airns would never be like the old bairns, and it
would na be fair. And as for women, I've had my bellyful of women after
her I was kind to, and was true to for one and twenty years, going off
with some sweating landsman to a dingy town.... I was ay a good sailor,
Shane Oge....

"It's by now, nearly by.... So I'll be going up and down the sea on the
chance of meeting one of my new braw bairns. And maybe I'll come across
one of them on the water-front, and him needing me most.... And maybe
I'll sign articles wi' the one aboard the same ship, and it's the grand
cracks we'll have in the horse latitudes.... Or maybe I'll find one of
them a young buck officer aboard a ship I'm on; and he'll come for'a'd
and say: 'Lay aloft, old-timer, with the rest and be pretty God-damned
quick about it.' And I'll say: 'Aye, aye, sir.' And thinks: Wait till
you get ashore, and I'll tell you who I am, and give you a tip about
your seamanship, too, my grand young fello'.... Life has queerer things
nor that, Shane Oge, as maybe you know.... The only thing that bothers
me is that I'll never see Ballycastle any more."

"Is there nothing I can do for you, Simon Fraser?"

"There's a wee thing, Shane Campbell; just a wee thing?"

"What is it, man Simon?"

"Maybe you'd think me crazy--"

"Of course not, Simon."

"Well then, when you're home, and looking around you at the whins and
purple heather, and the wee gray towns, maybe you'll say: 'Glens of
Antrim, I ken a man of Antrim, and he'll never see you again, but he'll
never forget you.' Will you do that?"

"I'll do that."

"Maybe you'll be looking at Ballycastle, the town where I was born in."

"Yes, Simon."

"You don't have to say it out loud. You can stop and say it low in
yourself, so as nobody'll hear you, barring the gray stones of the town.
Just remember: 'Ballycastle, Simon Fraser's thinking long ...'"

Section 9

A cold southerly drove northward from the pole, chopping the muddy waves
of the river. Around the floating _camolotes_, islands of weeds, were
little swirls. The poplars and willows of the banks grew more distant,
as _Maid of the Isles_ cut eastward under all sail. As he tramped fore
and aft, Buenos Aires dropped, dropped, dropped behind her counter,
dropped ... became a blur....

_Maid of the Isles_ was only going home, as she had gone home a hundred
times before, from different ports, as she had gone home a dozen times
from this one. But never before had it seem