Her dislike had
survived ten years of absence. He had gone away and had met with a
mother who loved him, and had done ten years' hard seafaring. He
had forgotten his real mother--forgotten everything except the bee
and the hatred that gathered in her eyes when she put it down his
back; and that same ugly look he could now see gathering in her
eyes, and it grew deeper every hour he remained in the cottage.
His little brother asked him to tell him tales about the sailing
ships, and he wanted to go down to the canal with Ulick, but their
mother said he was to bide here with her. The day had begun to
decline, his brother was crying, and he had to tell him a sea-
story to stop his crying. "But mother hates to hear my voice," he
said to himself, and he went out into the garden when the story
was done. It would be better to go away, and he took one turn
round the garden and got over the paling at the end of the dry
ditch, at the place he had got over it before, and he walked
through the old wood, where the trees were overgrown with ivy, and
the stones with moss. In this second experience there was neither
terror nor mystery--only bitterness. It seemed to him a pity that
he had ever been taken out of the canal, and he thought how easy
it would be to throw himself in again, but only children drown
themselves because their mothers do not love them; life had taken
a hold upon him, and he stood watching the canal, though not
waiting for a boat. But when a boat appeared he called to the man
who was driving the horse to stop, for it was the same boat that
had brought him from the Shannon.
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