Read Online Shannon by Frank Delaney - Free Book Online Page B

gold.
    Robert Shannon had chosen well for history, geography, mood, and lore. Ahead of him lay a journey that would unfold to him three fine gifts: hope, story, and reward. The hope, dimly in place as a glimmer from childhood, came from his belonging to such a great natural force.
    After all, his river could be called the mightiest in the world— if measured in proportion to the nation that it serves.
    And, this being Ireland, the story element lay ahead in abundance— rich story, both narrated and experienced; the story in the word
history;
the story that comes up out of the very ground, out of ancient earth, all light and color and fire, and no shortage of voices to tell and embellish it.
    As for reward, he faced an unusual experience, often sought by travelers and diminishingly available today. He could actually capture, in great part, the sense, the moral style, and the tempo of the same country his forebears had left a couple of centuries earlier. This nineteen-twenties voyager across Ireland traveled in old times— and, his journey now at last begun in earnest, he could look around him with livelier eyes.
    His map gave him no idea of what textures lay ahead; he had only the road in red ink. But the place-names called to him like bells: Glin, Limerick, Castleconnell, Killaloe, Portumna, Athlone. He felt steadier; he was excited. For a moment that morning—just one moment—he had been a little rocky. When he lost sight of the O'Sullivans, the familiar stricture of fear reached his throat. He swallowed hard, as Dr. Greenberg had instructed, and it worked. By now the urge to claw at his mouth was no more than a faint memory of a distasteful reflex. He no longer put his fingers down his throat until he retched.
    Molly had packed sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs and instructed him not to eat them all at once. Nevertheless he opened the packet and savored the welter of tastes. He argued to himself that he didn't know when he'd eat that day. The O'Sullivans had never queried him as to where he might next come to rest— and Robert never observed that they felt no need to ask.
    When they talked about him that night, as they did almost every day for a month after he'd gone, they again mentioned his eyes. Robert knew about them himself from his proud mother; Julia said that he'd inherited their color from her own grandfather, a man who'd owned whaling ships out of New Bedford and whose eyes had the faded blue of distant seas. Now those eyes viewed the road and the river ahead.
    When the Irish Project was finally mapped out, the archbishop sat Robert down. He had arranged the room's two leather armchairs face-to-face, a few feet apart.
    “I have to look at you, Robert, into your face, into your eyes, as I tell you this.”
    In his farmer's walk he lumbered down the room and locked the door. When he came back, Robert sat upright, waiting.
    Once in his chair, Anthony Sevovicz sent a massive hand over his large face. As usual, he used twenty words where one would have done.
    “If I have judged your vital matters accurately, Robert, if I have measured the progress of your spirit in the way that best tells me how you are feeling—and shows me the point to where your recovery has progressed— I believe you are indeed ready to undertake this Irish journey.”
    Then, as he did with everything, he made himself the most important person in the exchange.
    “I myself am familiar with adventures. I too have walked a great journey. It is important to you that I tell you about it. In the month before my ordination to the priesthood, I suffered deep qualms of faith and vocation. Did I truly wish to serve God in this exclusive manner, or was I merely attempting to dress myself in good cloth—and, of course, please my parents? A son who is a priest carries his parents to God. Ordination would also make me the most important member of my large family. Poland is like that; in Poland, the priest is the prince of the family. I would become such