Hearing these exclamations, the old lawyer turned round, and went to the side of the widow.
“You will be wiser, my good woman, if you were to place some hot clothes upon his chest, and chafe his hands and feet, instead of calling out in that way. There is no fear about him; he has over-exerted himself, and his immersion in salt water has for the time deprived him of his senses; but stay, I see you have a kettle boiling on the hearth. It is time now to pour some hot whisky and water down his throat. As I left the castle, I took the precaution of putting a flask into my pocket.” Saying this, the kind old man mixed a mug of spirits and water, which he at once applied to the sailor’s lips. It slipped without difficulty down his throat. The effect was almost instantaneous; he opened his eyes and looked around with astonishment.
“Dermot, speak to me, my boy, my own boy,” exclaimed the widow in Irish, as she threw her arms around his neck.
“What does she say?” he asked, in a faint voice.
“Dermot, Dermot, speak to me,” she again exclaimed, but this time she spoke in English.
“That is not my name, good mother,” answered the seaman; “you must be mistaken; I am not your son. I never was in these parts before except once, when I came with my captain, though I have often enough been off the coast with him and others.”
“Not my son—not my son,” ejaculated the widow, gazing at him, and putting back his hair, and again looking at his countenance. “Oh, how have I been deceived, and do you again say that your name is not Dermot O’Neil?” exclaimed the widow, wringing her hands, “and I thought I had brought my boy safe on shore, and that he was to be folded once more in his mother’s arms. Oh, Dermot O’Neil—Dermot O’Neil, why are you thus keeping so long, long away from the mother who loves you more than her own life?”
The young officer, who by this time had been revived by the application of the good lawyer’s remedies, now wildly gazed around him.
“That voice,” he exclaimed, as if to himself; “I believed that she was long ago numbered with the dead, and yet it must be. Oh! mother, mother, I am Dermot O’Neil,” he cried out to her, “your long absent son.”
The widow rushed across the room, and patting aside those who kneeled around him, she threw herself by his side.