The
schoolmaster and a priest who was to have gone with me came out as I
was passing through the village and advised me not to make the
passage; but my crew had gone on towards the sea, and I thought it
better to go after them. The eldest son of the family was coming
with me, and I considered that the old man, who knew the waves
better than I did, would not send out his son if there was more than
reasonable danger.
I found my crew waiting for me under a high wall below the village,
and we went on together. The island had never seemed so desolate.
Looking out over the black limestone through the driving rain to the
gulf of struggling waves, an indescribable feeling of dejection came
over me.
The old man gave me his view of the use of fear.
'A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drowned,' he said,
'for he will be going out on a day he shouldn't. But we do be afraid
of the sea, and we do only be drownded now and again.'
A little crowd of neighbours had collected lower down to see me off,
and as we crossed the sandhills we had to shout to each other to be
heard above the wind.
The crew carried down the curagh and then stood under the lee of the
pier tying on their hats with strings and drawing on their oilskins.
They tested the braces of the oars, and the oarpins, and everything
in the curagh with a care I had not seen them give to anything, then
my bag was lifted in, and we were ready.
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