An Isle in the Water by Katharine Tynan

Mrs. Sheehy was blest with two sons. Of the elder she had seen little since his early boyhood, when his love for handling tarry ropes and sails, and his passion for the water-side, had resulted in his shipping as cabin-boy on a China-bound ship. There was undoubted madness in the Sheehy blood, but in this sailor son, so long as he kept sober, there was no manifestation of it except it might be in a dreaminess and romanticism uncommon to his class. He was an olive-skinned, brown-eyed fellow, with such a refined face as might have belonged to an artist or musician. He had the mellow colour Murillo loved. The mad strain which, in the case of greatly gifted people, has often seemed to be the motive power of genius, in him took the form of a great cleverness, -- an esoteric cleverness and ingenuity added to the sailor's dexterity.

But it is not with Willie I have to deal, though the story of his marriage is a little romance in itself. It was Mick was the prodigal son. Every one about the country knew and liked Mick. He was a bit of an omadhaun, that is to say a simpleton, -- but quite unlike the shambling idiots of whom every village possessed one, who was a sort of God's fool to the people, till some new legislation locked them all up in the work-houses, poor things!