The Woman Thou Gavest Me | Page 5

a loud rapping was heard at the front door.
One of the maid-servants would have answered it, but my father called
her back and, taking up a lantern, went to the door himself. As quietly
as he could for the rush of wind without, he opened it, and pulling it
after him, he stepped into the porch.
A man in livery was there on horseback, with another saddled horse
beside him. He was drenched through, but steaming with sweat as if he
had ridden long and hard. Shouting above the roar of the storm, he said:
"Doctor Conrad is here, is he?"

"He is--what of it?" said my father.
"Tell him he's wanted and must come away with me at once."
"Who says he must?"
"Lord Raa. His lordship is dangerously ill. He wishes to see the doctor
immediately."
I think my father must then have gone through a moment of fierce
conflict between his desire to keep the old lord alive and his hope of the
immediate birth of his offspring. But his choice was quickly made.
"Tell the lord," he cried, "that a woman is here in child-birth, and until
she's delivered the doctor cannot come to him."
"But I've brought a horse, and the doctor is to go back with me."
"Give the lord my message and say it is Daniel O'Neill who sends it."
"But his lordship is dying and unless the doctor is there to tap him, he
may not live till morning."
"Unless the doctor is here to deliver my wife, my child may be dead
before midnight."
"What is the birth of your child to the death of his lordship?" cried the
man; but, before the words were well out of his mouth, my father, in
his great strength, had laid hold of the reins and swung both horse and
rider round about.
"Get yourself to the other side of my gate, or I'll fling you into the
road," he cried; and then, returning to the porch, he re-entered the
house and clashed the door behind him.
Father Dan used to say that for some moments more the groom from
Castle Raa could be heard shouting the name of the doctor to the
lighted windows of my mother's room. But his voice was swirled away
in the whistling of the wind, and after a while the hoofs of his horses

went champing over the gravel in the direction of the gate.
When my father returned to his room, shaking the rain from his hair
and beard, he was fuming with indignation. Perhaps a memory of forty
years ago was seething in his excited brain.
"The old scoundrel," he said. "He'd like it, wouldn't he? They'd all like
it! Which of them wants a son of mine amongst them?"
The roaring night outside became yet more terrible. So loud was the
noise from the shore that it was almost as if a wild beast were trying to
liberate itself from the womb of the sea. At one moment Aunt Bridget
came downstairs to say that the storm was frightening my mother. All
the servants of the house were gathered in the hall, full of fear, and
telling each other superstitious stories.
Suddenly there came a lull. Rain and wind seemed to cease in an
instant. The clamour of the sea became less and the tolling of the bell
on St. Mary's Rock died away in the distance. It was almost as if the
world, which had been whirling through space, suddenly stood still.
In that moment of silence a deeper moan than usual came from the
room overhead. My father dropped into a chair, clasped his hands and
closed his eyes. Father Dan rattled his pearl beads and moved his lips,
but uttered no sound.
Then a faint sound came from the room overhead. My father opened his
eyes and listened. Father Dan held his breath. The sound was repeated,
but louder, clearer, shriller than before. There could be no mistaking it
now. It was Nature's eternal signal that out of the womb of silence a
living soul had been born into the world.
"It's over," said my father.
"Glory be to God and all the Saints!" said Father Dan.
"That'll beat 'em," cried my father, and he leapt to his feet and laughed.

Going to the door of the room, he flung it open. The servants in the hall
were now whispering eagerly, and one of them, the gardener, Tom Dug,
commonly called Tommy the Mate, stepped out and asked if he ought
to ring the big bell.
"Certainly," said my father. "Isn't that what you've been standing by
for?"
A few minutes later the bell of the tower began to ring, and it was
followed almost immediately by the bell of our parish church, which