The Untilled Field Part 32

Three years afterwards she died, and Ulick had to leave the cottage.

He was now a little over thirteen, and knew the ships and their sailors, and he went away in one of the ships that came up the river, and sailed many times round the coast of Ireland, and up all the harbours of Ireland. He led a wild rough life, and his flight from home was remembered like a tale heard in infancy, until one day, as he was steering his ship up the Shannon, a desire to see what they were doing at home came over him. The ship dropped anchor, and he went to the ca.n.a.l to watch the boats going home. And it was not long before he was asking one of the bargemen if he would take him on board. He knew the rules, and he knew they could be broken, and how, and he said if they would take him he would be careful the lockmen did not see him, and the journey began.

The month was July, so the days were as endless and the country was as green and as full of gra.s.s, as they were when he had come down the ca.n.a.l, and the horse strained along the path, sticking his toes into it just as he had done ten years ago; and when they came to a dangerous place Ulick saw the man who was driving the horse take hold of his tail, just as he had seen him do ten years ago.

"I think those are the rushes, only there are no trees, and the bank does not seem so high." And then he said as the bargeman was going to stop his horse, "No, I am wrong. It isn't there."

They went on a few miles further, and the same thing happened again. At last he said, "Now I am sure it is there."

And the bargeman called to the man who was driving the horse and stopped him, and Ulick jumped from the boat to the bank.

"That was a big leap you took," said a small boy who was standing on the bank. "It is well you didn't fall in."

"Why did you say that?" said Ulick, "is your mother telling you not to go down to the ca.n.a.l?"

"Look at the frog! he's going to jump into the water," said the little boy.

He was the same age as Ulick was when Ulick ran away, and he was dressed in the same little trousers and little boots and socks, and he had a little grey cap. Ulick's hair had grown darker now, but it had been as fair and as curly as this little boy's, and he asked him if his mother forbade him to go down to the ca.n.a.l.

"Are you a bargeman? Do you steer the barge or do you drive the horse?"

"I'll tell you about the barge if you'll tell me about your mother.

Does she tell you not to come down to the ca.n.a.l?"

The boy turned away his head and nodded it.

"Does she beat you if she catches you here?"

"Oh, no, mother never beats me."

"Is she kind to you?"

"Yes, she's very kind, she lives up there, and there's a garden to our cottage, and the name 'Hill Cottage' is painted up on the gate post."

"Now," said Ulick, "tell me your name."

"My name is Ulick."

"Ulick! And what's your other name?"

"Ulick Burke."

"Ulick Burke!" said the big Ulick. "Well, my name is the same. And I used to live at Hill Cottage too."

The boy did not answer.

"Whom do you live with?"

"I live with mother."

"And what's her name?"

"Well, Burke is her name," said the boy.

"But her front name?"

"Catherine."

"And where's your father?"

"Oh, father's a soldier; he's away."

"But my father was a soldier too, and I used to live in that cottage."

"And where have you been ever since?"

"Oh," he said, "I've been a sailor. I think I will go to the cottage with you."

"Yes," said little Ulick, "come up and see mother, and you'll tell me where you've been sailing," and he put his hand into the seafarer's.

And now the seafarer began to lose his reckoning; the compa.s.s no longer pointed north. He had been away for ten years, and coming back he had found his own self, the self that had jumped into the water at this place ten years ago. Why had not the little boy done as he had done, and been pulled into the barge and gone away? If this had happened Ulick would have believed he was dreaming or that he was mad. But the little boy was leading him, yes, he remembered the way, there was the cottage, and its paling, and its hollyhocks. And there was his mother coming out of the house and very little changed.

"Ulick, where have you been? Oh, you naughty boy," and she caught the little boy up and kissed him. And so engrossed was her attention in her little son that she had not noticed the man he had brought home with him.

"Now who is this?" she said.

"Oh, mother, he jumped from the boat to the bank, and he will tell you, mother, that I was not near the bank."

"Yes, mother, he was ten yards from the bank; and now tell me, do you think you ever saw me before?"... She looked at him.

"Oh, it's you! Why we thought you were drowned."

"I was picked up by a bargeman."

"Well, come into the house and tell us what you've been doing."

"I've been seafaring," he said, taking a chair. "But what about this Ulick?"

"He's your brother, that's all."

His mother asked him of what he was thinking, and Ulick told her how greatly astonished he had been to find a little boy exactly like himself, waiting at the same place.

"And father?"

"Your father is away."

"So," he said, "this little boy is my brother. I should like to see father. When is he coming back?"

"Oh," she said, "he won't be back for another three years. He enlisted again."