Among the Mermaids Read online

  the way he puffed at it that he was full of pity and con-

  tempt for my skepticism.

  “Come now,” I said: “did you ever see a mermaid?”

  “I did not,” said Peter, “but my mother was acquainted

  with one. That was in Inishmore, where I was born and

  reared.”

  I waited. The chance of getting Peter to tell an interest-

  ing story is to wait patiently. Any attempt to goad him on by

  asking questions is like striking before a fish is hooked. The

  chance of getting either story or fish is spoiled.

  “There was a young fellow in the island them times,” said

  Peter, “called Anthony O’Flaherty. A kind of uncle of my fa-

  ther’s he was, and a very fine man. There wasn’t his equal at

  running or lepping, and they say he was terrible daring on

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  the sea. That was before my mother was born, but she heard

  tell of what he did. When she knew him he was like an old

  man, and the heart was gone out of him.”

  At this point Peter stopped. His pipe had gone out. He

  relit it with immense deliberation. I made a mistake. By way

  of keeping the conversation going I asked a question.

  “Did he see a mermaid?”

  “He did,” said Peter, “and what’s more he married one.”

  There Peter stopped again abruptly, but with an air of

  finality. He had, so I gathered, told me all he was going to tell

  me about the mermaid. I had blundered badly in

  asking my question. I suppose that some note of

  unsympathetic skepticism in my tone suggested

  to Peter that I was inclined to laugh at him. I did

  my best to retrieve my position. I sat quite silent

  and stared at the peak of the mainsail. The block

  on the horse rattled occasionally. The sun’s rim touched the

  horizon. At last Peter was reassured and began again.

  “It was my mother told me about it, and she knew, for

  many’s the time she did be playing with the young lads, her

  being no more than a little girleen at the time. Seven of them

  there was, and the second eldest was the one age with my

  mother. That was after herself left him.”

  “Herself ” was vague enough; but I did not venture to ask

  another question. I took my eyes off the peak of the mainsail

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  and fixed them inquiringly on Peter. It was as near as I dared

  go to asking a question.

  “Herself,” said Peter, “was one of them ones.”

  He nodded sideways over the gunwale of the boat. The

  sea, though still calm, was beginning to be moved by that

  queer restlessness which comes on it at sunset. The tide ed-

  died in mysteriously oily swirls. The rocks to the eastward

  of us had grown dim. A gull flew by overhead uttering wail-

  ing cries. The graceful terns had disappeared. A cormorant,

  flying so low that its wing-tips broke the water, sped across

  our bows to some far resting-place. I fell into a mood of real

  sympathy with stories about mermaids. I think Peter felt the

  change which had come over me.

  “Anthony O’Flaherty,” said Peter, “was a young man

  when he saw them first. It was in the little bay back west of

  the island, and my mother never rightly knew what he was

  doing there in the middle of the night; but there he was. It

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  was the bottom of a low spring tide, and there’s rocks off

  the end of the bay that’s uncovered at the ebb of the springs.

  You’ve maybe seen them.”

  I have seen them, and Peter knew it well I have seen more

  of them than I want to. There was an occasion when Peter

  and I lay at anchor in that bay, and a sudden shift of wind

  set us to beating out at three o’clock in the morning. The

  rocks were not uncovered then, but the waves were breaking

  fiercely over them. We had little room for tacking, and I am

  not likely to forget the time we went

  about a few yards to windward of

  them. The stretch of wild surf un-

  der our lee looked ghastly white in

  the dim twilight of the dawn. Peter

  knew what I was thinking.

  “It was calm enough that night

  Anthony O’Flaherty was there,” he

  said, “and there was a moon shining,

  pretty near a full moon, so Anthony

  could see plain. Well, there was three of them in it, and they

  playing themselves.”

  “Mermaids?”

  This time my voice expressed full sympathy. The sea all

  round us was rising in queer round little waves, though there

  was no wind. The boom snatched at the blocks as the boat

  The stretch of wild

  surf under our

  lee looked ghastly

  white in the dim

  twilight of the

  dawn.

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  rocked. The sail was ghostly white. The vision of a mermaid

  would not have surprised me greatly.

  “The beautifulest ever was seen,” said Peter, “and neither

  shift nor shirt on them, only just themselves, and the long

  hair of them. Straight it was and black, only for a taste of

  green in it. You wouldn’t be making a mistake between the

  like of them and seals, not if you’d seen them right the way

  Anthony O’Flaherty did.”

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  Peter made this reflection a little bitterly. I was afraid

  the recollection of my unfortunate remark about seals might

  have stopped him telling the story, but it did not.

  “Once Anthony had seen them,” he said, “he couldn’t

  rest content without he’d be going to see them again. Many

  a night he went and saw neither sight nor light of them, for

  it was only at spring tides that they’d be there, on account

  of the rocks not being uncovered any other time. But at the

  bottom of the low springs they were there right enough,

  and sometimes they’d be swimming in the sea and some-

  times they’d be sitting on the rocks. It was wonderful the

  songs they’d sing—like the sound of the sea set to music was

  what my mother told me, and she was

  told by them that knew. The people

  did be wondering what had come

  over Anthony, for he was differ-

  ent like from what he had been,

  and nobody knew what took him

  out of his house in the middle of

  the night at the spring tides. There was

  a girl that they had laid down for him to

  marry, and Anthony had no objection to her before he seen

  them ones; but after he had seen them he wouldn’t look at

  the girl. She had a middling good fortune too but sure he

  didn’t care about that.”

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  I could understand Anthony’s feelings. The air of wind

  which Peter had promised, drawn from its cave by the lure of

  the departing sun, was filling our head-sails. I hauled in the

  main-sheet gently hand over hand and belayed it. The boat

  slipped quietly along close-hauled. The long line of islands

>   which guards the entrance of our bay lay dim before use.

  Over the shoulder of one of them I could see the lighthouse,

  still a distinguishable patch of white against the looming

  grey of the land. The water rippled mournfully under our

  bows and a long pale wake stretched astern from our coun-

  ter. “Fortune,” banked money,

  good heifers and even endur-

  ingly fruitful fields seemed

  very little matters to me then.

  They must have seemed still

  less, far less, to Anthony

  O’Flaherty after he had seen

  those white sea-maidens with

  their green-black hair.

  “There was a woman on the island in those times,”

  said Peter, “a very aged woman, and she had a kind of plas-

  ter which she made which cured the cancer, drawing it

  out by the roots, and she could tell what was good for the

  chin cough, and the women did like to have her with them

  when their children was born, she being knowledgeable in

  They must have seemed

  still less, far less, to

  Anthony O’Flaherty

  after he had seen those

  white sea-maidens with

  their green-black hair.

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  them matters. I’m told the priests didn’t like her, for there

  was things she knew which it mightn’t be right that anyone

  would know, things that’s better left to the clergy. Whether

  she guessed what was the matter with Anthony, or whether

  he up and told her straight my mother never heard. It could

  be that he told her, for many a one used to go to her for a

  charm when the butter wouldn’t come, or a cow, maybe, was

  pining; so it wouldn’t surprise me if Anthony went to her.”

  Peter crept aft. He took a pull on the jib-sheet and be-

  layed it again; but I do not believe that he really cared much

  about the set of the sail. That was his excuse. He wanted

  to be nearer to me. There is something in stories like this,

  told in dim twilight, with dark waters sighing near at hand,

  which makes men feel the need of close human companion-

  ship. Peter seated himself on the floorboards at my feet, and

  I felt a certain comfort in the touch of his arm on my leg.

  “Well,” he went on, “according to the old hag—and what

  she said was true enough, however she learnt it—them ones

  doesn’t go naked all the time, but only when they’re playing

  themselves on the rocks at low tide, the way Anthony seen

  them. Mostly they have a kind of cloak that they wear, and

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  they take the same cloaks off of them when they’re up above

  the water and they lay them down on the rocks. If so be that

  a man could pat his hand on e’er a cloak, the one that owned

  it would have to follow him whether she wanted to or not. If

  it was to the end of the world she’d have to follow him, or to

  Spain, or to America, or wherever

  he might go. And what’s more, she’d

  have to do what he bid her, be the

  same good or bad, and be with him

  if he wanted her, so long as he kept

  the cloak from her. That’s what the

  old woman told Anthony, and she

  was a skilful woman, well knowing

  the nature of beasts and men, and of

  them that’s neither beasts nor men.

  You’ll believe me now that Anthony

  wasn’t altogether the same as other

  men when I tell you that he laid his mind down to get his

  hand down on one of the cloaks. He was a good swimmer,

  so he was, which is what few men on the island can do, and

  he knew that he’d be able to fetch out to the rock where them

  ones played themselves.”

  I was quite prepared to believe that Anthony was in-

  spired by a passion far out of the common. I know nothing

  If so be that a man

  could pat his hand

  on e’er a cloak, the

  one that owned it

  would have

  to follow him

  whether she wanted

  to or not.

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  more terrifying than the chill embrace of the sea at night-

  time. To strike out through the slimy weeds which lie close

  along the surface at the ebb point of a spring tide, to clamber

  on low rocks, half awash for an hour or two at midnight,

  these are things which I would not willingly do.

  “The first time he went for to try it,” said Peter, “he felt a

  bit queer in himself and he thought it would do him no harm

  if he was to bless himself. So he did, just as he was stepping

  off the shore into the water. Well, it might as well have been

  a shot he fired, for the minute he did it they were off and

  their cloaks along with them; and Anthony was left there. It

  was the sign of the cross had them frightened, for that same

  is what they can’t stand, not having souls that religion would

  be any use to. It was the old woman told Anthony that after,

  and you’d think it would have been a warning to him not

  to make or meddle with the like of them any more. But it

  only made him the more determined. He

  went about without speaking to man

  or woman, and if anybody spoke to

  him he’d curse terrible, till the time

  of the next spring tide. Then he was

  off to the bay again, and sure enough

  them ones was there. The water was

  middling rough that night, but it

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  didn’t daunt Anthony. It pleased him, for he thought he’d

  have a better chance of getting to the rocks without them

  taking notice of him if there was some noise loud enough to

  drown the noise he’d be making himself. So he crept out to

  the point of the cliff on the south side of the bay, which is as

  near as he could get to the rocks. You remember that?”

  I did. On the night when we beat out of the bay against

  a rising westerly wind we went about once under the shad-

  ow of the cliff, and, almost before we

  had full way on the boat, stayed her

  again beside the rocks. Anthony’s

  swim, though terrifying, was short.

  “That time he neither blessed

  himself nor said a prayer, but slipped

  into the water, and off with him,

  swimming with all his strength.

  They didn’t see him, for they were

  too busy with their playing to take much notice, and of

  course they couldn’t be expecting a man to be there. With-

  out Anthony had shouted they wouldn’t have heard him, for

  the sea was loud on the rocks and their own singing was

  louder. So Anthony got there and he crept up on the rock

  behind them, and the first thing his hand touched was one

  of the cloaks. He didn’t know which of them it belonged to,

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  16

  and he didn’t care. It wasn’t any one of the three in particular

  he wanted, for they were all much about the same to look

  at, only finer than any woman ever was seen. So he rolled

  the cloa
k round his neck, the way he’d have his arms free for

  swimming, and back with him into the water, heading for

  shore as fast as he was able.”

  “And she followed him?” I asked.

  “She did so. From that day till the day she left him she

  followed him, and she did what she was bid, only for one

  thing. She wouldn’t go to mass, and when the chapel bell

  rang she’d hide herself. The sound of it was what she couldn’t

  bear. The people thought that queer, and there was a deal of

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  talk about it in the bland, some saying she must be a Protes-

  tant, and more thinking that she might be something worse.

  But nobody had a word to say against her any other way. She

  was a good enough housekeeper, washing and making and

  mending for Anthony, and minding the children. Seven of

  them there was, and all boys.”

  The easterly breeze freshened as the night fell I could see

  the great eye of the lighthouse blinking at me on the weather

  side of the boat. It became necessary to go about, but I gave

  the order to Peter very reluctantly. He handled the head-

  sheets, and then, instead of settling down in his old place,

  leaned his elbows on the coaming and stared into the sea.

  We were steadily approaching the lighthouse. I felt that I

  must run the risk of asking him a question.

  “What happened in the end?” I asked.

  “The end, is it? Well, in the latter end she left him. But

  there was things happened before that. Whether it was the

  way the priests talked to him about her—there was a priest

  in it them times that was too fond of interfering, and that’s

  what some of them are—or whether there was goings-on

  within in the inside of the house that nobody knew any-

  thing about—and there might have been, for you couldn’t

  tell what one of them ones might do or mightn’t. Whatever

  way it was, Anthony took to drinking more than he ought.

  There was poteen made on the island then, and whisky was

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  easy come by if a man wanted it, and Anthony took too

  much of it.”

  Peter paused and then passed judgment, charitably, on