“I’ll make no delay, for fraid I’d take fright altogether here!” she said to herself; and she hurried forward to the brink of the Well, and dipped in her can.
What did she see, when she straightened herself up again, but a Face, at the other side of the Well, and it staring, staring at her.
Her heart stopped beating; then “Patsy!” she said, in a choked kind of voice....
At the word, a puff of steam blew between her and the Face, and when she was able to see clearly again, it was gone!
How Marg got home that night, she never knew. All of a tremble she was; so much so, that her two shoes were full up with the water that kept spilling out of the can, she was walking so unsteadily. But still she kept on as fast as she could, and never let go her hold of the water from the Holy Well, till she had it landed in upon the kitchen floor. And proud she was to find herself there! and to be able to shut the door, between herself and the black shadows that seemed to rise out of the night, and to have been chasing and threatening upon her heels, once she left the Holy Well, all the way across the dark, lonesome fields.
But what was worse on her was, that the old fret seemed to be wakening up in her heart; a sharp kind of pain, after all those years, at sight of the boy that had treated her so queerly. She couldn’t tell why! but there it was; and there’s others the same, that will always have a soft corner in their hearts for any one they were young with; let alone that they’d have a wish for, as poor Marg had for Ratigan.
And, “Was it Patsy that was in it?” she kept asking herself; “or could it be that it was only some Appearance for Death ... or a Visit ... the Lord be between us and harm, I pray!”
But now she was inside her own house, and it all seemed full of light that was very bright after the dark night outside.... There was a great look of comfort upon it. There were rows and rows of good pewter plates and dishes and noggins, all shining and twinkling in the blazing firelight, she had them so well scoured and polished up. And the place was hung round with the fine sides of bacon that she had cured; hanks of yarn she had spun, and stockings she had knitted, in the chimney-corner, above her spinning-wheel of black oak. And Mickey himself was sitting there, very much as she had left him, in his big chair, close to the turf-box, the way he had it convenient to throw on a few sods when they were needed to keep the big pot boiling. He had his specs upon his nose and his pipe ready filled, and the newspaper on his knee, reading in it now and again. Margaret never forgot to bring that to him, every week, from Melia’s shop.
“You’re later than I thought,” said Heffernan to her.
“There’s what has me delayed,” said Margaret. “Kitty Grennan that bid me try the water from the Holy Well on that leg of yours ...” and she showed him what she had in the can.