stay and have some with us,
and we can make you up a bed in the kitchen."

He could see that his mother wished to welcome him, but her heart was
set against him now as it had always been. Her dislike had survived ten
years of absence. He had gone away and had met with a mother who loved
him, and had done ten years' hard seafaring. He had forgotten his real
mother--forgotten everything except the bee and the hatred that
gathered in her eyes when she put it down his back; and that same ugly
look he could now see gathering in her eyes, and it grew deeper every
hour he remained in the cottage. His little brother asked him to tell
him tales about the sailing ships, and he wanted to go down to the
canal with Ulick, but their mother said he was to bide here with her.
The day had begun to decline, his brother was crying, and he had to
tell him a sea-story to stop his crying. "But mother hates to hear my
voice," he said to himself, and he went out into the garden when the
story was done. It would be better to go away, and he took one turn
round the garden and got over the paling at the end of the dry ditch,
at the place he had got over it before, and he walked through the old
wood, where the trees were overgrown with ivy, and the stones with
moss. In this second experience there was neither terror nor
mystery--only bitterness. It seemed to him a pity that he had ever been
taken out of the canal, and he thought how easy it would be to throw
himself in again, but only children drown themselves because their
mothers do not love them; life had taken a hold upon him, and he stood
watching the canal, though not waiting for a boat. But when a boat
appeared he called to the man who was driving the horse to stop, for it
was the same boat that had brought him from the Shannon.

"Well, was it all right?" the steersman said. "Did you find the house?
How were they at home?"

"They're all right at home," he said; "but father is still away. I am
going back. Can you take me?"

The evening sky opened calm and benedictive, and the green country
flowed on, the boat passed by ruins, castles and churches, and every
day was alike until they reached the Shannon.

CHAPTER XII

THE WILD GOOSE

He remembered a green undulating country out of which the trees seemed
to emerge like vapours, and a line of pearl-coloured mountains showing
above the horizon on fine days. And this was all. But this slight
colour-memory had followed him all thr