Part 14 (2/2)

”Pether, avick machree--Pether,”--

”Ellish, avourneen, I'm here!--my darlin', I am your vick machree, an'

ever was. Oh, Father! my heart's brakin'! I can't bear to part wid her.

Father of heaven, pity us this day of throuble?”

”Be near me, Pether; stay wid me--I'm very lonely. Is this you keepin'

my head up?”

”It is, it is! I'll never lave you till--till”--

”Is the carman come from Dublin wid--wid the broadcloth?”

”Father of heaven! she's gone back again!” exclaimed the husband.

”Father, jewel! have you no prayers that you'd read for her? You wor ordained for these things, an' comin' from you, they'll have more stringth. Can you do nothin' to save my darlin'?”

”My prayers will not be wanting,” said the priest: ”but I am watching for an interval of sufficient calmness to hear her confession; and I very much fear that she will pa.s.s in darkness. At all events, I will anoint her by and by. In the meantime, we must persevere a little longer; she may become easier, for it often happens that reason gets clear immediately before death.”

Peter sobbed aloud, and wiped away the tears that streamed from his cheeks. At this moment her daughter and son-in-law stole in, to ascertain how she was, and whether the rites of the church had in any degree soothed or composed her.

”Come in, Denis,” said the priest to his nephew, ”you may both come in.

Mrs. Mulcahy, speak to your mother: let us try every remedy that might possibly bring her to a sense of her awful state.”

”Is she raving still?” inquired the daughter, whose eyes were red with weeping.

The priest shook his head; ”Ah, she is--she is! and I fear she will scarcely recover her reason before the judgment of heaven opens upon her!”

”Oh thin may the Mother of Glory forbid that!” exclaimed her daughter--”anything at all but that! Can you do nothin' for her, uncle?”

”I'm doing all I can for her, Mary,” replied the priest; ”I'm watching a calm moment to get her confession, if possible.”

The sick woman had fallen into a momentary silence, during which, she caught the bed-clothes like a child, and felt them, and seemed to handle their texture, but with such an air of vacancy as clearly manifested that no corresponding a.s.sociation existed in her mind.

The action was immediately understood by all present. Her daughter again burst into tears; and Peter, now almost choked with grief, pressing the sick woman to his heart, kissed her burning lips.

”Father, jewel,” said the daughter, ”there it is, and I feard it--the sign, uncle--the sign!--don't you see her gropin' the clothes? Oh, mother, darlin', darlin'!--are we going to lose you for ever?”

”Oh! Ellish, Ellish--won't you spake one word to me afore you go? Won't you take one farewell of me--of me, aroon asth.o.r.e, before you depart from us for ever!” exclaimed her husband.

”Feeling the bed-clothes,” said the priest, ”is not always a, sign of death; I have known many to recover after it.

”Husht,” said Peter--”husht!--Mary--Mary! Come hear--hould your tongues!

Oh, it's past--it's past!--it's all past, an' gone--all hope's over!

Heavenly fither!”

The daughter, after listening for a moment, in a paroxysm of wild grief, clasped her mother's rec.u.mbent body in her arms, and kissed hen lips with a vehemence almost frantic. ”You won't go, my darlin'--is it from your own Mary that you'd go? Mary, that you loved best of all your childhre!--Mary that you always said, an' every body said, was your own image! Oh, you won't go without one word, to say you know her!”

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