"Ah, but sure it's a diff'rint sort of sailin'," said Theresa. "Why, they say one of them big stamers 'ud carry a couple of our little boats along wid her, and you'd scarce notice she had them on board. Terrible safe they must be if they're that size."
"And morebetoken," said Mrs. Brian, "there's such a sight of ships comin' and goin' between this and the States, wouldn't you think that agin now they'd ha' got a kind of track line, crossin' over, as if it was a manner of road they was follyin' that nothin's apt to happen them on, and not sthrayin' about permisc-yis in the storms?"
"Thrack?" said Ody, shrilly. "Bedad, then, its the quare thrack, and the quare places it brings them into. D'you know that, for one thing, they go slap through the Bay of Bisky?"'
"And is that an ugly bay?" said Mrs. Brian.
"You may call it that. I wouldn't be sayin' so to herself over there," said Ody, with much careful mystery. "For it might be on'y discouragin' the crathur worse than she is already. But it's the place where the Seven Oceans of the World meet. Ay, indeed, ma'am—but don't be lettin' on to her. I was spakin' to a man who had a brother went through it, and he said the ragin' and tearin' of them all flowin' together 'ud terrify the sinses out of King Solomon. They had the great big stamer he was in whirlin' round and round and round, the same as if it was a float on one of its own paddlewheels, he couldn't tell how many days and nights. Thracks, how are you. It's a very ready one there is in it to the bottom of the say."
"Still a good few people gets through it safe enough," said Theresa, "ay, and comes back through it of an odd while."
"But how many's lost in it that you never hear tell of?" said Ody. "And besides that, the man I was talkin' to tould me his brother was never right in his head after the tossin' he got. It's a poor case to be landin' ravin' mad in a sthrange counthry, supposin' you get there itself. But me own notion is that if people's well off, they've a right to stop where they are, and if they're misfort'nit, they've a chance any way of better bad luck stayin' at home."
Ody stated his own notion authoritatively, and Theresa looked depressed by the dilemma in which it seemed to place the emigrant.
"'Deed, now, maybe it's a bad turn I'm after doin' the two of them," she said; "but poor Mrs. Morrough, many a time she sez to me it 'ud be the greatest comfort to her at all to get quit of the fear she was in continyal wheniver he went out wid the ould boat. Sure she might be a bit lonesome, she'd say, but after all what great company was he to her when half the time she would be drowndin' him under the rowl of the say, like his poor father and grandfather? And wid the most he could do it's hard set he was to make what 'ud keep him. So she'd planned she'd be able to conthrive well enough wid her hins and her spriggin' work, till Felix could be sendin' her over a thrifle. A very cliver woman she was at the spriggin'; the handkercher corners she'd work was rael iligant. Pence a-piece she got for them, and I've known her finish a dozen in three days.
"Och, but I got a turn on the Friday mornin' when I stepped down to her place to see what way they were after the storm, and there she was sittin' crouched up in a corner, and screechin' to me to know who was comin' in, and I standin' before her eyes in the middle of a sun-bame. And 'Glory be to God,' sez she, 'that it's yourself, for you'll have the sinse to give me a hand wid endeavourin' to keep the knowledge of what's after happenin' me from Felix, the way he won't be purvinted of goin' to-morra. Sorra a fut would he if he knew aught ailed me; and then sure he might stay at home for good and all; and dhrownded he'll be, and meself'ill go deminted.' And sure I thought it was maybe no thing to be doin', and so I said to her. But it seemed the heart of her was to be broke altogether if anythin' 'ud hinder him gettin' out of it. And then I was mindin' the father and grandfather of him, the way they went, and me brother, poor Thady, and I couldn't tell but I might ha' raison to think bad of biddin' him stay; and if he did, sure perhaps he couldn't be keepin' her at all, and she so helpless; it's better able he might be to help her out in the States. And sorry I'd ha' been to disappoint the crathur of the first wish she'd took a thought of sittin' in the dark of her misfortin. So the ind of it was I settled I'd stop wid her for that day, and thry could we let on there was nothin' amiss when Felix come in, that was out somewhere since early in the mornin' before the storm began.