twilight. They'll remember as

you'd remember an old song you hadn't rightly got the air of. But you
knew it was sweet and there was a grand swing to it.... Aye, they'll
remember me, and they looking into the heart of the fire.... And you
wouldn't have me write them now and tell them I'm only an old
cailleach in a cabin on the mountain-side, and my eyes, that they'll
remember, are dull like marbles.... You wouldn't understand, wee
Shane.... But I'm blethering too much about myself. And where is it
you were going, my little jo? Where is it?"
"I heard tell the Dancers were to be seen from the mountain-top over
the sea, and I thought maybe I'd go up and gi'e them a look, cummer ...
just a look."
"So you would, wee Shane, so you would. You wouldn't be your
father's son or your uncles' nephew if you were to let a marvel like that
pass by. It's after adventure you are, and you only four and ten years
old. 'T is early you begin, the Campbells of Cosnamara.
"But sure that isn't adventure, cummer, to be seeing the Dancers in the
heat haze of the day. Adventures are robbers and fighting Indians and
things like in Sir Walter Scott."
"Oh, sure everything's adventure, hinny, every time you go looking for
something queer and strange, and something with a fine shape and
color to it. Adventure isn't in the quick fist and the nimble foot; it's in
the hungry heart and the itching mind. Isn't it myself that knows, that
was a wild and wilful girl, and went out into the world for more nor
twenty years, and came back the like of an old bitch fox, harried by
hunting, and looking for and mindful of the burrow where she was
thrown?... As we're made, we're made, wee fellow; you're either a
salmon that hungers for the sea, or a cunning old trout that kens its own
pool and is content.... Adventures! Hech aye!"
"Well, I hope your eyes get better, cummer. I do so."
"I know you mean it, Shaneen Beg, and maybe your wish will help
them, maybe it will."

"Well, I'll be going on my way, Bridget Roe."
"And I'll be finishing mines, wee Shane Campbell. And I hope to my
God you're better off at the end nor me--me that once talked to earls
and barons, and now clucks to a wheen o' hens; me that once had my
coach and pair, and now have only an ass with a creel o' turf; and no
care of money once on me, and now all I have is my spinning-wheel,
and the flax not what it used to be, but getting coarser. And my eyes
going out, that were the delight of many ... I hope you're better off nor
me at the end of the hard and dusty road, wee Shane. I hope to my God
so...."
§ 4
He thought hard of what the cummer of Cushendhu had said about his
family, and he on the last leg of the mountain. That he was his father's
son puzzled him more than that he was his uncles' nephew, for there
was little mention of his father in the house. At the dead man's name
his prim Huguenot mother from Nantes pursed her mouth, and in her
presence even his uncles were uncomfortable, those great, gallant men.
All he knew was that his father, Colquitto Campbell, had been a great
Gaelic poet, and that his father and mother had not quite been good
friends. Once his Uncle Robin had stopped before a ballad-singer in
Ballycastle when the man was striking up a tune:
On the deck of this lonely ship to America bound, A husk in my throat
and a mist of tears in my eyes--
His Uncle Robin had given the man a guinea.
"Why for did you give the singing man a golden piece, Uncle Robin?"
"For the sake of an old song, laddie, an old and sad song.... A song your
father made.... It was like seeing his ghost...."
"But my father, Uncle Robin--"
"Your father was the heart of corn, wee Shane, for all they say against

him.... I never knew a higher, cleaner heart, but he was easy
discourag't.... Aye, easy thrown down and easy led away.... I was fond
of him.... Am ... always, and no matter.... However ... shall we go and
see