The breakfast was potatoes and goat's milk. The little fisher-children ate with them, and were very merry as they peeled their potatoes and sipped the milk from their tin mugs. But Terry and Turly could scarcely understand what they said, even when they spoke English.
"What are they saying, Mrs. O'Neill?" asked Terry, completely puzzled, while Nonie and her little brothers and sisters chattered to one another.
"Sure it's Irish they're talkin'," said their mother. "It's what we always talk together, and anything else comes strange to them."
"Irish? But we are Irish too. Why don't we talk Irish?" cried Terry.
Here Peter O'Neill came and said that the weather was looking better, and the boat was ready, and if the little lady and gentleman would come, he would take them across that bit of sea home to their Granny.
The children felt it hard to leave the island and their new friends without having seen more of them, but the thought of Gran'ma's pain of mind and Nurse Nancy's misery hurried them off, and they were soon in the boat. This was a very different crossing from the last, seeing that they were cared for by two stout fishermen, and pulled along by four strong oars.
"But, after all, God did very well for us, now didn't He, Mr. O'Neill?" said Terry.
"He did the next thing to a miracle," said O'Neill; "but you'd better not be doin' any more thricks behind your Gran'ma's back, or maybe God would turn round and punish ye."
"I won't; indeed, indeed, I never will," said Terry.
Meanwhile poor Nurse Nancy had spent a dreadful day and night since Bridget had rushed home to her with the news that the children had disappeared and were not to be found. All the evening and through the night men were out searching for them in every direction. No one noticed the disappearance of the boat till next morning, and it was feared that the children had fallen down some steep rocks, and had either been killed by the fall or drowned. Bridget was nearly out of her senses, knowing that she had neglected the children; and poor old Nancy was so ill from the shock and fear that she would perhaps have died, only that she had Madam to think of.