Three Courses and a Dessert: Comprising Three Sets of Tales, West Country, Irish, and Legal; and a MelangeClarke, William
General
Three Courses and a Dessert: Comprising Three Sets of Tales, West Country, Irish, and Legal; and a Melange
Clarke, William
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Legal stories, English; West Country (England) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
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?
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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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