"Oh, Brock, Brock! Oh, dear Brock!" the woman called and flung out her arms. "Brock—Brock—don't leave me. Don't go!"
Mavourneen sniffed about the dark hall, investigating to find the master who had come home and gone away so swiftly. With that young Hugh was lifting her in his arms, carrying her up the broad stairs into his room. "You're barefooted," he spoke brokenly.
She caught his hand as he wrapped her in a rug on the sofa. "Hugh—you saw—it was Brock?"
"Yes, dearest, it was our Brock," answered Hugh stumblingly.
"You saw—and I—and Mavourneen."
"Mavonrneen is Irish," young Hugh said. "She has the second sight," and the big old dog laid her nose on the woman's knee and lifted topaz eyes, asking questions, and whimpered broken-heartedly.
"Dear dog," murmured the woman and drew the lovely head to her. "You saw him." And then; "Hughie—he came to tell us. He is—dead."
"I think so," whispered young Hugh with bent head.
Then, fighting for breath, she told what had happened—the dream, the intense happiness of it, how Brock had come smiling. "And Hugh, the only thing he said, two or three times over, was, 'I'm coming to take Hughie's hand.'"
The lad turned upon her a shining look. "I know, mother. I didn't hear, of course, but I knew, when I saw him, it was for me, too. And [pg 237] I'm ready. I see my way now. Mother, get Dad."