The Schooner

It was August and very warm; Terence Devlin, a boy of eight, was leaving the city with his father for a holiday on the Island of Rathlin. It was early morning when they walked to the station where porters were rim-rolling milk cans along the empty platform. At Ballymoney they had to change and wait for a long time for the narrow-gauge train to take them to Ballycastle. That train was very small and the people seemed too big for it; steam dribbled from all parts of the engine and Terence held on tightly to his father for he feared that it would explode at any moment. The wooden seats in the carriage were rough and hacked with names, and they hurt the backs of his knees. In the floor boards there were wide slits and through them could be seen the sharp stones which lay between the sleepers. The train shook violently and Terence’s teeth rattled in his head and the suitcase fell off the rack on to the floor.

‘I hope you’ll not be sea-sick in the train,’ his father smiled to him, and put away the paper he was trying to read. When the train slowed down he would shout out to his son the names of flowers and mosses that grew on the rocky embankments. But to amuse himself Terence dropped cigarette-cards between the floor boards and spelt out words that were pencilled on the ceiling. His father told him to try and sleep and not be straining his eyes reading words that were written by bad boys: ‘It’s the like of those things that bring a bad name on the country. I hope, Terence, you’ll never scribble in a railway carriage.’

After that Terence dozed off and when he awoke he was in Ballycastle. There was the smell of turf and the air was heavy with heat. Down past a siding they walked where the wooden sleepers were sticky with oil and smelt sharply of tar.

They stopped at a shop and Terence bought ice-cream, a wooden spade, and a red bucket with black letters: A Present from Ballycastle.

They took the long road to the sea. Men with twisted towels round their necks passed them. Blinds were pulled down in the big houses and on the lawns old ladies sat on deck-chairs under the shade of red umbrellas. Terence shook a pebble from his sandal, and Mr Devlin walked on, fanning himself with his hat. The big chestnut trees that lined the road were stiff with heat, but under the leaves flakes of shadow quivered. The tarred road crackled as a motor raced by, then a drove of cattle came up, their hooves sticking in the tar, their dung-caked sides as dry as the bark of a tree.

‘If we get weather like this, Terence, we’ll not know ourselves on the way back.’

While Mr Devlin went to inquire about the boat Terence leaned over a sun-warmed wall and saw below him boys and girls playing tennis. Boys hung blazers on the net-posts, hitched up their belts, and through the sun-sifted air came the cord-rattle of tennis balls hitting the net and nearby a lazy plunge of waves falling on a curve of sand. Idly he picked moss out of the crevices in the wall, and then a finger flicked his ear and he turned to see his father smiling down at him: ‘We’ll go over to the quay now; the boat’s going to the island shortly.’

Alongside the quay lay a boat, a brown sail wrapped round the mast and old motor tyres hanging over the sides. The out-going tide had left pools of water on the quay, and strands of seaweed had entangled themselves under the mooring rings. At the end of the quay three boys were fishing for fry and behind them sat glass jam-jars filled with shining water and green moss. Terence yearned to take off his sandals and dabble his scorched feet in the pools, but already his father was handing the suitcase to a man in the boat and he joined him to see the cargo being taken aboard: two bags of flour, a tea-chest filled with loaves and covered with sacking, a coil of barbed wire and two panes of glass.

There were five islanders, some tall and awkward-looking, standing loosely as if they were ashamed of their height. Terence and his father sat in the stern; the tyres were pulled in, and one of the crew lifted an oar and pushed the boat out from the quay. The gunwale was warm and blobs of resin had oozed out of the wood. The sky was clear, the sea smooth and a fierce sun striking into it.

Ballast stones were dropped overboard and Terence saw the water fizzle white and felt splashes of salt on his lips. Four oars were fixed between the thole-pins and dipped into the water simultaneously; drops dripped from the blades, whorls were left by the thrust of the oars, and looking back Terence watched for a long time the wrinkled patches of water fade into the smooth sea. He could still hear the dull thud of waves on the sand and he wondered in what part of the ocean the waves were hatched. He was going to ask his father, but he was now pointing out Fair Head to him and telling him a story about beautiful children who had been turned into swans and how for many lonely years they had wandered about this sea.

Far out from the Head two steamers were very black and seemed to float in the sky. Gulls flew close to the boat, their reflections clear in the smooth water; puffins stood up and flapped their wings, or to escape the boat they arose in a flock and flittered the top of the water with their feet. But for all the rowing the island seemed to draw no nearer. It lay spread out in front of them, its white cliffs like a row of teeth, and to the right its black cliffs polished by the sun.

‘Now, men,’ said Mr Devlin, ‘I could give one of you a spell,’ and he took an oar, splashed awkwardly, and broke the rhythmic dip-and-lift which had fascinated Terence.

‘Don’t dip the blade so deep,’ said one of the islanders, and with great patience he showed Mr Devlin how to feather his oar. In no time the sweat was gleaming on Mr Devlin’s forehead, and soon he had to take off his coat and waistcoat.

‘It’s tough work when yer not used to it,’ said a little brown-faced man who was rowing near the bow.

Mr Devlin grunted and turned around to look at the island: ‘I’m damned if we’re moving at all. I thought we’d row over in ten minutes.’

‘No, nor in ten times ten minutes. ’Tis a long pull – eight miles across.’

Mr Devlin puffed loudly and his oar left no whirling holes in the water. Presently he gave up: ‘Gentlemen, I think I’ve worked my passage,’ and he sat in the stern and his hands fell limply on his lap.

Later Mr Devlin began to ask questions about the island, and the boatmen answered him, and in his own mind he began to plan what walks he would take during his fortnight’s holiday. Terence picked out the white houses that lay in the scoops of the hills and the square-towered church and graveyard that edged the coast. Now the boat was passing between two quays, and a clump of men with their hands in their pockets gazed at the boat as she came in. There was a strong smell of rotting seaweed rising from the bay. White ducks were dozing on the grass above tide-mark; along the strand a man in his shirt-sleeves was carrying two cans of water, and a barefooted boy was throwing a stick into the water for a black dog to retrieve it.

Terence and his father made their way up the stony quay, past a rusty winch and a broken boat with green-scummed water. The houses were low and slated, and one of them with two sentry-box porches had its name in Gaelic letters printed on a thin board.

‘This is our ticket,’ said Mr Devlin, and they walked up a gravel path towards it.

A tall woman in black opened the door: ‘Welcome to the island,’ she said. ‘We didn’t see the boat comin’ in or faith we’d have sent Paddy down to meet it … Come on in. Annie’s bakin’ and the place is a bit throughother.’

They were in a warm kitchen with a shining range, and Annie was turning farls of bread on a griddle and hurried to greet them: ‘Ye must be famished with the hunger. I’ll not be long gettin’ the things on the table.’

The two women were dressed alike: black blouses with high collars, grey hair topped with big combs, but Annie had on a spotted apron, and two broad rings were grooved so tightly on her finger that the flesh was swollen at each side.

‘Lizzie,’ she said quietly, ‘take their things up to the room,’ and she stood beside Terence, holding his cap and stroking his fair hair.

A door opened on the opposite side of the kitchen and Paddy slouched in, his sleeves rolled up, a rough-haired terrier at his heels. The dog began to bark at the strangers and Paddy swiped at him with his hat: ‘Chu, you brute! Chu, Bumper, and have some manners!’

He shook hands with Terence and Mr Devlin, and then sat beside them on the sofa, idly picking clay from his fingers with his thumb nail. Annie moved from the table to the griddle: she was very quiet, shadow-like, her elastic-sided boots making no noise, her eyes withdrawn and brooding.

The kitchen was big: a wag-at-the-wall ticked loudly, and in the deep window that faced the sea there was a white spool, a yellow tape, and a calendar with its leaves curled and a red outline of a fish on all the Friday dates.

‘Ye got a lovely day for crossin’, so ye did,’ put in Paddy. ‘It was a long pull, but ye had the tide with ye.’

‘There wasn’t a ripple. I never saw the sea so calm,’ answered Mr Devlin.

Annie scraped the griddle noisily with a knife and swept the scrapings into her hand with a goose’s wing. Paddy crossed and re-crossed his legs.

‘The sea was like oil,’ continued Mr Devlin, trying to make conversation. ‘And it was covered with birds.’

Annie dropped the knife, and then quietly opened the back door and went out.

Paddy got to his feet, glancing at the door: ‘Calm weather is scarce in these parts. There wasn’t an air of wind the past two days.’ He stuffed a piece of twisted paper between the bars of the grate and lit his pipe. ‘Weather like this would do no good; the soil’s as dry as snuff.’

Annie came in and Paddy added hurriedly: ‘And, Mr Devlin, while you’re here you must get a night or two’s fishin’. The sea’s thick with fish.’ He hitched his belt: ‘I’ll leave ye now till you get your tay. I’ve a field of purties I have to weed.’

Bumper slid out from under the table, but when he saw Lizzie enter with an old raincoat he wagged his tail.

Lizzie smiled at Terence and turned to the dog: ‘Bumper, are ye goin’ to Ballycarry?’ The dog jumped into the air three times, ran under the stairs and came out with a basket in his mouth.

Terence laughed and said to his father: ‘Could I go to Ballycarry?’

Lizzie folded her arms: ‘Ah, child, it’s too far. It’s away up in the mountains, but if you come here next year you’ll be a big boy and I’ll take you and Bumper up to Ballycarry.’

Kneeling on the sofa he watched through the window: Bumper walked in front, the basket in his mouth; Lizzie followed, a gleaming can hooked to her elbow. They passed behind a limestone wall, her head bobbing up and down; then the road swept alongside a hill, dipped into a hollow and they were lost from sight.

For the next two days while his father tramped the island gathering specimens of wild flowers Terence played about the house waiting for the time when Bumper and Lizzie were to set out for Ballycarry. On the third day he was strolling about like that when he saw the door of a little lean-to lying open. Cautiously he went in and found Annie sharpening a knife on a hone. She didn’t hear him. The sun was shining through a small window and the shadow of a bush flickered against the pane. It was cool and quiet, and broken cobwebs dangled from the bare slates. There was no sound except the rasp of the knife. He was going to go out when he saw on a shelf a model schooner with brown sails, brass hooks and rings, and underneath the tail-shaped stern the painted name: Windswept.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘who owns the lovely boat?’

Annie started at the voice and turning round she saw him tapping the deck and moving the sails backwards and forwards. Silently she stared at him. He stroked the hull with the palm of his hand and toyed with the helm.

‘Who owns it?’ he asked again, his eyes wide with anticipated joy.

For a moment she was rigid, then she relaxed, and a look of brooding doubt spread across her face. Again he tapped the deck, and her expression changed to one of patient sadness.

‘You can play with it,’ she said, almost in a whisper. ‘You can play with it, and Paddy will show you how to trim the sails.’

In a minute he was out and off to the shore. Paddy met him: ‘Where are you goin’ with that? You can’t have that!’ he said in great surprise.

‘Annie lent it to me. She said I could play with it and you could fix the sails for me.’

‘Wait now a minute. Don’t go away.’ And Paddy hurried up to the little lean-to. Annie was standing in the shadow of the doorway and came to meet him. Both raised their hands and waved to Terence to go on. Paddy followed him, thinking how long the little schooner had remained on its stand and how for many years Annie had polished it: ‘It’s curious the changes that come over people – changes ye’d never dream of.’ And he rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.

He sat on the beach stones above the little bay, took the schooner on his lap and showed Terence how to use the helm: ‘Turn it to the left when you’re sailin’ her with her bow pointin’ to the house.’

Terence took off his sandals and placed the schooner in the water. All her sails tightened in the breeze and her brass rings glinted in the sun. Annie saw it from the door: the rust-brown sails, the wet-gleaming hull, and the silver flakes of water skimming from the bow. Paddy walked along the strand, then a disturbing thought whorled in his mind, for he wondered was the ship watertight after her years on the stand? He called to Terence to bring it up to him, and with his ear to the hull he turned the boat up and down; he could hear nothing except a slight seed-rattle of a chip of wood inside her.

‘She’s as tight as a pig-skin – a lovely boat! She’s the girl can whip along in a thin breeze … Take good care of her.’

All that day Terence played with the boat, and in the evening after his supper Annie, with a thin shawl on her shoulders, came down to the shore to bring him home. The sun had gone down and the water was darkened by a chilly breeze.

He shouted: ‘Look now!’ as the boat tore across the bay and a knife-curve of water rolled white at her bow.

‘Come, Terence, it’s gettin’ late. What’ll your father say if you’re not in bed when he comes back from fishin’?’

She waited on the shore road for him, and presently he came floundering up the loose stones of the beach with the schooner hugged to his breast. He was out of breath and full of joy. Then he saw that her eyes were wet.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘I was just thinkin’,’ she answered clumsily and tried to draw his attention to a shower of moths that flickered over a field of beans.

‘But why were you crying?’ he persisted.

‘I was thinking of the boat. It was my husband made it.’

‘And will he make one for me?’ Terence asked eagerly.

‘Indeed, he’d make you one.’

‘And when will he make it? Where is he?’ he kept repeating. ‘Where is he?’

She stood still on the road: ‘When he comes back, please God, he’ll make you one.’

‘And when will he be back?’

‘It’s getting cold. We must hurry now,’ she evaded.

There was great heat in the kitchen from the humming range. The curtains were drawn and the oil lamp lighted. Terence was allowed to look at the book of flowers that his father had already gathered and sometimes Annie would bend over him, take from her apron pocket a sugar lump and put it in his mouth. He loved this time of the evening with no one in the kitchen but the two of them, and even Annie, herself, looked forward to this hour before his bedtime. He was great company. Sometimes he would thread her needle and she would sit and watch him, her hands loosely on her lap. She would give him milk to drink and he would sit near the range feeling the heat on his knees and hearing outside the unhurried breath of the waves. Then when he would nod his head in sleep she would light a candle and bring him to his room. She used to allow him to keep the schooner under the dressing-table, but one evening when she heard him coughing she stole upstairs and found him asleep on the floor beside the schooner.

The next day she feared he would have a cold, but he set off with his father to swim and later she coaxed him to sit with her in the sunny field at the back of the house. The foot of the field had a crop of blossomed potatoes and Paddy was spraying them with bluestone and from where they sat they could hear the spray rattling like hail on the leaves and see the blue sheen of it as it dried in the sun. Butterflies pirouetted over the field and Terence caught one and placed it on the palm of his hand. The powder from its wings clung to his fingers and he put the butterfly on the ground and it began to struggle up a blade of grass.

‘It’ll never fly again,’ Annie said to him as she looked over the calm sea. ‘The powder on its wings means as much to it as wind for the sails of a boat.’

The remark hurt him and he watched with growing sorrow the blade of grass bending under the weight of the ungainly butterfly and how brilliantly white its helpless wings shone in the sun.

Paddy came up to them for a drink from the can of milk, his eyebrows and clothes covered with a fine blue dust. One foot crushed the butterfly, and Terence was going to cry out when he noticed that Annie was engrossed in her knitting and didn’t see what had happened. Presently she got up and went inside to get ready the tea, leaving her rug and knitting in the field.

‘Do you know what you’ve done?’ said Terence to Paddy. ‘You’ve tramped on a butterfly and killed it.’

‘And sure what sin is there in that?’ replied Paddy, noticing how his lips quivered. ‘Sure they only live for a day and some of them don’t live as long as that – the swallows and thrushes snap them in two while you’d wink.’

Paddy lay back and pulled his hat over his face. Terence took off his sandals and felt the soft grass on his bare feet. He closed his eyes from the glare of the sun and thoughts of cool things stirred within his mind – moss floating in a jam-jar, drops on the blade of an oar, and rain washing the powder from a butterfly’s wings. He sat up and on gazing at the sea he saw that a schooner with all her canvas out was passing up the sound.

‘Oh, Paddy, look at the lovely schooner like Annie’s!’

Paddy took the hat from his eyes and stared at the ship: ‘It’s not often you see them about now. They’re a grand sight. That one is only drifting up there on the first of flood – there’s no wind for her.’

‘I’ll run and tell Annie.’

‘Come back here and let her make the tay,’ and he rose to his feet. ‘Come on with me and spray the spuds.’

Terence hesitated: ‘Let me tell her!’

‘You’ll not!’ Paddy said sharply. ‘Do what I say!’

Reluctantly Terence came over to him, and slowly they walked down to the barrel of spray, Paddy looking now and again at the schooner and calculating how long it would take her to drift out of the sound, knowing also that she would surely drift back again if the wind did not rise during the night.

He got Terence to pick up the flinty pieces of limestone that lay between the drills and to search under all the leaves for the Queen of the butterflies. ‘And you’ll know her,’ says Paddy, ‘by her wings, for she has one wing of pure gold and one of shining silver, and if you find her you’ll be able to sell her for hundreds of pounds.’ And while Terence searched, Paddy sprayed until the schooner had nearly passed up the sound. Then clapping the dust from his hands he went to the top of the field and gathered up the rug and the knitting.

When they came in Lizzie and Bumper had arrived from Ballycarry, and Bumper lay at the open door in the sun snapping at the flies. The cement floor was cold under Terence’s feet and Annie made him sit down at once and put on his sandals.

As the evening grew old the warmth left the earth and the potato-blossoms closed up and drooped their heads. In the kitchen a warm silence crept into all the corners and a trapped fly buzzed madly in a web.

During the night a rainy storm blew against the house, and in the morning when Terence wakened he saw his father standing at the window: ‘Terence, boy, it’s like a winter’s morning. The summer’s finished and tomorrow, if the boat can leave, you’ll be on your way back again.’

Two conflicting thoughts encumbered the boy’s mind: a desire that the storm would last a long time so that no boat could leave; a desire that the storm would die at once so that he could get sailing the schooner before he left. At breakfast he heard Paddy assure his father that the storm would last no time and that it would blow itself out before night.

When Annie was making the beds Terence went with her and from the window they looked out upon the bay. Ducks and hens sheltered under the boats that were hauled up on the grass. The wind flayed the water into jagged peaks; waves tore between the two quays, crashed on the strand, and sent jabbling fingers amongst the stones on the beach. Gulls rose from the stones and tipped the waves before they broke. Tangles of brown sea-wrack curved the bay and clumps of it floated in a solid mass.

‘Oh, look!’ Terence would call out as a big wave struck the quay and burst in snowy spray. Annie would cross to the window and share for a moment the vigorous joy of wind-torn water.

When she had the beds made Terence shyly plucked her apron: ‘Could I have the boat?’

‘Terry, you have no sense – one wave would smash the riggin’ and leave it like a butterfly that had lost its wings,’ and she stroked his head and smiled at him meekly.

‘Well, could I have it after a while if the wind goes away?’

‘We’ll see.’

In the afternoon the wind had fallen; and late that evening when the wind was exhausted and only a glimmer of it flicked across the bay Terence pleaded again for the boat.

Annie laughed at him: ‘At this time! Ye’d be frozen down on the shore.’

‘Ah, please, I’ll be going away in the morning.”

‘But sure you’ll be back next year and you can sail it till you heart’s content.’

‘Just one more for the last,’ he kept pleading.

Paddy was dozing on the sofa, and Lizzie was trying to read a paper in the light from the fire, but did not raise her head.

Terence asked again.

‘All right,’ said Annie, and getting the key she went out for the schooner. ‘Just sail her once. Darkness will soon be here.’

The chilly water took his breath away as he set the rudder and let the boat slide from his hand. As he ran along the cold strand he could see the sails black against the light from the water. He sailed her back across the bay again and then heard Annie call to him from the lighted doorway.

‘I’m going now,’ he shouted, waiting for the boat to come to shore. But then something happened. The schooner stopped, tangled in a clump of floating wrack. He waited for her to free herself. Then he noticed she was slewing round. He clenched his hands and involuntarily pressed his feet into the sand. The sails flapped, caught the wind, and she headed out between the two quays towards the open sea. He began to cry. He ran to the first quay. He skinned his legs as he climbed on to it from the strand. Annie called to him again, but he didn’t hear her. He lifted a boat-hook that lay on the quay and peered at the waves that slopped in amongst the stone steps. Once he thought he saw something pass at great speed, but he wasn’t sure. Backwards and forwards he ran from one quay to the other like a dog that had lost his master. Desperately he searched, lifting up sand-soaked tins and flinging them into the water. His throat was scorched. He heard Annie call to him from the shore: ‘Terence, Terence, are you there?’

He went back to look for his sandals. The incoming tide had almost covered them. Annie came down to him over the beach stones: ‘Where did you get to?’

He couldn’t answer. When she came close to him she saw him without the boat and heard him sobbing.

‘Where’s the boat?’ she asked.

Through his tears he told her how he had fixed the rudder and how the boat had caught in wrack and had turned round. She stood beside him and squeezed his head against her breast: ‘Don’t cry, Terence. Don’t take it so ill.” A deep shivering convulsed her and she squeezed him with great possessiveness and stroked his hair.

Paddy and Lizzie were seated at the fire and looked questioningly at Annie when they saw Terence’s scratched legs and the tears in his eyes.

‘He lost the boat,’ said Annie, ‘and he’s broken-hearted.’ An awkward silence fell. Lizzie poked the fire and Paddy fumbled in his pockets.

‘Wash your face and legs and don’t let your father see you in that state,’ and she made much noise under the stairs getting a basin and a towel. Lizzie and Paddy said nothing.

‘Don’t cry; sure that could happen to anyone?’ she said, drying his face and legs.

‘It was the rudder … I fixed it right and it caught in seaweed on the way over and turned round.’

‘They’re a misfortunate thing to put on any model boat,’ put in Paddy.

Annie stared at him, and he went out and walked about until the lamp had been lowered in the kitchen and all had gone to bed.

In the morning it was raining heavily and some sheep that were to be taken to the mainland stood on the quay bleating and calling to others that were being driven along the strand. Dogs were barking, and drenched men with no overcoats shouted to one another. Mr Devlin heard them as he washed, and he hurried Terence out of bed and carried down the suitcase to the kitchen.

‘There’ll be a bit of a jabble on the sea,’ said Paddy as they sat down to their breakfast. ‘It’s raining badly and I have an ould bit of a sail you can spread on your knees.’

He looked out of the door: ‘Yiv plenty of time – eat yer fill. They’re carrying the sheep to the boat but I’ll not bring my three down till yer nearly ready.’

Through the open door they could hear the melancholy bleat of sheep and see a loose web of rain wind-trailed across the bay.

Annie was quiet: ‘You’ll send Terence back next year for all his holidays. Paddy, there, could meet the train at Ballycastle.’

‘Would you like that?’ said Mr Devlin.

Terence nodded his head. He wanted to talk about the schooner, but he knew if he opened his mouth no words would come.

Paddy carried the suitcase to the boat, Lizzie and Bumper followed. In the porch Annie held Terence’s hand: ‘It won’t be long till next summer and if God spares us all you’ll be back again.’

He couldn’t look up at her and he noticed that stains of salt water had whitened the toes of his sandals.

‘Goodbye,’ she said and watched them go down the gravel path.

They clambered into the wet-soaked boat and a man rubbed a seat for them with a wisp of straw. When Paddy had tied the legs of his sheep he carried them aboard and sat beside Terence and Mr Devlin. The sail was unrolled from the mast and blobs of rain-water fell from its folds; it filled in the breeze and the driving rain rattled on it like countless bird-pecks. Lizzie stood on the quay with her arms folded and Bumper ran around shaking the rain from himself. From the porch Annie waved to Terence; the tears came to his eyes and he pretended to look for something under the seat. The water slid past the boat, her bows crunched into the waves, and Terence raised his head and scanned the shore for the schooner. But he could see nothing, only black rocks with waves jumping over them. Slanting clouds heaved up against the hills and stitched the valleys with rain. The houses were falling behind and soon there would be nothing to mark them except the big telegraph pole above the post-office.

The wet sheep lay on yellow straw, steam was rising from them, and now and again with the pitch of the boat they tried to scramble to their feet. The rain wormed down the bit of sail that was spread across Terence’s knees, and Paddy tried to light his pipe by pulling the edge of the sail over his head.

Terence now searched the sea, and his gaze was so prolonged and intense that Mr Devlin nudged Paddy: ‘He’s looking for the boat.’

‘Ach, God knows where she is by this time,’ replied Paddy.

‘Would it cost much to replace it?’

‘Ach, Mr Devlin, it’s not the cost that matters – it’s what it meant to Annie,’ and he bent confidentially to Mr Devlin. ‘It was her husband that made it thirty years ago. It was a model of his own ship and since he went away she cleaned and polished it. It held raw memories for her!’

‘Where is he now?’ Mr Devlin asked.

‘He never came back. They were married in June and early in September of the same year he went away and she never saw him again.’

‘Were they … happy?’

‘Happy! … He was a ship’s carpenter – a fine lump of a fella – and made every stick of furniture that went into their house. They lived at Ballycarry on the east side of the island. We still have the house, but she never goes there now … She still thinks he’ll come back.’

‘And will he, do you think?’

Paddy shook his head: ‘He’ll not, poor fella. I think he’s drowned.’

Terence’s eyes were on the sea, but sometimes when a sheep would move he would stretch out his hand and pat its wet head. Paddy spoke in a low voice, but Terence wasn’t listening to him.

‘They spent three happy months together on the island,’ continued Paddy. ‘His ship was bound for Canada for a load of grain. It left the Clyde and it was to pick him up passing the island. He was on the look-out for it and when it came into the sound they sent a small boat ashore for him. But at night the wind had fallen and the schooner was becalmed.’

Mr Devlin noticed that his suitcase was lying flat and the rain was creeping into it, but he did not move and inclined his head nearer to Paddy’s.

‘Annie kept her light in the window and at dawn she was down on the shore looking out at the great schooner. She waved, knowing he’d see her. The next day the ship was still there. It was a day like the one you met coming to the island – terribly warm. But during the night a wind sprung up and she saw her lights moving out of the sound … That was the last she saw.’

‘And what happened?’

‘The boat nor crew were never heard tell of … She always felt that he was alive and that he’d come back … She’s got very old waiting … For a while she used to walk about the house at night, opening and shutting doors. But she got over that.’

‘It’s a great pity Terence lost the little schooner on her. She shouldn’t have lent it to him.’

‘Ah, Mr Devlin, she has a great liking for your son – great liking. And you’ll have to send him back next summer. The loss of the wee schooner may do good, for it’s gone now and she won’t be cleaning it and thinking … There was times I wish somebody had stolen it.’

They were both silent. Three big waves hit the boat and sent the spray flying over them.

‘Man, Terence,’ said Paddy, ‘if the wee schooner met fellas like that they’d make short work of her. But, maybe, she’s ashore somewhere below the white rocks.’

‘And will you look for her?’

‘I will, I will,’ said Paddy, trying to relight his damp pipe. But the abstracted way he answered made Terence feel that the schooner meant nothing to Paddy; he knew he would never see it again and that he’d have no schooner to play with when he’d come back next year.