I 'm a bad hand at describing a beauty, but I'll try my best to give you an idea how Norah Cavanagh looked when she was twenty. The nose is a part of a woman's face that few people spake of in reckoning over her charms; but, in my mind, it's worthy of notice, as well as the eyes. Norah's nose was neither long nor short; too thick, nor otherwise; turned up nor down;—but just delicate, fine, and growing straight from her brow, in a way that it was beautiful to behould, but next akin to impossible to describe. There wasn't much colour in her cheek, but the lips made up for it: you may talk of cherries for a twelvemonth,—but there never was cherries so temptingly red as the lips of young Norah; and when she opened them, you saw two rows of teeth,—not so white as the inside of an oysther, but of a colour you loved better; for they was just exactly as a healthy and handsome young woman's should be;—and they sparkled and seemed to laugh, every one of them, when their owner did. Her eyes wasn't blue nor black; no, nor grey; nor hazel; but a mixture of all, and not a bit the less beautiful. When you gazed into them, they was like a picture; for there seemed to be a little view of some place in each of them. But this wasn't noticed at a distance; and it's few knew of it, but those who had dandled Norah when a child; for she kept the boys off when she grew up, and, if anything, was thought to value herself a little too much, considering she'd nothing. Norah's hair wasn't so white as to make her look silly:—it had a dash of light auburn upon the ends of the curls; and when the sun shone upon them, they had a gloss that dazzled the eyes of all the boys about. Was I but younger that time, I think I'd have been in love with little Norah myself;—and won her, perhaps, away from them all:—who knows?—
Norah was as nate in her dress as she well could be,—with the little 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?