And once again Margaret Henan carried a babe to Belfast and had it christened Samuel.
Had she conceived Abstract Truth to be the one high goal of human endeavour on that day of long ago when she named her first-born Samuel? Or was hers the stubborn obstinacy of the ox?
"Wull ye be tellun' me," she said, "thot uf the second Samuel hod been named Larry thot he would no hov fell un the hot watter an' drownded?
Do the world run by hut or muss, an' be God a weak, shully-shallyun' creature thot ud alter the fate an' destiny o' thungs because the worm Margaret Henan seen fut tull name her bairn Samuel? There be my son Jamie.
"Then wull you be thunkun' thot God thot directs the stars un their courses, an' tull whose mighty foot the world uz but a footstool, wull you be thunkun' thot He wull take a spite again' Margaret Henan an' send a bug wave off the Cape tull wash her son un tull eternity, all because she was for namun' hum Samuel?"
I went down the dark road between the hawthorn hedges puzzling over the why of like, repeating SAMUEL to myself and aloud and listening to the rolling wonder in its sound that had charmed her soul and led her life in tragic places.
At the mention of Samuel I could have sworn to a strange light in her eyes, and it seemed to me, as by some telepathic flash, that I divined in her a tremendous wistfulness, an immense yearning.
Ut was all on account o' Samuel, which was the name o' her youngest an' they do say her favourut brother--hum oz died by hus own hond all through the munuster's mustake un no registerun' the new church ot Dublin.
"She was fair lunatuc on Samuel. Dudna her neighbours' an' all kuth an' kun savun' them thot luv'd un the house wuth her, get up an' walk out ot the christenun' of the second--hum thot was cooked?
"An' then was there no the third Samuel? An' when he was lost ot sea off the Cape, dudna she break all laws o' nature tull hov a fourth?
"The Samuels," Clara interpolated, with what I suspected was a giggle.
"And it was only the Samuels that died?" I queried, in further attempt.