“And maybe fall down between the rocks and break our bits of legs.”
The rushlights on the hill above went out one by one and the darkness became intense. The Ballybonar people had gone to bed. One of the women on the rock began to snore loudly, and those who remained awake envied her because she slept so soundly.
“I suppose Farley McKeown will have a feather bed under him now,” said Maire a Crick with a broken laugh. It seemed as if she was weeping. The beansho, who was giving suck to her babe, turned to Norah Ryan who sat beside her.
“What are you thinking of, Norah?” she asked in Gaelic.
“I’m just wondering if my mother is better,” answered the child.
“I hope she is,” said the beansho. “Are you sleepy? Would you like to sleep like the earth, like the ground under you?”
“No, no, child. But like the world at night; like the ground under you? It’s asleep now; one can almost hear it breathing, and one would like to sleep with it. If ever you think that the earth is asleep, Norah, be careful. Maybe when you grow up some man will say to you: ‘I like you better than anyone else in the world.’ That will be very nice to listen to, Norah. Maybe you’ll walk with the man on a lonely moor or on the strand beside the sea. It will be night, and there will be many stars in the sky, and you’ll not say they’re cold then as you said this morning, Norah. All at once you’ll stop and listen. You’ll not know why you listen for everything will be so quiet. But for a minute it will come to you that the earth is asleep and that everything is in slumber. That will be a dangerous hour, child, for then you may commit the mortal sin of love.”
“Was that your sin, Sheila Carrol?” asked Norah Ryan, calling the woman by her correct name for the first time.
“That was my sin, Norah.”