I hurried along as fast as I dared, for I was occasionally in utter darkness. Although the morning was coming with promise of light, the sea-wind swept inland masses of swiftly-driving mist, which, whilst they encompassed me, made movement not only difficult and dangerous, but at times almost impossible. The electric feeling in the air had become intensified, and each moment I expected the thunderstorm to burst.
Every little while I called, “Norah! Norah!” in the vain hope that, whilst returning from her search for her father, she might come within the sound of my voice. But no answering sound came back to me, except the fierce roar of the storm laden with the wild dash of the breakers hurled against the cliffs and the rocks below.
Even then, so strangely does the mind work, the words of the old song, “The Pilgrim of Love,” came mechanically to my memory, as though I had called “Orinthia” instead of “Norah:”—
“Till with ‘Orinthia’ all the rocks resound.”
On, on I went, following the line of the bog, till I had reached the northern point, where the ground rose and began to become solid. I found the bog here so swollen with rain that I had to make a long detour so as to get round to the western side. High up on the hill there was, I knew, a rough shelter for the cattle; and as it struck me that Joyce might have gone here to look after his stock, and that Norah had gone hither to search for him, I ran up to it. The cattle were there, huddled together in a solid mass behind the sheltering wall of sods and stones. I cried out as loudly as I could from the windward side, so that my voice would carry:—
“Norah! Norah! Joyce! Joyce! Are you there? Is anyone there?”
There was a stir amongst the cattle and one or two low “moos” as they heard the human voice, but no sound from either of those I sought; so I ran down again to the further side of the bog. I knew now that neither Norah nor her father could be on this point of the hill, or they would have heard my voice; and as the storm came from the west, I made a zigzag line going east to west as I followed down the bog so that I might have a chance of being heard—should there be anyone to hear. When I got near to the entrance to the Cliff Fields I shouted as loudly as I could, “Norah! Norah!” but the wind took my voice away as it would sweep thistles down, and it was as though I made the effort but no voice came, and I felt awfully alone in the midst of a thick pall of mist.
On, on I went, following the line of the bog. Lower down there was some shelter from the storm, for the great ridge of rocks here rose between me and the sea, and I felt that my voice could be heard further off. I was sick at heart and chilled with despair, till I felt as if the chill of my soul had extended even to my blood; but on I went with set purpose, the true doggedness of despair.
As I went I thought I heard a cry through the mist—Norah’s voice! It was but an instant, and I could not be sure whether my ears indeed heard, or if the anguish of my heart had created the phantom of a voice to deceive me. However, be it what it might, it awoke me like a clarion; my heart leaped and the blood surged in my brain till I almost became dizzy. I listened to try if I could distinguish from what direction the voice had come.
I waited in agony. Each second seemed a century, and my heart beat like a trip-hammer. Then again I heard the sound—faint, but still clear enough to hear. I shouted with all my power, but once again the roar of the wind overpowered me; however, I ran on towards the voice.