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.