"No, that is impossible, Norah," said I; "you must not deceive those who would befriend you. Dan Kelly knew too well when it was coming on to blow hard. He would not venture his own life or that of his sons in such a night as this. It is no fishing time. Tell what you can of the affair and every help shall be given you."
"I knows nauthen, asthore. For the honour o' God, dear, ax me no more, for I can't tell any thin but only that they war strugglen home agin the tide, and were maken straight for Black Pint when a big wave (oh then, oh then, oh then!) hised away the boat and capsized it. There's no more to be tould, only my darlens is gone, holy Mary mark 'em to glory, and 'tis I that's dissolit to day." Norah wept bitterly as she uttered these words. I besought her to tell me who, beside her husband and sons, had been buffeting the billows in the boat on that awful night.
"How does your honour think I can tell! 'Tis enough for me, that them that's gone, is gone. Oh! cuishla machree, Timsey, my darlen of all my darlens."
Mac Farlane, perceiving that I made no great way in my catechism, brought forward the little dog, which had lain by in a dark corner of the cabin, and carelessly turning it with his foot, said, in a soliloquizing manner, "Poor little brute! you are more lucky than your master. He is gone, to be sure, with the rest of 'em, and will be without christian burial too, while you will be laid in the ground as if you had a soul to be saved. I wonder, Mr. Albert, whether the party in the boat were lost before they reached the ship, or whether they ever were able to put the stranger on board." Norah had not till now seen either the oar or the dead dog, and fell into the most extravagant lamentations at sight of them. Terrified at finding M'Farlane, as she now believed, in the secret, she fell on her knees, and in a tone of the most earnest supplication entreated that he would not divulge a single particular.
"Some of 'em may be alive yet. May be all wouldn't be drownded, and if they war, the sperrets o' the dead, Misther Mickfaarlin, would never laive you alone if you spaik. Oh! Sir, and the widdy's blessen on you, don't be villeefyen them that's gone. Laive 'em quite any way, for they've enough to trouble 'em without that."
"I wouldn't harm the dead, woman," said M'Farlane, "any more than you. 'Tis a pitiful case. Only tell his name, and her name who was with him, and your fortune is as good as made. If you speak truth, my master will send an account of it all to the castle o' Dublin, and you'll be sure of a purse o' gold that will keep you in comfort for the rest o' your life."
"I'll tell nauthen but what you know," replied the sobbing Norah; "and there's no use in axing me, for I'll die before I tells upon 'em. What do I want of cumfurt now? If money would make tell-tales of any that lived in this cabin, as poor as it is, would'nt we be riden in a coche and six long ago fur spaiken plain, but though they're down in the salt sai, I'll not fret 'em, I'll hould my tongue, and Misther Mickfaarlin, if you war'nt a sassenah (no offence, Sir), you would'nt be the one to turn the harts o'the dead frum me. Oh then! oh then! a wee-nough Dan, and Tom, and Timsey asthore! If 'tis a thing that they braiks every bone in my body, or cuts out my tongue, they'll get no good o' me, for the sorra a word I'll spaik, no more than the dead himself."
No cunning of M'Farlane's could elicit farther, and though so strongly prompted by curiosity, which triumphed over every other feeling, that I had endeavoured myself to come at the bottom of the melancholy tale, I admired the noble devotedness of this affectionate woman, upon whom no sordid motive had the slightest influence. She would willingly have laid down her life, rather than betray the cause to which she had sworn fealty. Oh! how the generous heroism of poor Norah, and her enthusiastic fidelity even to the shades of those who had been dear to her, put to shame all who, without a spark of disinterested zeal, first involved, and then abandoned a people, many of whom gave proofs like this of the tenderest and most unselfish attachment. Norah, suddenly recollecting that the removal of the dog might damp the spirit of investigation, seized a spade which stood in the hut against the wall, and turning up the clay floor within the hurdle which served as a partition between the outer division of her hut, and the interior where she slept, deposited the little animal, collar and all, filling the hole, and stamping the ground with her feet to make all smooth as it was before. In this labour of love towards the memory of the departed, her grief seemed forgotten in her anxiety to conceal whatever might injure any survivor whose cause her husband and children had espoused.