got
back to Ballycastle."

"Would you care for a drink, Simon?"

"I don't care much either way, Shane Campbell. And if I wanted a drink
bad, I always have the silver for 't. I would no' have you think I
stopped you for to cadge a drink. I'm no' that kind of man. But I was
wi' your uncle Alan when he died. Or to be exact, I saw him just before
he died. I was visiting in Cushendun. I have a half-brither there you
might know, Tamas McNeil, Red Tam they ca' him. And whiles I was there,
I saw Alan Donn go down."

"My uncle Alan dead! Why, man, you're crazy--"

"Your uncle Alan's a dead man."

"You're mistaken, man. It's some one else."

"Your uncle Alan's a dead man. And what's more: I have a word from him
for ye."

"But I'd have heard."

"I cam' out in steam. It went against the grain a bit, but I cam' out in
steam. From Belfast.... With a new boat out of Queen's Island ... Alan
Donn's a dead man. That's why I stopped you. For to tell you your uncle
Alan's gone...."

"Come in, here," Shane said dazedly. He pulled the man into a bar, and
sat down in a snug. "Tell me."

"It was about nine in the morning, and an awful gray day it was, wi' a
heavy sea running and a nor'easter, and this schooner was getting the
timbers pounded out o' her. Her upper gear was gone entirely, and we
could no' see how she was below, on account of the high seaway. She was
a Frenchman, or a Portuguese. And she was gone. And we were all on
shore, wondering why she had no' put into Greenock or Stranraer, or what
kind of sailors they were at all, at all.

"Up comes your uncle Alan; and he says: 'Has anybody put out to give
those poor bastards a hand?' says he.

"'There's no chance, Alan Donn,' says we.

"And he says: 'How the hell do you know?' says he.

"And we say: 'Can't you see for youself, Alan Donn, wi' the sea that's
in it, and the wind that's in it, and the currents, there's no chance to
help them?'

"'So you're not going,' says he.

"'Och, Alan Donn, have sense,' says we.

"'If you aren't, then by Jesus, I am.'

"He turns to one of the men there, a fisherman by the name of Rafferty,
and he says: 'Hughie, get ready that wee boat o' yours, wi' the spitfire
foresail, and the wee trisail.'

"Then we said: 'You're not going, Alan Donn.'

"'Who's to stop me?' says he. All this time we had to shout on account
of the great wind was in it.

"'We think too much of you, Alan Donn, to let you go.'

"'If one o' you stinking badg