And then Norah joined us, but she was not the least grotesque; she seemed as though she had just stepped out of a bandbox — she seemed so trim and neat, with her gray jacket and her Sunday red petticoat. Her black hair was coiled in one glorious roll round her noble head, and there was but one thing which I did not like, and which sent a pang through my heart — a blue and swollen bruise on her ivory forehead where Murdock had struck her that dastard blow! She saw my look and her eyes fell, and when I went to her and kissed the wound and whispered to her how it pained me, she looked up at me and whispered so that none of the others could hear:
“Hush! hush! Poor soul, he has paid a terrible penalty; let us forget as we forgive.”
And then I took her hands in mine and stooped to kiss them, while the others all smiled happily as they looked on; but she tried to draw them away, and a bright blush dyed her cheeks as she murmured to me:
“No, no, Arthur! Arthur dear, not now! I only did what any one would do for you!” and the tears rushed to her eyes.
“I must, Norah,” said I, “I must, for I owe these brave hands my life!” and I kissed them and she made no more resistance.
Her father’s voice and words sounded very true as he said:
“Nay, daughter, it is right that he should kiss those hands this blessed mornin’, for they took a true man out of the darkness of the grave!”
And then my noble old Dick came over too, and he raised those dear hands reverently to his lips, and said, very softly:
“For he is dear to us all!”
By this time Miss Joyce had breakfast well underway, and one and all we thought that it was time we should let the brightness of the day and the lightness of our hearts have a turn; and Joyce said heartily:
“Come now! Come now! Let us sit down to breakfast; but first let us give thanks to Almighty God that has been so good to us, and let us forgive that poor wretch that met such a horrible death. Rest to his soul!”
We were all silent for a little bit, for the great gladness of our hearts, that came through the terrible remembrance thus brought home to us, was too deep for words. Norah and I sat hand in hand, and between us was but one heart and one soul and one thought — and all were filled with gratitude.
When once we had begun breakfast in earnest a miniature babel broke out. We had each something to tell and much to hear; and for the latter reason we tacitly arranged, after the first outbreak, that each should speak in turn.
Miss Joyce told us of the terrible anxiety she had been in ever since she had seen us depart, and how every sound, great or small — even the gusts of wind that howled down the chimney and made the casements rattle — had made her heart jump into her mouth, and brought her out to the door to see if we or any of us were coming. Then Dick told us how, on proceeding down the eastern side of the bog, he had diverged so as to look in at Murdock’s house to see if he were there, but had found only old Moynahan lying on the floor in a state of speechless drunkenness, and so wet that the water running from his clothes had formed a pool of water on the floor. He had evidently only lately returned from wandering on the hillside. Then as he was about to go on his way, he had heard, as he thought, a noise lower down the Hill, and on going towards it had met Joyce carrying a sheep which had its leg broken, and which he told him had been blown off a steep rock on the south side of the Hill. Then they two had kept together, after Dick had told him of our search for Norah, until we had seen them in the coming gray of the dawn.
Next Joyce took up the running, and told us how he had been working on the top of the mountain when he saw the signs of the storm coming so fast that he thought it would be well to look after the sheep and cattle, and see them in some kind of shelter before the morning. He had driven all the cattle which were up high on the hill into the shelter where I had found them, and then had gone down the southern shoulder of the hill, placing all the sheep and cattle in places of shelter as well as he could, until he had come across the wounded one, which he took on his shoulders to bring it home, but which had since been carried away in the bursting of the bog. He finished by reminding me jocularly that I owed him something for his night’s work, for the stock was now all mine.
“No,” said I, “not for another day. My purchase of your ground and stock was only to take effect from after noon of the 28th, and we are now only at the early morning of that day; but at any rate I must thank you for the others,” for I had a number of sheep and cattle which Dick had taken over from the other farmers whose land I had bought.
Then I told over again all that had happened to me. I had to touch on the blow which Norah had received, but I did so as lightly as I could; and when I said “God forgive him!” they all added softly, “Amen!”
Then Dick put in a word about poor old Moynahan:
“Poor old fellow, he is gone also. He was a drunkard, but he wasn’t all bad. Perhaps he saved Norah last night from a terrible danger. His life, mayhap, may leaven the whole lump of filth and wickedness that went through the Shleenanaher into the sea last night!”
We all said “Amen” again, and I have no doubt that we all meant it with all our hearts.
Then I told again of Norah’s brave struggle, and how, by her courage and her strength, she took me out of the very jaws of a terrible death. She put one hand before her eyes — for I held the other close in mine — and through her fingers dropped her welling tears.
We sat silent for a while, and we felt that it was only right and fitting when Joyce came round to her and laid his hand on her head and stroked her hair as he said:
“Ye have done well, daughter — ye have done well!”
Chapter 18 — The Fulfilment
When breakfast was finished, Dick proposed that we should go now and look in the full daylight at the effect of the shifting of the bog. I suggested to Norah that perhaps she had better not come as the sight might harrow her feelings, and, besides, that she would want some rest and sleep after her long night of terror and effort. She point-blank refused to stay behind, and accordingly we all set out, having now had our clothes dried and changed, leaving only Miss Joyce to take care of the house.
The morning was beautiful and fresh after the storm. The deluge of rain had washed everything so clean that already the ground was beginning to dry, and as the morning sun shone hotly there was in the air that murmurous hum that follows rain when the air is still. And the air was now still — the storm seemed to have spent itself, and away to the west there was no sign of its track, except that the great Atlantic rollers were heavier and the surf on the rocks rose higher than usual.
We took our way first down the Hill, and then westward to the Shleenanaher, for we intended, under Dick’s advice, to follow, if possible, up to its source the ravine made by the bog. When we got to the entrance of the Pass we were struck with the vast height to which the bog had risen when its mass first struck the portals. A hundred feet overhead there was the great brown mark, and on the sides of the Pass the same mark was visible, declining quickly as it got seaward and the Pass widened, showing the track of its passage to the sea.
We climbed the rocks and looked over. Norah clung close to me, and my arm went round her and held her tight as we peered over and saw where the great waves of the Atlantic struck the rocks three hundred feet below us, and were for a quarter of a mile away still tinged with the brown slime of the bog.
We then crossed over the ravine, for the rocky bottom was here laid bare, and so we had no reason to fear water-holes or pitfalls. A small stream still ran down the ravine and, shallowing out over the shelf of rock, spread all across the bottom of the Pass, and fell into the sea — something like a miniature of the Staubach