“Anyhow the bank that thrusted me musn’t be wronged. Back the money goes to Galway as soon as iver I can get it there. If I am a ruined man I needn’t be a dishonest wan! But poor Norah! God help her! it will break her poor heart.”
There was a spell of silence only broken by sympathetic moans. The first to speak was the priest.
“Phelim Joyce, I told you a while ago, in the midst of your passion, that God knows what He is doin’, and works in His own way. You’re an honest man, Phelim, and God knows it, and, mark me, He won’t let you nor yours suffer. ‘I have been young,’ said the Psalmist, ‘and now am old; and I have not seen the just forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread.’ Think of that, Phelim!—may it comfort you and poor Norah. God bless her! but she’s the good girl. You have much to be thankful for, with a daughter like her to comfort you at home and take the place of her poor mother, who was the best of women; and with such a boy as Eugene, winnin’ name and credit, and perhaps fame to come, even in England itself. Thank God for His many mercies, Phelim, and trust Him.”
There was a dead silence in the room. The stern man rose, and coming over took the priest’s hand.
“God bless ye, Father!” he said, “it’s the true comforter ye are.”
The scene was a most touching one; I shall never forget it. The worst of the poor man’s trouble seemed now past. He had faced the darkest hour; he had told his trouble, and was now prepared to make the best of everything—for the time at least—for I could not reconcile to my mind the idea that that proud, stern man, would not take the blow to heart for many a long day, that it might even embitter his life.
Old Dan tried comfort in a practical way by thinking of what was to be done. Said he:—
“Iv course, Phelim, it’s a mighty throuble to give up yer own foine land an’ take Murdock’s bleak shpot instead, but I daresay ye will be able to work it well enough. Tell me, have ye signed away all the land, or only the lower farm? I mane, is the Cliff Fields yours or his?”
Here was a gleam of comfort evidently to the poor man. His face lightened as he replied:—
“Only the lower farm, thank God! Indeed, I couldn’t part wid the Cliff Fields, for they don’t belong to me—they are Norah’s, that her poor mother left her—they wor settled on her, whin we married, be her father, and whin he died we got them. But, indeed, I fear they’re but small use be themselves; shure there’s no wather in them at all, savin’ what runs off me ould land; an’ if we have to carry wather all the way down the hill from—from me new land”—this was said with a smile, which was a sturdy effort at cheerfulness—“it will be but poor work to raise anythin’ there—ayther shtock or craps. No doubt but Murdock will take away the sthrame iv wather that runs there now. He’ll want to get the cliff lands, too, I suppose.”