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 grey 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:—