"Carry Miss Ellie, will you, Pat Molony?" he called. Thrusting out two dirty, kindly arms from behind her, Pat Molony lifted Ellie over Nessa's head, saying gallantly: "It's not fit for the likes o' you, Miss, to be carrying childer. It's more like a white lily ye are;" and when Nessa looked round to thank him she saw Ellie contentedly sitting on his shoulder, with one arm round his dirty neck.
In this fashion, joking and laughing, they passed through the village and out on the road close to Mrs. Daly's cabin. Then some ran on to tell her they were coming. At the garden gate Theresa passed them all, and rushed into the cottage alone.
Murtagh and Winnie were close behind her. They overheard a smothered cry, then—"Oh, my darlint! my darlint! is it you yourself?" and there was something in the intensity of the voice that made them suddenly stop short. The laughter died from their faces, and they stood looking at each other. A strange awe had fallen upon them. The noisy laughing crowd seemed far away; they heard only the kisses that were being exchanged in the dark cottage, and children as they were, they understood suddenly something of what the mother had suffered.
They did not think of entering the cottage, and the crowd, seeing them stand still, stood still too. A fear ran through it that they were too late,—that Mrs. Daly had died without seeing her daughter. The noise and laughter were suddenly hushed. Some one said, "What's happened?" Faces were turned anxiously towards the door. While Winnie and Murtagh stood gazing into each other's eyes, there was a dead silence. They neither of them ever forgot that strange hush and the bewildering thoughts that filled it.
The silence was broken by Mrs. Daly's voice saying, "An' where are they till I thank them?"
Then Theresa ran to the door to call them in, and the crowd, seeing that all was right, trooped into the cottage after the children.
Mrs. Daly was sitting up in the bed; Theresa knelt beside her with her arms around her neck.
"I'll never be able to thank yez right," said Mrs. Daly; "but if ye care for a poor woman's blessing, may it follow ye to the end of your days. And may none of ye ever feel the hundredth part of the sorra I've had since she's been gone from me."
"True for ye, Mrs. Daly. May they have peace and happiness all the days of their life for the good turn they've done to the poor this day," cried some from behind with a ring of feeling in their voices.
"But we didn't," said Murtagh to Mrs. Daly—"I mean, we didn't find her to-day. We knew where she was; we helped her to hide from her stepfather when she lost the rent; but she's got it now." He spoke with difficulty, and he was glad to have got it all out.