o see old scenes, to be in old scenes. The
little boy going down to the sea in ships, seeking an island he had seen
in a mirage ... a mood of wonder.... There were feet, there was the
world. Every tree was an emerald miracle, every house a mystery, all
people were riddles.... Come, little boy, come and look! The instinct of
the salmon for the sea. The river where he was spawned hurries to the
sea, and his instinct is to go with it, not against it.... It deepens
and broadens, and ahead is always a clearer pool, a more shadowy rock, a
softer water-fern. It is pleasant to swim under the sallow-branches, and
rapids whip.... And there is the lull of an estuary, and the
_chush-chush_ of little waves, and he is in the sea.... And now he must
lay his own course.... The lure of the river has brought him so far.

And Shane thought: I was born a salmon in a river. The stupid pretty
trout remained in the river, and the secretive eels.... And the perch
and the roach and the ponderous bream, and the pike that is long of
snout, they remained by the grassy waters.... But those that are born
salmon must go down to the sea....

A little shadow came into his face, and his breath was caught sharp. He
was remembering Moyra, the wife he had, and he no older than a boy....
Like some strange fascination, ugly dream that came to him.... And
queerly enough, the picture of Moyra's mother, the old wife of Louth,
was clearer in his mind than his wife.... Moyra was like some troubled
cloud, a thing that blotted out sunshine for a while, through no fault
of its own, but the mother was sinister. An old woman keening, and the
breath of whisky on her, and her eyes sobering in a bitter greed.... Why
should Moyra have died? Fate: the act of God: whatever you care to call
it. Why should he have been dragged into it, Shane wondered. If he
hadn't, what would have happened? He didn't know. But he knew this, that
in the marriage to Moyra he had been gripped by the shoulder, and looked
in the eyes, and a voice had said: "Wait. All is not wonder and mystery.
Life is not a child's toy. You must learn."

Poor Moyra, he could hardly remember anything but her pleading,
half-inimical eyes, her mouth that twisted easily to anger, her shame
that her hands and feet were uncouth. And now she had loved him. And now
hated him. He remembered one May evening when suddenly she had caught
his hand and kissed it, and pressed it to her heart. And later that
night she had curse