Bridget heard the bell twanging and sounding, and knew that the summons to appear at supper had gone forth. She mopped away her tears with a richly embroidered cambric handkerchief, stuffed it into her pocket, looked with a slight passing regret at some muddy marks which Bruin had made on her silk dress, and prepared to return to the house.
"I wonder, Bruin," she said, "if my eyes show that I have been crying? What a nuisance if they do. I'd better run down to the Holy Well before I go into the house, and see if a good bathe will take the redness away. Come along, Bruin, my dog, come quickly."
Bruin trotted on in front of Bridget. He knew her moods well. He had comforted her before now in the summerhouse. No one but Bruin knew what bitter tears she had shed when she was first told she must go to England to school. Bruin had found her in the summerhouse then, and she had put her arms round his neck and kissed him, and then she had mopped her wet eyes and asked him as she did to-night if they showed signs of weeping, and also as to-night the dog and the girl had repaired to the Holy Well to wash the traces of tears away.
Bruin went on in front, now trotting quickly, and never once troubling himself to look back. They soon reached the little well, which was covered with a small stone archway, under which the water lay dark and cool. Rare ferns dipped their leaves into the well, and some wild flowers twined themselves over the arch, which always, summer and winter, kept the sun from touching the water. It was a lonely spot not often frequented, for the well had the character of being haunted, and its waters were only supposed to act as a charm or cure on the O'Hara family. Bridget, therefore, stepped back with a momentary expression of surprise when she saw a woman bending down by the well in the act of filling a small glass bottle with some of its water.
She was a short, stout woman of between fifty and sixty. Her hair was nearly snow-white; her face was red and much weather-beaten; her small gray, twinkling eyes were somewhat sunk in her head; her nose was broad and retroussé, her mouth wide, showing splendid white teeth without a trace of decay about them.
The woman looked up when she heard a footstep approaching. Then, seeing Bridget, she dashed her glass bottle to the ground, and rushing up to the young girl, knelt at her feet, and clasped her hands ecstatically round her knees.
"Oh, Miss Biddy, Miss Biddy!" she exclaimed. "It's the heart-hunger I have been having for the sake of your purty face. Oh, Miss Biddy, my colleen, and didn't you miss poor Norah?"
"Of course I did, Norah," said Bridget. "I could not make out where you were. I asked about you over and over again, and they said you were away on the hills, sheep-shearing. I did think it was odd, for you never used to shear the sheep, Norah."
"No," said Norah, "but I was that distraught with grief I thought maybe it 'ud cool me brain a bit. It's about Pat I'm in throuble, darlin'. It's all up with the boy and me! We has waited for years and years, and now there don't seem no chance of our being wedded. He's no better, Miss Biddy. The boy lies flat out on his back, and there aint no strength in him. Oh! me boy, me boy, that I thought to wed!"
"And where is Pat, Norah?" said Bridget. "I asked about him, too, and they said he had been moved up to a house on one of the hills, to get a little stronger air. I was quite pleased, for I know change of air is good for people after they get hurt. And why can't you be wed, Norah, even if Pat is hurt? I should think he'd want a wife to nurse him very badly now. Why can't you have a wedding while I'm at home, Norah macree?"