she got for the dillosk she gathered: and on a Sunday--faith! then, who
but she!--She'd her stockings and shoes, and a clane cap, as well as
the best to be seen at Mass. Miss Honor, and James Dingle's other two
sisters,--next to the great lady at The Beg,--are the finest folks in
these parts; for their aunt's a great farmer, by the two-mile-stone
from this: and they would often be saying,--them curls, that came out
in clusters under her cap, didn't become a Dillosk-girl; and tould her
she'd have more friends, if she'd comb them back, smooth and sleek away
behind her ears: but Norah said, she couldn't; for curl they would,
whether she wished them or no. This wasn't believed by the young ladies;
they couldn't credit that a Dillosk-girl's hair would curl up in that
way, without as much time being spent about it, as there was upon their
own long, black, horse-tail locks; and they said,--Norah Cavanagh had
better be at her devotions (though they themselves wasn't Catholics)
than to be wasting time twisting up her tresses to allure the young men
at Mass. And after that, when Norah wint, for a day or two now and then,
to help their aunt's maids at a busy time, and they got convinced, by
living under the same roof with her, and watching her closely, that
Nature was Norah's frizeur, they tould her, she ought to cut off her
locks if she'd wish to look dacent and get respected. But though Norah
wasn't obstinate in anything else, she was in this; and wouldn't do as
they bid her. You'll say she ought, perhaps: but, faith! there's many
things we ought to do, though we don't do them; and there's many a
beggar-man's daughter wouldn't barter her hair for a silk bonnet if you
doubt what I say, try two or three, and you'll see.
Norah was little, but nate and well-made hasn't it ever struck you,
that Nature often finishes off the little folks better than the big
ones?--Whether it has or no matters but little; for if there never was
another that was at once little and nate, Norah herself was; and even
those that disliked her never denied it;--and she had her enemies, and
not a few, I promise you. The girls hated her, for stealing away the
boys' hearts from them all; and the boys, after a bit, wouldn't give her
a good word, because she'd refused them.
Now you'll think, after this, Norah got married to some great
lord;--but she hadn't the luck. The fairest bird in the air gets caught
for its plumage; while the owl, and birds like him, go through the world
with little danger; and just so, beauty, that always adorns, too often
destroys, them that has it:--but that you've heard before, no doubt,
in them same or other words, and a great deal more, to the back of
it, which I could spake, if I liked, but I won't. It will answer every
purpose, I hope, if I say plainly, that it got whispered Norah had
met with a misfortune. I won't tell you how the girls giggled at this;
that's needless;--nor who it was that pretended to pity her, and
tried to worm out of her who'd been the destruction of her,--but they
couldn't:--that would be making a story that's too long already, longer
than it is, wouldn't it?--so I won't. You'll be satisfied, and, may
be, a little vexed, to know that, after a time, when Norah wint out to
gather the dillosk, there was a baby at her back.
It was a little thing,--very little,--not much bigger than a fairy; but
quite strong and healthy, and as handsome as a mother need wish. It was
a little picture of Norah, but not like any one else that ever was seen
in these parts: so nobody could tell, by a feature or look, who had a
call to it; and no power or persuasion could make No rah say whose it
was. Mistress Doolan, that time, it was thought, used to follow Paddy,
her husband, slily, when he wint out sometimes after dusk for anything,
to see would he be going the way to little Norah's cabin; for it's said
of her, she had some little suspicion,--or fear, may be,--that Pat might
have been backsliding, and playing the same sort of trick that, at
last and in the long run, brought him under the thumb. But she was
disappointed intirely: for Pat never had the misfortune to turn the way
she feared he would,--no, not even by chance.
Norah got paler and much thinner, and her lips lost their colour, and
her eyes sunk; but she was just as tidy as before, and held up her
head bouldly, in spite of the sneers of her neighbours; so that the
few half-friends she had left was obliged to confess she was a bit too
barefaced. But, musha! then, was it a soul in the barony--that is, boy
or man--that dared leer at her, or try to be upon terms with her that
wasn't respectful?--Her nature was changed; and when she repulsed them
that made up to her, it wasn't with scorn as before, but downright rage:
indeed, at last, though she was mild with such as behaved themselves, a
man might as well think of kissing a tigress as Norah.
Big Jack Dax,--he that's my lady's steward at The Beg,--had a nephew,
one Misther Millet, a small bit of a man, mighty puny and spruce, with a
white face, and pimples on his chin, but no beard; you'd think a breath
would blow him away; and about the time I'm spaking of, he came over
from Liverpool,--where he was something of a clerk,--on a visit here to
his uncle, for a couple of months,--to get his health, as you'd think
if you looked at him;--but, as _he_ said, to enjoy “the rude romantic
beauties of the coast:”--them were his words. He wrote verses, and
picked up bits of shells and sea-weed, and amused himself in ways
sensible people wouldn't dream of. Some of us thought he was so-so in
his senses; but his uncle said it was no such thing,--he was only a
genius. Above all things in this world, what should small Misther Millet
do, but attack little Norah, after meeting her two or three times, while
he was poking about with a long stick, for shells, on the beach where
she got her dillosk! He had heard of her misfortune, but didn't know of
her deportment to them that attempted to bill and coo with her: so, one
day, he struck up to her, quite confident of himself, and began to be
familiar. But he got such a rebuff from the little Dillosk-woman, that
he gave up shell-gathering, and took to digging for things in the hills,
which, he said, was carried away there at the time of the great deluge;
and just that day se'nnight after his talking to Norah, Misther Millet
didn't come home to dinner,--no, nor supper; and all night they saw no
sight of him,--though they sat up in hopes of his coming; wid, at last,
big Jack Dax gave up his nephew as lost,--no one knew where. It happened
rather unluckily for Misther Millet to mislay himself just then, for
there was great goings-on at The Beg:--you'll hear, by-and-by, what they
were about.
It was Norah herself that poor Tommy Maloe offered to marry; and from
that, and his doing her a good turn, and saying a kind word for her when
he could, some of us thought it was he seduced her. But though he was a
fine fellow, and well to do, she wouldn't listen to him. With that, we
changed opinions again, and couldn't determine among ourselves, or in
our own minds even, how to settle the question. And what bothered us
more than all was, that though Norah said downright “nay” to his offers,
it's often she begged him to take Bat Boroo's advice, and not go for a
souldier: however, he wouldn't heed her. And when news came of his being
killed abroad, Norah wint and wept with his poor father, and did all she
could to comfort the childless ould crature in his sorrow.
Now we'll go on:--As I tould you, no one could guess who Norah had been
ruined by,--and we'd given it up, thinking time would tell us. She never
missed passing my door at the turn of the tide, to go gathering the
dillosk; and was always the last home,--working, as she did, till the
flow again, and going back, step by step, before the rising waters,
until they drove her dear off the shore. If industry's a virtue, Norah
had it in perfection: and she didn't want, nor ever took bawbee that
wasn't earned, from any man,--and that too, honestly.
Away to the west, about a mile below my cabin, there's a ridge of rocks,
which runs far out into the sea: that was Norah's favourite spot; for
the dillosk was plenty there, and few frequented it. At low water, the
very end of it stood high and dry; and I may say the same too, when the
waters was half up, during the neap tides; for it rose above the rest
of the ridge, and when the floods came, it was barely covered about two
foot, or two foot and a half. We call it O'Connor's land-mark:--why, I
don't know; but so it was called before I was born, or my father before
me,--at least, so he said; and if I, that's his son, wouldn't credit
him, who would?
One morning,--it was the day after big Jack Dax lost his small nephew,
as I tould you,--Norah wint away to the ridge, as usual, and laid down
her child on the rock, with its face looking up to the heavens, and
laughing at the clouds, as they sailed along in all sorts of forms. This
she did daily while gathering the dillosk, for the baby loved to have
the clouds for its playthings. It wasn't a fine lady's child, you
know, or it couldn't sleep there upon O'Connor's land-mark, among the
sea-weeds and so forth, without taking harm; but the place was natural
to it: and Norah left Faddy Doolan's daughter to watch it, and look to
it, and bring it to her if it 'woke and wanted anything; and then she
began working. After a time, she had well nigh picked up as much as she
could carry,--though she wasn't lucky that day, for the weed lay wide,
and she was long gathering it, and some sad thoughts she had that
morning didn't help to hurry her. At last, she turned back to get the
baby and go home; and that moment she heard a shriek from Paddy Doolan's
daughter, who had wandered away from the baby, picking the little fish
out of the pools in the rock. It didn't seem more than a minute to Norah
since she looked round, and saw the girl by her child; and she had heard
her singing, up to the time when the shriek came; but more than a minute
it must have been,--but it's true, little more would be enough; for
between Paddy Doolan's daughter, and, of course, between Norah herself,
who was more ashore, and O'Connor's land-mark, where the baby was
sleeping, the sea had rose, and flowed over a dent, or steep descent,
in the ridge, from the lowest part of which the rock rose up again quite
abruptly, till it ended in the peak at the end. You know how fast the
tide comes up sometimes just after the ebb, especially when the wind's
with it; and you'll not be surprised to hear that, though poor Norah,
distracted as she was, nearly flew over the ridge, yet as she was a full
stone's throw off, or more, a couple of big waves had got in; and if it
was fordable when Paddy Doolan's daughter shrieked, it wasn't so by the
time Norah got to the water's edge.
Now it's fit I should tell you, that the shriek Paddy Doolan's daughter
gave, when she saw the water betuxt herself and the baby, wasn't a
sound, if you heard it, you'd whistle at; it wasn't the scream of a
young miss at seeing a cockroach:--it gave tidings of death, and spread
dismay all over the ridge, and even beyond it, among the Dillosk-women
that was there. Few of them but had children playing about, or picking
up little bits of burthens of the weed,--them that was big enough,--near
the ridge, and every one ran to the place whence the sound came. Three
or four was much nearer than Norah, and cutting across to the place
almost as quickly as herself,--none of them knowing but harm had
happened their own,--they got to the brink of the water before her. When
they saw whose baby it was on the ridge, they set up a wail, which,
if possible, increased poor Norah's speed down the ridge. They felt
as mothers,--all of them did,--and knowing well enough, by their own
hearts, what the mother of the baby would do, they made ready to stop
Norah as she came:--for swim, they knew she couldn't,--it was too late
for wading, and if she bate through the incoming waves, the water was
so deep in the middle, that drown she must. So they all threw their arms
about her, and held her for a second; but the baby 'woke then, and its
cry came to her ear. That gave her such sudden strength, that she broke
away from them, and burst into the water. Just then, as luck would have
it, an unbroken wave was rolling in; Norah met it in its full strength,
and was dashed to the shore again; but it would have carried her back
with it, hadn't ould Ileen, whom just got up to the place, rushed in,
with Peg Dwyer and another woman, knee-deep, and clutched a hould of
her, and kept her fast, in spite of her struggling, and telling them
they were murderers, and calling down curses upon them in her agony.
The child wailed again; and Norah, it's thought, would have escaped
from them a second time; but Ileen as soon as she heard the baby begin,
clenched her big fist, and, with one blow on the forehead, knocked poor
Norah senseless into the arms of Peg Dwyer.
There was a moment of silence, and every one cast an eye of reproach
upon Heen, but no one durst utter a word. “Don't be looking so at me,”
says she, to them; “wouldn't you suffer a little, any of ye, to save
all?--Many's the fine fellow lost his life for want of less than Norah
has got! Better a blow on the head, no matter how big the bump that
comes after it,--better that, I say, than be drowned. You've seen a boy
in a fit, and six couldn't hould him;--and could a fit, think you, give
a boy more strength, than the cry of a child where that one is, would
give to a mother that loves it?”
All this while,--and it wasn't long,--Ileen was busy tying poor Norah
hand and foot.
“Oh! for young Paudrigg, now, or any one that could swim!” cried one of
the women; “there's not a boy or a man,--no, nor a bit of a boat even,
within sight. What will we do, Ileen?”
“All of you join with me in a loud wail, children and all,” replied
Heen; “may be, Jimmy Fitzgerald's boys, or some of the neighbours near
him, isn't gone out, and may hear us.”
“Is it a tide any of the fishermen would lose such weather as this,
think you, Heen?” asked Peg Dwyer.
“Who knows,” says Heen, “what good God may send us? One of them may be
kept back to save that poor baby.”
So then they set up such a wail, all of them, that it came to me here,
where I was dozing; and if anything could have given me the use of
my limbs, it would have been that. I tried to stir, but it was of no
use:--so, without losing time, in making more efforts, I pulled open
the door with my crutch, and hallooed, and cried “Murder!” five or six
times, at the top of my voice. Ileen reckoned upon my doing that; for,
as soon as the wail was over, says she, “If that does no good, nothing
will;--if one of us ran off for help, before she got near any men and
they got back again, the sea would be over the child; and the only
chance we'd then have, would be in the wave that floated it bringing
it ashore: but that's a poor hope; for every moment the tide drives us
back, and leaves it farther away from us. But a scream travels faster
than a bird. If no one else heard us, Jimmy Fitzgerald must; for he's
always at home:--he's an ould sailor, and won't fail to repeat the
signal of distress; it's sure to bring somebody to him, and he'll send
every one that comes, away here to us:--so that we save the time of
running as far as his cabin, by the wail; and there's hope yet the child
won't be lost.”
Within a minute or two after I'd done calling out, as I said, there came
running in Mick Maguire, and Bat Boroo, and all the lazy-bones of the
place: and after them followed Paddy Doolan, ould Malachi Roe, and a
power more of landsmen, with women and children at their heels; but not
a fisherman, good or bad, ould or young, was ashore. I tould them of the
wail I'd heard from the Dillosk-women, and the point it bore from; and
off they wint, one following another, as fast as they came in; and it
wasn't long before all the place was in arms, and not a soul but me left
in it, far or near.
All this didn't take more than the time I'm telling it. Meanwhile Norah
recovered: she was now so weak, that Ileen unbound her, but the women
still kept a hould of her; and there they were--wailing about her, and
she sitting on a stone, with her hands clasped, gazing at the waters,
that were just rising towards the top of the land-mark, where the child,
that had now cried itself asleep again, lay without knowing its danger.
Now and then she turned her eyes along the shore to the men that were
running down to the ridge as fast as they well could: though they were
landsmen, there was more than one among them that could swim; and Norah,
as well as the women about her, had rason to hope bad wouldn't be the
end of it.
A man tires, but the rising tide don't, and the waters still kept
their pace; but the men slackened, and just as the foremost of them
got up,--and that was Mick Maguire, out of breath, and who'd no heart,
though his legs was the best,--just as he got up to the women, a great
wave came in, and they all saw it a way off, for it was taller, and
might be seen above those before it:--it came on slowly, but strongly;
and instead of breaking and being divided in two by the land-mark, it
swept in a full body above it, and Norah's baby was afloat!
Just then, all set up a shriek; and it was answered by one they little
expected: what was it but the scream of the great eagle himself, that
came down from the clouds a'most, and gripped up the baby in his
mighty claws!--so saving it from one death, for another that was more
frightful, and that too, a thousand-fold! He didn't rise at once, but
skimmed along the face of the sea for some time, so that the baby dipped
in the tops of the waves, and scattered a foam round itself and the
bird now and then; and it was thought he'd drop it more than once: but
no,--he soon began to get higher and higher, and rose, at last, on
his strong wings, above the cliffs themselves; and then, making a half
circle, wheeled round, and wint over the heads of the women, right away
to his nest in the mountain. And all that while, the women looked up
silently, and them that was running along the beach stood still,
and nobody, breathed; so that the flap of the eagle's wing was heard
plainly, far as he was above them.
It would have been well for poor Norah had she swooned off again; but
she didn't. When the eagle was gone out of sight, the people turned to
look at her; and there she was, standing on tip-toe, with arms stretched
out, and her eyes fixed in the air, as though she still saw the bird
and her baby, long after they had disappeared to every one else. No one
spoke to her,--for what could they say in the way of comfort?--but as
soon as they got over the shock of the sight a little,--and it was just
as though they had all been stunned,--they began to ask one another if
anything could be done.
“There's but one hope in the world,” says Ileen, “and that's to scale
the crag.”
“And who'll do it?” asked many, but nobody answered. Every one,
who'd the heart, had tried before he was twenty, or betuxt that and
twenty-five; but no one had ever succeeded. Many of them that was on
the beach, had got terrible falls, and two of them broken limbs, in the
attempt, and given it up as fruitless. Luke Fogarty was too ould, and
Rory too young; Paddy Doolan hadn't the courage to try at twenty; and
how could it be asked of him then that he was forty?--Mick Maguire
wouldn't venture himself; but he'd go get his gun, and lend it to any
one freely that would. One man pointed to his grey locks; another to his
lame leg; and a third to his brats of little ones, and seemed to think,
that it wouldn't be well of him to risk his life for another man's
child, when he'd six or eight of his own dependent upon him. Bat Boroo
flourished about his big stick, and said he'd scale the rock with all
the pleasure in life, if it would do any good: “But where would be the
use?” says he; “for by this time the poor child is torn to pieces; and
if I reached the nest and conquered the eagles that's in it, I'd have
nothing but the child's torn limbs to bring back.”
“I think,” says Malachi Roe,--the ould one, I mane; he didn't spake
before, and hadn't been known for a long time to open his lips until a
question was asked him;--“I think,” says he, “there's no fear of that.
Daddy Gahagan, the shepherd, has been telling me, that one of his
grandsons came to him 'while ago, with news of the eagle's mate having
just carried off a lamb from the flock he tended. She'll get to the nest
first with her prey; and there's a chance--what do I say?--it wouldn't
be foolish to lay odds,--no harm comes to the child these two hours.”
Every one stared, and wondered if it was indeed Malachi himself that
spoke such a speech; they took it, however, for Gospel, and set up a
shout: but Bat had turned on his heel, and didn't listen to it. Then
all of them began to move off to the foot of the crag, but still nobody
offered to venture.
While they wint sorrowfully, but speedily, along,--as though getting
near the place would do any good,--they met Misther James Dingle
trotting towards them. Two or three--and Mick Maguire was among'em--had
got a-head of the rest; and before they could speak, James Dingle pulled
up his horse, and said to them,--“God save ye, boys! I've just seen the
big eagle carrying off that in his claw, which I'm sure is a child, by
the clothes. Whose it is, I haven't heard; he may have brought it miles;
but I'll give any of you two sparkling yellow boys, that will climb the
crag and get it down from him, dead or alive.”
Upon this, Mick Maguire tould him the whole story, whose child it was,
and how the eagle got it; and before he'd done, the whole cavalcade of
them were round him, crying, “Oh! Misther James! what'll we do?” For,
next to the Priest, and the lady at The Beg, every one looked up to
young Dingle for advice in the day of distress. And such wailing and
bothering there was about him, that he couldn't be heard for a minute
and more: at last, Father Killala, who had joined the people, got
silence for him. The colour had left his cheek, and his lips looked hard
and dry; but he spoke out coolly and distinctly, and said, “Though we're
tould that the crag has been climbed, and the eagle's nest reached, yet
no one was ever known, or reported in tradition, to have got down from
it again. Now, Malachi Roe, do you take my horse and ride off to the
beach with the best speed you can, and bring a roll of cord back with
you, and ropes, if you can get them: but bring the cord away at once, if
there's any delay with the ropes; for they may be got after. I'd go for
it, but I wouldn't make myself a bit more fatigued than I now am, for
that's need-less; and while you're gone, I'll be getting ready. Should
I reach the nest, I can lower the child to you, if I never come back
myself.”
“And is it you that's going, sir?” says Mick Maguire.
“It is, Mick,” he answered; “no one else will, and so I suppose I must.”
And then all of them, that a minute before was dying to meet with any
one that would go, began moaning in an under tone, and seemed sorry,
and half inclined to persuade James Dingle not to make the attempt. One
fellow muttered--and it wasn't well of him--“A man's life is worth more
than a child's.”
“I don't know that,” said James Dingle; “and what if it was?--We were
all children once, and not able to help ourselves; but there was then
men about, who had strength given them to protect us. Now we're men, we
ought to do by the children, the same that others, whose heads lie
low, did for us,--or would have done for us, if need was,--when we were
babies.”
“Mr. Dingle,” said Father Killala, coming up to him, “we can but ill
afford to lose you:--I'd rather another wint who had a heart and body
equal to your own; but as no one else offers, go, and God bless you!”
Dingle shook the ould man's hand, and wint on towards the mountain, with
all the people following him, and praying blessings on his head.
Malachi Roe this while was far on his way to the fishermen's cabins:
he wasn't a man to lose time, or spare horse-flesh when need was; so he
came galloping down like a racer, and got back again, with all that was
wanted with him, long before he was expected by any but James Dingle,
who knew what Malachi was, and what his own horse could do; and, besides
that, was impatient to begin. While he was gone, Luke Fogarty, and two
or three more that had tried to get at the nest, gave Dingle what advice
they could, how to avoid the mishaps they'd met with. Bat Boroo lent him
his stick, and offered him a few short instructions in the way of attack
and defence with it. But James Dingle silenced him, by saying,--“Bat
Boroo, I thank you, but a shillala isn't a broad sword. I've been fool
enough to carry a twig to a fair with me, when I was younger and wilder
than I've been these seven years past: it was said I knew how to use it
then; and though I've had no practice since, I don't think I've forgot
which way to flourish it best.”