James B. Connolly

“ Why, that's so, too! There's the north shore—there's Costla. From Costla to Kilronan the wind won't be behind you, mind, but it will be a fair wind—fair enough for a passage. But, my soul, think of the risk."
"Risk?—in the boat?"
"In the boat?—yes—crossing Galway Bay in this gale."
"Would your fishermen here be afraid? They told me other tales of them, captain." The stranger smiled in an exasperating way.
"See here," said the captain. "Don't you run away with any notion that our fishermen hereabouts won't fish when any other men on earth would go out and fish in small boats. ”

“ From the stern of the jumping hooker the lawyer was trying to see things ahead and at the same time keep his feet.
"Not sure, ye say? Faith, but it's the weak eyes a man gets when he stops long ashore. That's Kilronan, and the long stone wall there is the pier. That's where we are going, if God is willing—to the other side of that pier. Now keep under the rail and out of the wet, if you can, for we're fair into it now." ”

“ Gerald raised his hand. "We'll not speak of the money. The man that would cross Galway Bay to-day for money, and wife and childer behind him, would be staining his soul with the black marks of a sin that the fires o' Purgatory would never burn out—never. But for Dannie Costello's childer that has to fight for the money he left behind sure 'tis a hard thing. The childer that can't get their own father's money—man, but it is the hard nature that is fighting them. ”

“ I said this morning that I'd give you fifty pounds to take me across Galway Bay. And here are the fifty pounds that I said I'd give you."
"Yes, yes, you said you'd give me it, but I never said I'd take it. Put up your money. It isn't for the money I'd be risking making a widder of Mora and orphans of the childer. No, sir; two pounds is my price this day—one day to-day, and another day to-morrow when I won't be able to get back to Costla, by the look of things now. No, no, sir; I'm telling you now 'tis never for money I'd do it. ”

“ There's a fair road from here to there; it's on the mail-car route that goes out of the western side of Galway. You go to Costla. First, of course, you go to the Royal Hotel up the street—that's where you just came from—and tell them you want a jaunting-car, a fast horse, and a good driver. Get Pat Kelley if you can, and have him arrange to have a fresh horse for you at Spiddal. There's always a fresh horse to be had at Spiddal, and that's half way to Costla. You ought to be at Costla Bay in two hours and a half. It's twenty-five miles. When you get to Costla, ask for Gerald Donohue. ”

“ Tell him what you told me, that the fortunes of those children, whose father was Kilronan born, may be hanging on your getting to Kilronan and back by to-night, and trust Gerald to put you across the bay to Arran Island if any living man will do it. And if he gets you across to Arran, then he'll make small work of bringing you on to Galway afterward, for it will be a fair wind from Arran back to Galway. He'll only have to keep her from swamping on the way back. And if Gerald won't do it, you can give it up-—no man on the coast will do it. ”

“ There's been more than one vessel capsized and more than one crew lost there, though 'twasn't all of them had ballast that stood like ours. Man, but the turf between the stones under our feet—'tis as good as the pig iron and the melted lead they puts in the bottom of the yachts. Yes, sir, every bit as good. When it holds, I mean. Sometimes it don't hold. And maybe it was the hand o' God—that jib blowing out back there. If it didn't go then, 'twould go that last time and that was a bad place to be stopping to bend on a new sail—don't you think but it was, sir?"
"Yes," said the lawyer. ”

“ And now he's dead, you tell me, and they're schemin', the villains, to keep the poor childer out o' the money. Sure an awful thing is law now, isn't it? Here, Tammie"—he turned to a twelve-year-old lad who was standing near and watching the surf break over the rocks below him. "Tammie, run up to the house like a good boy and get the two suits of oil-clothes—make haste now—while I will be reefing down the main-sail and taking in a bit of the jib. Make haste, Tammie, for it's makin' the wind is all the time. Yes, sir, it must be makin' when it isn't going down. ”

“ A wee little bit more and I could see Costla Bay with the lights in the Coast- Guard station—yes. Mora, 'tis little is the sleep you'll be giving yourself this night, nor another night till I'm home again. Sure the childer themselves, the wee little ones, will be asking for their father when they hear the wind scream over the rocks of Costla. ”

“ That's the bad spot for us. 'Tis that we'll have to weather if ever we make Kilronan. Man, but it's cruel to look at, isn't it now? There's where we'll have to let her take the wind in full. All this time, d' y' see, we've been close-hauled, but we'll have to swing her off now if we'd pass here. Watch out now and get a hold of something if you love life."
He put the tiller up into the wind, and around came her head. The wind took her fairly, and over she went. The lawyer thought she was going altogether, and the fisherman said, "Holy Mary!" ”

“ And what did she say?"
"She said, ''Tis the foolish man your father is, Tammie, but God speed him.' Can't I stay on the high rocks and watch you sail across, father?" pleaded the boy.
"No, b'y, no. It's too windy and cold there."
"But I want to see you sail the hooker across the bay, father. It's fast she'll sail in this wind. and I want to see her go."
"Then go up to the Coast-Guard station and watch from there with your cousin Malachi. 'Tis there you will be able to see beautiful from the look-out up top. Go now, Tammie, and say God-speed for us." ”

“ Sure, didn't me and the gentleman ate till we almost busted at the hotel?"
"At the hotel? What did you have there, father? Was it fine? and a lot of it?"
" 'Fine? and a lot of it'? There was everything any man could think of, and a lot some men could never think of. ”

“ I was up that time you left this morning to see if the hooker was all right when you heard the gale coming on. I saw you goin' out, though you didn't see me, 'cause it was dark—ooh, wasn't it dark, m-m-m—" He winked his eyes, rested his head against the edge of the bunk, and suddenly went off to sleep.
The fisherman bent over him. " The poor b'y, tired to death he is with his five-and-twenty mile on the mail-car this evenin'. Well, well, the faith of a child!" He gathered him up and laid him tenderly in the bunk. " ”

“ Here he groped about in the extreme darkness until his fingers rubbed against a piece of a candle and a card of matches that protruded from somewhere up between the deck-planking and a transverse beam. The matches he struck one after the other until he got one that would stay alight long enough to get the candle going. He raked over the ashes on the little stone slab that served him for a hearth, but found them all damp. "Man," he murmured, "but the water surely came through her old j'ints this day." ”