"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 asthore, 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 recumbent 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!"
"For Heaven's sake," said Father Mulcahy, "what do you mean?--are you
mad?"
"Oh! uncle dear! don't you hear?--don't you hear?--listen an' sure you
will--all hope's gone now--gone--gone! The dead rattle!--listen!--the
dead rattle's in her throat!"--
The priest bent his ear a moment, and distinctly heard the gurgling
noise produced by the phlegm, which is termed with wild poetical
accuracy, by the peasantry--the "dead rattle," or "death rattle,"
because it is the immediate and certain forerunner of death.
Pages:
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175