He closed the hall-door, which had been standing open all this time, with a bang, and turned to Manus. "See here, youngster. You slip out of the house at the back, where you won't be seen, and run for your life for the police. Most likely the first volley will send the whole lot flying, but if it doesn't we'll hold out all right for a couple of hours."
Norah caught him by the cuff of his coat sleeve.
"Let me go out and speak to them," she cried. "I know some of them—the man who was speaking at the mine, and some of the others, and perhaps I could make them go away."
Harry shook himself free impatiently. "You don't suppose a howling mob of madmen are going to listen to a little chit like you! Go with Miss Browne there, she'll look after you. Collect all the women, Brownie, when they've done fastening the doors and windows, and take them to the kitchen; they'll be out of the way of harm, and safer than they would be anywhere else. Ella, bring down the guns over the chimney-piece in Uncle Nicholas's bedroom; we shall need all we have."
He issued all his orders like a young commander-in-chief, and was obeyed unhesitatingly. He locked and double-locked the hall-door, fastened a heavy iron bar across it, and drew two stout bolts besides. Then with his own hands he shuttered the narrow windows on either side of the door. Norah cast one last look out before the shutters were closed. The crowd were close up now, hooting, yelling, and brandishing sticks. Behind them, where the last of the daylight still lingered in the sky, rose the abbey ruin, grand and peaceful, a strange contrast to the wild tumult that raged so close to it. It was that glimpse of the ruin which put a sudden idea into Norah's head.
"Wait for me, Manus," she cried breathlessly. "I know how we'll frighten the people away better than with guns."
She tore up the wide staircase and opened the first door that she came to. She dragged the white quilt off the bed, rolling it up hastily into a bundle, and seized a box of matches off a small table by the bed-side. As she dashed out into the corridor again, an old gentleman, white-haired and bent, came up another stair at its farther end with a lighted candle in his hand.
"What's going on?" he cried angrily. "Has Bedlam broken loose while I've been away? What's all the noise outside about, and where are all the servants? Why are the lamps not lit? Where's Miss Ella, or Miss Browne, or anybody?"
There was no one within hearing but Norah, and she did not answer him; she did not even pause to recollect that this must be her Uncle Nicholas, the grim, vindictive being of whom she had heard so much but whom she had never seen. She darted down to him and pulled the candle out of his hand without ceremony.
"Oh please, I must have it!" she gasped; "it's ever so much better than matches, because they go out, you know."
The old man did not attempt to resist, he only gazed in utter amazement at the apparition that had so unexpectedly appeared before him. Norah's hat still hung upon her shoulders, as it had fallen off during her wild scamper with Manus, her black hair was tossed back off her forehead, and her blue eyes were alight with excitement and earnestness of purpose.
"Who are you, child?" he cried.
But Norah did not stay to answer. She had blown the candle out and was racing along the corridor and down the stairs with her spoils; nor did she stop when she met Ella coming upstairs to obey her brother's behest.
"What are you doing up here, Norah?" cried Ella. "Go to the kitchen; Brownie is there, and the servants; and Harry says it is the safest place for you to be."
It had grown so dark within doors that Ella did not see Mr. O'Brien till she ran up against him, standing in the corridor, where Norah had left him, as if he were rooted to the ground. She could not repress a cry of alarm at the sudden shock.
"Uncle Nicholas! We thought you were in Dublin. How do you come to be here?"
"I come to be here because I drove in by the stable-yard five minutes ago, and it's the shortest way to my bedroom," returned the old man gruffly. "Is the world turned upside down, or am I going mad? What's all that shouting and the row that I hear? And in heaven's name, who was it that ran down here just now?"
"It was little Norah O'Brien. Poor child, she's quite terrified. I suppose she's looking for somewhere to hide. The miners are in front of the house, Uncle Nicholas, and a mob of people with them, threatening to attack it. Norah and her brother brought warning just in time, and Harry thinks we can hold out till help comes."
Ella stopped short, remembering that it was the first Mr. O'Brien had heard of the prodigal's return, and dreading an outburst of wrath. She need not have been afraid, however; her uncle had not heard her last words at all.
"Norah O'Brien," he repeated to himself slowly; but it was not of her he was thinking. Another child stood before him—a boy with the same bright eyes and dark waving hair, a boy who had raced about that house and made it ring with his shouts and laughter forty years before. That boy's name had been Piers, and it was nearly a year since he had been laid, far from his kindred, in a crowded London cemetery.
Norah, meanwhile, little dreaming of the effect she had produced, tore on her way downstairs. Ella's words had fallen on unheeding ears. Norah had not even taken their meaning in.
"Quick, quick, Manus!" she cried, as she found her brother waiting for her; "we haven't a minute to lose. We must get out of the house somehow or other—through a window or any way that we can, before the crowd closes up all round."
A momentary lull had come in the din outside, as the human torrent swept up before the house and found themselves confronted by the long blank range of shuttered windows, with no light visible anywhere. They halted irresolutely, uncertain what to do, and in that instant's delay Norah had her chance. A maid-servant with blanched cheeks and trembling hands was drawing the bolts of a little side-door which led down upon the pleasure-ground, the last point that remained to be secured in the defences of the house.
"Let us out, please," Norah said authoritatively.
The woman stared at her, hardly able to believe that she had heard aright.
"You must be mad, Miss, to be wanting such a thing. It's fiends that's out there, nothing less; they'd tear you limb from limb if they got you amongst them."
Norah gave her head a proud little toss as she pushed back the bolts herself.
"No one will see us if we slip out quickly, and even if they did, Malachy is out there, and he wouldn't let anyone hurt me. Shut the door behind us and make it fast. Now then, Manus!"
Brother and sister vanished into the night. Not an instant too soon, for the next moment the mob surged up all round the house, seeking to find some means of entry; and they broke into shouts louder and more ferocious than before as they found that timely warning had been conveyed to the inmates, and that on all sides the house had been made secure.
"Arrah, thin, it's not willin' to be shpoke to they are widin there! Give a rap at the doore, boys, an' let them know we're here."
In obedience to the mandate, heavy and repeated blows were dealt upon the hall-door, which, however, was of good solid oak, and showed no signs of yielding. A pebble whizzed against one of the plate-glass windows, and the crash and shiver of the falling glass were greeted with exultant huzzas; another and another followed. Then a window on the upper floor was thrown open, and Harry's clear, boyish tones made themselves heard:
"Now then, I give fair warning to all concerned. I have a double-barrelled gun, and Cartwright here has another. You've all got two minutes to be out of this, at the end of that time we fire."
But the people's blood was up, too high and hot for threats to turn them. Curses, groans, howls of execration answered him.
"Is't shoot us ye wud, ye clip? Is thim the manners they've larned ye in Jarmany? Quit out o' that, an' let's shpake to the masther. It's Nicholas O'Brien we'll talk to, not you, ye dirty spalpeen!" And another volley of stones crashed against the windows.
Harry had his gun at his shoulder, the gleaming barrels levelled. His intention was to fire the first discharge over the heads of the crowd in the hope of scaring them away, but as his finger touched the trigger he felt himself seized and thrust forcibly to one side. A tall figure, which in the uncertain light seemed to have lost its stoop and to be straight and erect as in years gone by, advanced to the window, and a strident voice called out above the din:
"Who wants to talk to Nicholas O'Brien?"
Everyone in the crowd knew the tones, and a wild hubbub arose.
"It's the masther! Begorra, it's his honour's own self! It's justice we want! It's our rights we'll have! We'll not be robbed nor peeled nor put upon no longer! It's work we want, an' our wages, an' bread for our childher's mouths! Down wid M'Bain an' ivery furriner he'd bring along of him!"
Mr. O'Brien struck his stick violently on the ground, and raised his hand to stay the tumult. What answer, however, he would have made to the people's demands remained unknown, for as he opened his mouth to speak, he stopped short, and his eyes became riveted on some object away beyond the sea of upturned faces waiting breathlessly to hear what he would say.
"Gracious heavens, what's that?" he cried.
All heads were turned to follow the direction of his gaze, and a low murmur of fear and wonder ran through the wild and excited throng.
One of the broken windows high up in the abbey ruins was filled with a dim bluish light, and in that strange radiance stood a white-clad figure silent and motionless, one hand stretched menacingly towards the surging crowd. For a moment or two the people gazed at the vision speechless and paralyzed with terror, then frightened whispers began to be heard.
"The saints 'tween us an' harm, there's the white nun! Mercy be wid us, it's holy St. Bridget it is!"
Those who still held stones let them fall; some of the crowd dropped on their knees and crossed themselves. A few of the more timid began to edge away, others followed; in a moment the movement was general, and the people were huddling down the avenue after each other like a flock of frightened sheep, casting back terrified glances at the dread apparition which still stood on high with uplifted arm in the ruined window.
The moment the terrified crowd had disappeared, the light in the window vanished too. To those who watched the strange sight from Moyross House it seemed as if there was a stifled cry and then a thud. After that all was silent, and the darkness of the summer's night once more reigned supreme.
CHAPTER XV
IT WAS ALL NORAH'S IDEA
It was all so sudden and so inexplicable that the little group at the open window were left gazing at each other in dumb amazement. Mr. O'Brien was the first to recover his speech.
"Tell me what it all means, some of you," he cried irascibly. "Am I going out of my senses, or is the whole world bewitched to-night?"
"I don't understand it one little bit either, Uncle," said Harry, as he slowly opened the breech of his gun and took the cartridges out. "There was a figure up in the abbey window, not a doubt of it. Didn't you see it too, Cartwright?"
But the dignified butler had fallen back against the wall, where he leant shivering and shaking, the cold dew standing on his forehead and his teeth chattering audibly.
"Preserve us all!" he gasped. "Fust it's a horde of savages yellin' an' 'owlin' to make a man's blood run cold to hear them, and then it's a ghost, sich as I never believed in, nor thought to see the likes of. Not another night does I stop in this hawful country. No, Mr. O'Brien, sir, not if you was to offer to make me Hemperor of Rooshia!"
Cartwright's ejaculations were cut short by a knocking at the hall-door, a frightened, hurried knocking made not with the knocker but with somebody's knuckles. Harry leant out of the window and shouted down:
"Who's that down there, and what's your business?"
"Oh, please come down and help me somebody," was the response that came very tremulously in Manus's voice from below. "I'm afraid Norah has hurt herself very badly."
"It's that young O'Brien cub," said Harry, as he drew his head in again. "I thought he was half-way to the police barrack by this time. What was the other child doing outside the house? she ought to have been in the kitchen with Brownie. I'll find out what's wrong and pack them both off home. We've enough on our hands without having them to look after."
But Mr. O'Brien had heard too, and he pressed forward eagerly.
"Is it the child that was in the house just now, and someone says she's hurt? Come on, come on, what are you both standing there for? Come down and see what's happened to her."
And he himself led the way downstairs, moving with an activity and energy such as had been foreign to him for a very long time past. So extraordinary was the condition of affairs which he had found on his return home, a day sooner than he had been expected, that Harry's presence had passed unheeded, and he had as yet expressed no surprise at finding the grand-nephew whom he had believed in the Carpathian mountains, engaged in defending his house.
Ella was on the stairs, and joined them as they went down. The stampede of the crowd had been heard in the kitchen, where Miss Browne and the maids were still ensconced, and she had come out to glean information of what was going on. It took some time to undo all the fastenings with which the hall-door was secured, but when it was opened at length Manus was found standing outside, looking very white and scared. He pushed past the others and caught hold of Ella by her dress.
"You don't think she could be killed," he gasped. "She's lying over there on the ground, and I can't get her to speak or move."
"But did she get a fall, or was she knocked down by the crowd? Tell us what happened, Manus dear," implored Ella, who felt as if the solid earth were whirling round beneath her, so many shocks had succeeded each other upon this eventful night.
"It was all Norah's idea from the beginning," stammered out Manus, only keeping back his tears by a strong effort. "I mean that we could frighten the people off by her shamming to be a ghost over in the abbey, the way she and I were frightened that night by the table-cloth hanging up."
Manus came to a sudden stop as he realized that in the fulness of his heart he had betrayed a secret which hitherto had been only known to Norah and himself. None of his auditors appeared to heed this part of the story, however, in their desire to learn what was coming.
"We had the candle and the counterpane, you know," Manus went on, "and we got round to the abbey without anyone seeing us, and climbed up inside to the high window—the stones are all broken and sticking out, so it was quite easy. Norah stood up in the window with the quilt round her, and her arm stretched out, and I held the candle behind her at the back of the stone-work, where the flame couldn't show and it couldn't throw shadows. We heard the people all crying out and running away, and just as they'd gone the candle blew out. Norah was turning round to get down and somehow she missed her footing or she caught in the quilt, and she fell right down to the ground. I tried to lift her up, but—but—"
And Manus, unable to control himself any longer, broke down in convulsive crying.
"And it was Piers' child that did it—Piers' child that played the trick on them!" Mr. O'Brien exclaimed. Then striking his stick in his wonted fashion on the ground: "What are you all staring at each other like a lot of boobies for? Don't you hear what the boy says? Go with him some of you, and bring the child here. If a door or shutter is wanted, take off the first that comes to your hand."
But no shutter or door was needed to carry the light burden of the poor little would-be ghost. Guided by Manus, Harry and Cartwright went across to the abbey ruin, and Harry brought the little unconscious form back in his arms, Cartwright following, rather ashamed of the relief he felt at discovering that the spectre which had appalled him was of flesh and blood, and not a phantom from another world.
Miss Browne and the women-servants had trooped out into the hall, half-fearful, half-curious, so that it was amidst a babel of questions and exclamations that Norah was borne into the house.
"Oh, Harry, you don't think she's killed!" said Ella with blanched cheeks, almost repeating Manus's words, as she looked at the white face which lay against his shoulder and the small hand which hung down limp and powerless.
Harry shook his head.
"No; her heart's beating all right, and there are no bones broken that I can feel. It's her head most likely that was hurt in the fall."
"Have her carried upstairs at once and put to bed," interposed Mr. O'Brien gruffly. "Get some of these women to stop their chattering and to help you. I'll be bound they didn't chatter much while those idiots were howling outside—that child's worth twenty dozen of the whole lot of them! Send to the stables, and tell them to put the fastest horse into the car and drive for the doctor."
He had turned towards the library, there to pass the weary hour of suspense which must ensue, when his eye fell on Manus standing white and miserable at the foot of the stairs up which the procession carrying Norah had gone.
"See here, my boy," he said, with a sort of embarrassed kindliness, "the best thing you can do, instead of hanging about here, is to run home and tell them what has happened. You've an elder sister and a brother, haven't you?" Mr. O'Brien paused, and seemed as though he were swallowing down an obstruction in his throat. "Don't frighten them more than you can help, but tell them to come here, if they will."
Manus shook his head disconsolately.
"It wouldn't be any good. Roderick and Anstace are staying at Dromore, at Lady Louisa Butler's, to-night, and they won't be home till to-morrow."
Mr. O'Brien gave vent to a sound which was very like a groan.
"Then all we can do is to wait till we hear what the doctor says; after that, if"—he had been about to say "the child is badly hurt", but another glance at Manus's face made him alter the sentence to "it's necessary—they must be sent for."
The doctor was a long time upstairs when he did arrive at last, and he came down again looking very grave.
"Concussion of the brain," he said. "Tolerably severe, I fear; but it is not possible to ascertain precisely just yet. There are some other injuries of less consequence."
Mr. O'Brien waited for no more. His hand was shaking as he scrawled a few lines on a sheet of note-paper and folded it. He went out with the missive to where the coachman waited with the horse and car.
"Dromore," he said, as he handed it to him; "and drive your best."
It was in the gray light of early morning that Roderick and Anstace drove up to Moyross Abbey. Mr. O'Brien had watched for their coming through the long hours of the night, and he came out into the hall to meet them. Anstace was still in her evening dress, with flowers in her hair and a string of Miss Ansey's pearls round her throat. The hood she had worn during the drive had fallen back from her head, and if a few hours before the old man had seen in Norah a vision of the far-back days of his brother's childhood, it was now his lost love, the girl to whom he had given his heart and who had broken it for him, who came forward to meet him.
"Marion!" he exclaimed, stopping short and gazing at her as though spell-bound.
But Anstace did not even notice the name he had called her by.
"Oh, Uncle Nicholas, our little Norah!" she cried, as she caught his outstretched hand. "Is she so badly hurt?"
"My dear, my dear, I hope not!" the old man answered brokenly; "but no one can say for certain yet."
Roderick and Anstace followed him upstairs to the room where a dim night-light burned, and Ella in an arm-chair by the bed-side kept her solitary watch.
"I made everyone else go to bed—there was no use in their remaining up—as there was so little that anyone could do," she whispered, as the brother and sister stooped over the little unconscious form. "Norah has never spoken or moved since she was laid down there."
CHAPTER XVI
PEACE AND HARMONY
It was many days before Norah did speak or move, and many more before she recovered consciousness sufficiently to take notice of the strange room in which she found herself, and to ask how she came to be there; and during that time some very surprising and unlooked-for things had happened.
Roderick presented himself in his uncle's study later on that same day. Mr. O'Brien sat at his writing-table, a pile of heavy leather-bound ledgers and account-books before him, looking weary and listless after the excitement and the fatigue of the previous day. A quick flush mounted to his forehead as Roderick crossed the room and stood looking down at him.
"I would like to tell you, sir," he said frigidly, "that we will not intrude upon you more than we can possibly avoid. I had hoped that we should have been able to move Norah to Kilshane, but the doctor, who has just been here, has absolutely forbidden our attempting it. Of course, so long as she is here, Anstace must remain to nurse her; and I hope you will not object to Manus and me coming over every day to see her—"
He got no further, for Mr. O'Brien started forward and gripped his hand with a force that was almost painful.
"My boy, what are you talking about?" he cried. "As if I had not wanted you all along!"
Roderick could not conceal his astonishment.
"You did not give me any reason to think so, sir," he said, and stopped short once more, for his glance had fallen on the little water-colour portrait that hung above the writing-table, as Ella's had done months before.
Mr. O'Brien saw the direction of his gaze.
"You don't need to ask who that is, Roderick," he said. "It is your mother as she was in the days when I thought she would have been my wife. It is an old story, over and done with twenty-three years ago, but she was the one woman whom I ever loved, and when she broke faith with me, it went near breaking my heart too. Perhaps you can understand how I dreaded, and yet wished, to see her children. It has been in my mind half a hundred times since I knew you were living in Ansey O'Brien's house to have myself driven over there, and walk in amongst you all. I never could bring myself to do it though. It seemed to me that I had forfeited the right of claiming kinship with you when I let your father die without any effort at reconciliation."
"We would have welcomed you at any time that you had come, Uncle Nicholas," Roderick said earnestly.
"Would you, my boy? I used to doubt it, and so I waited on in the hope that chance would bring us together, till, as you see, it was left for little Norah to act as dea ex machina, and end the great family feud."
Roderick could not forbear laughing.
"Norah did it in a manner peculiarly her own," he said. "I only hope it will not be at too great cost to herself, poor child. Dr. Hanlon says she is going on as well as he could hope for at present, but he will not be able to pronounce her out of danger for some days to come."
Outside his uncle's door Roderick encountered Harry Wyndham, evidently lying in wait for him.
"Look here, I'm awfully glad you've come, and I want you to say a good word for me to the governor—Uncle Nicholas, you know," the lad began eagerly and confidentially. "I haven't ventured to show my nose to him to-day, but I want you to persuade him that it's no good trying to make me work on at this mine business. I hate the whole thing, stock, lock, and barrel, and I've cut it, once and for all."
"Is that what you wish me to tell Uncle Nicholas?" enquired Roderick mildly.
"Oh well, just put it to him the best way you can, like a good fellow; he'll take it better from you than from me," said the ingenuous youth. "The fact is, I mean to be a soldier," and unconsciously he drew himself erect, and threw his chest out. "It's what my father was before me, and what I've wanted to be all my life; but then, you see, Uncle Nicholas had done such a lot for Ella and me, and he's getting old, and—oh, hang it all, you understand what I mean—I felt he'd a sort of claim upon me, and that I was bound to do what he wanted—at least, that I ought to give it a try. It's no go, I can't do it. I wouldn't have come back at all, I'd have struck out for myself, only it would have been behaving scurvily to Uncle Nicholas after all I owe him. And if one's going to be a soldier, one oughtn't to begin by shirking things, ought one?"
"Certainly not," said Roderick, much amused, but not wishing to point out to Harry that now that he had come home, he did not appear very desirous of facing his irate uncle himself.
"Well, if you'd just tell Uncle Nicholas that if he'll help me to get into the army it's all I'll ever ask of him, I'll manage for myself after that. Of course, I know I've no right to expect it, and if he won't do it I'll enlist and work my way up, as many a better chap has done. That's why I'm so awfully glad that you've turned up, for of course you're the right man in the right place to look after the mine and keep things straight for Uncle Nicholas, and it makes it all plain sailing for me to go off. I shan't feel that I'm fighting shy of my duty."
It was quite clear that Miss Browne's ambitious schemes had found no entrance into Harry's boyish mind, and that to him a life of soldiering and adventure far outweighed the O'Brien heritage which she coveted so ardently on his behalf.
"I have no reason to imagine that Uncle Nicholas desires my services in any capacity," said Roderick, "but I think he owes you a good deal for defending his house last night. But for you he would have found the mob in possession on his return, and so I dare say he may be induced to let you follow your own bent."
Roderick's anticipations proved correct, and Mr. O'Brien showed himself even more complaisant than had been expected.
"If the boy's determined to wear a red coat he'll do better in it than he would in one of any other colour, and so it's best to let him have his way."
The days of late summer went by, one by one, and still Norah lay in the same heavy stupor, varied only by occasional outbreaks of wandering and delirium. Ella had begged to be allowed to share the duties of sick-nurse, and she proved as unwearied and devoted in her attendance on Norah as even Anstace herself. Mr. O'Brien paid at least one visit every day to the sick-room, and displayed the liveliest anxiety about the little patient. It was he who despatched the mounted messenger to Ballyfin and thence by rail to Ennis, to procure the ice which the doctor had ordered to be placed on Norah's head; and on the day on which Dr. Hanlon looked his gravest, Mr. O'Brien, without a word to either Roderick or Anstace, telegraphed for the doctor who was most highly thought of in the county, to come to the local practitioner's aid. He would have summoned a surgeon from Dublin if Norah had not taken a favourable turn, which enabled the doctor to pronounce her in a fair way of recovery.
The story of the attack made by the miners upon Moyross Abbey, and the manner in which they had been put to flight by Norah, quickly spread through the neighbourhood, and it was quite wonderful what interest it aroused.
Carriages and cars rolled up the avenue constantly with enquiries for the little girl. Foremost of those who came was Lady Louisa Butler, a stately white-haired old lady, who drove all the way from Dromore and insisted on going up into the darkened sick-chamber, where Anstace kept her anxious watch.
"Me dear," she said, with just the sweetest, softest touch of brogue in her voice, as she stooped to kiss her, "don't you be fretting yourself to fiddle-strings, the child will be well again, you'll see, in next to no time. I'd have known she was Piers O'Brien's daughter just by her planning out that trick, it's what he'd have loved to do himself. Dear, dear, but he was the boy for pranks and mischief. No sooner out of one scrape than he was into another, and how fond we were of him in spite of it all!"
But the interest was by no means confined to the gentry and the county magnates; the house was beset by humbler friends of Norah, who, as they said themselves, "slipped up to git a bit of word" how she was progressing. Amongst the rest was the orator of the trolly, Malachy Flanagan himself, who marched up one windy, blustering afternoon, reckless of all consequences to himself, and careless whether it had become known that it was his eloquence which had fired the recalcitrant miners with the thought of attacking Moyross House. He came, too, not modestly to the back-door like the others, but on up the avenue with his long, swinging gait, the ends of his red beard blown back against his chest, and sat himself down on the hall door-steps. Drawing out his scarlet and white handkerchief, he buried his face in it and broke forth into loud and uncontrolled weeping, for it was just that day on which the doctors had looked their gravest, and a rumour had spread abroad that "it's tuk wid a wakeness since mornin', an' goin' fast the little darlin' is."
"An' if we had knew that 'twas widin the house she was, there wasn't wan as would ha' riz a stone agin it," Malachy declared, between the paroxysms of his grief, to Ella, who had come down to speak to him, and who was somewhat alarmed by his wild and uncouth demeanour. "Or if she'd as much as come to the windy an' held up the little finger of her hand, we'd have been as quite that minnit as a flock of ould lambs."
"She wanted to go out and speak to you, she did indeed," said Ella sadly. "She said you would go away if she asked you, but Mr. Harry would not believe it—it seemed so unlikely—and he would not allow her out."
"An' what call had Miss Norah to be mindin' Misther Harry Wyndham, or any orders that he'd give her?" demanded Malachy fiercely, forgetting in his excitement who his interlocutor was. "Didn't she know there wasn't wan of us that wudn't lie down an' let her walk over us? Yis, indade, an' wid good right too, seein' what she done for us that same marnin' as iver was—"
Here, however, Malachy became incoherent, as even in the midst of his grief it was borne in upon him that the service which Norah had rendered him was one which it would hardly be well to proclaim aloud. Happily, as has been already recorded, Norah took a turn for the better that evening, and from thenceforth made steady though slow progress towards recovery.
Manus had gone back to school as soon as she was pronounced out of danger. Mr. O'Brien had announced his intention of sending him to Harrow in the spring, and Harry had previously departed to a tutor to be prepared for the entrance examination into the army. The mine was once more a busy hive of industry, and shipload after shipload of valuable ore was being despatched from the iron pier at the foot of the cliffs. Mr. O'Brien, with Roderick and M'Bain, had met the miners on that very plot of ground behind the mine buildings where Malachy Flanagan on that notable evening had harangued the crowd, and terms of peace had been arranged. M'Bain was to continue at his post for three months till Roderick had gained an insight into the working of the mine, and then relinquish the management to him. The hard-headed and energetic Scotchman, whose opinion of Irish peasants had not been raised by recent events, was not sorry to resign his charge and return to work amongst his own more congenial countrymen.
"A pack o' grown men rinnin' fra a bit lassie in a white sheet—peeh!" and volumes could not have expressed as much contempt as Mr. M'Bain threw into that monosyllable.
Mr. O'Brien promised to overlook the attack made upon Moyross House, and to take no proceedings for the damage done that night, whilst the men, through their spokesman, Malachy Flanagan, whose influence had had a goodly share in bringing about this peaceful settlement, agreed to return to work and to suffer the introduction of the new machinery, the original cause of all the ill-will.
It was at this point that Roderick stepped forward.
"Boys," he said, "I know less than any of you about copper-mining, but I mean to learn. I hope you and I may work together for many a day to come, and if you'll help me, we'll make Moyross the most flourishing mine in the county Clare, and if we can, in the whole of Ireland."
A frantic outburst of cheering answered him; hats and arms were waving wildly, whilst women poured out blessings on him; and when the tumult subsided for an instant, Malachy, his hat held aloft upon his blackthorn, shouted:
"God bless Moyross Abbey, and them that's in it, an' the blue sky over it, an' little Miss Norah, the first o' them all!"
Another roar, louder and more vociferous than the first, rose and rolled out over the Atlantic, and before its echoes had died away Mr. O'Brien and Roderick had mounted the car that was in waiting for them and driven swiftly away.
The car with its two occupants had become a familiar sight on the roads in the neighbourhood of Moyross by this time. Mr. O'Brien took Roderick for long drives through the wide-spreading property, visiting each portion of it in turn; and as they passed, the women at the cabin doors said to each other: "'Tis the ould masther an' the young masther; the blessin' of God be in their company this day."
No one acquiesced in the altered aspect of affairs with more cheerful complacency than did Miss Browne, and the cause of her contentment was twofold. The first was that Roderick, meeting Ella one evening in the Monk's Walk—as it chanced, upon the very spot where the dread white spectre had menaced Manus and Norah—had taken her hand in his own and told her that he loved her, that he had loved her for a long time—ever since that evening, indeed, when he had caught her pony on the road and she had come down afterwards and sat in the little drawing-room at Kilshane amongst them all. He had asked her if she cared enough for him to trust herself to him and give her life into his keeping, and Ella, though fluttered and taken by surprise, had yet given him an answer that satisfied him; and when they came up the path and past the ruins of the old abbey, it was hand in hand, with the light of a great happiness shining in their eyes. Miss Browne was quite content to relinquish her hopes for Harry Wyndham and to see Roderick acknowledged as his uncle's heir, if Ella was to be his wife; and she had another reason for her satisfaction at the turn which matters had taken. Ever since the night of the onslaught on Moyross House, poor Miss Browne had been in constant trepidation and alarm. She could not sleep at night without fancying that she heard the shouts and cries of the mob under her windows, and in every frieze-coated countryman whom she encountered on the road she saw a possible blood-thirsty assailant. Whilst Ella needed her, nothing would have induced Miss Browne to quit her post; but since Ella had found another protector, there was nothing to hinder her from leaving Moyross and Ireland altogether, and establishing herself upon her modest savings in security and in the trimmest of little suburban dwellings.
Roderick and Anstace still remained at Moyross pending Norah's recovery. It had been arranged that Roderick and Ella should take up their abode at Kilshane after their marriage, whilst Anstace and Norah were to live at Moyross with Mr. O'Brien in Ella's place.
It was upon this changed condition of affairs that Norah opened her eyes, in the early days of autumn, when the trees were beginning to assume tints of russet and gold. The very first wish to which she gave utterance, after coming back to full and clear consciousness, was that Lanty Hogan might be brought up to see her.
Lanty, who had been among the most assiduous of the enquirers at Moyross, was greatly gratified, but also somewhat embarrassed, on hearing of Norah's desire, and he came upstairs treading gingerly on the carpets, and wiping his hobnailed shoes with much care on the mat outside Norah's bedroom door.
"How do you do, Lanty? I am very glad to see you," said Norah, stretching out her small white hand to him as he stood just within the door, turning his hat awkwardly round and round in his hands. Her short black hair had been cut shorter still during her illness, and her face seemed to Lanty to have become all eyes, so thin and wasted was it.
"An' faix an' I'm glad to see you, Miss Norah," he stammered, "if 'twas but a bit heartier ye wor lookin'. But niver fear, ye'll be pickin' up noo, an' it's gran' toimes we'll be havin' whin Masther Manus comes home agin; yis, indade, sale-huntin' an' all else."
In his shyness Lanty hardly knew what he was saying. Norah turned to her sister, who was sitting at the other side of her bed.
"Please, Anstace, what I want to say to Lanty is a secret. Will you let me be alone with him for a little while?"
Anstace got up with less demur than might have been expected.
"Very well, Norah; you may talk to Lanty for five minutes, but not longer. I shall come back then."
"Lanty, you haven't been making any more of that stuff—I forget what you called it—the stuff you and the other men made, up in that little house on Drinane Head?" enquired Norah, when the door had closed behind Anstace.
"Is't the potheen, Miss Norah? Sorra sup's been made since ye saw't yerself spillin' out like dirty dish wather. Nor it's not like there will be, nayther, up there anyways, since the polis has their eye on us, and we'd not be knowin' when they'd be happenin' down—bad scran to them! 'Tis another shnug little hidin' place we'll have to be lookin' out for, I'm thinkin', for it's not always we'd have yerself comin' up an' bringin' us warnin'."
"Lanty," said Norah earnestly, "I want you to promise me that you won't make any more potheen, neither on Drinane Head nor anywhere else. I thought about you nearly all the time I was ill," she went on, as Lanty stared at her in undisguised amazement, "you and Malachy and the other men up there, but you especially. I couldn't think quite straight, all my ideas were upside down and mixed together, like when one's not quite asleep and not quite awake, don't you know, but you were in my head somehow or other all through. I didn't quite understand about the potheen. When I went up to tell you about Captain Lester's coming, it didn't seem as if the government had any right to stop you making it if you liked; but I knew there was something wrong about it the moment I saw you, you looked so different from what you used to do when you were boating and fishing with Master Manus: your eyes were so red, and your face was flabby, and you kept looking about all the time as if you were afraid or ashamed of something."
Lanty stood with his eyes on the ground shuffling his feet awkwardly.
"Thrue for ye, Miss Norah," he said slowly at last, "an' meself knows that same roightly. Nor it's not the love of the potheen that takes me mannefacterin' it, but jist the divvlemint an' the divarsion, an' the playin' blind hookey wid the polis. I'd niver contint meself to live workin' hard, wid no variety an' no venturesomeness, not if I was to be makin' pouns an' pouns a day."
"I'm sure all the devilment and the diversion can't make you happy or comfortable, Lanty, when you look as you did on Drinane Head that morning," said Norah sagely. "And then do you remember what Captain Lester said before he went away, and he talked a lot more about it at breakfast at Kilshane afterwards. He said people who took to making potheen always came to ruin sooner or later. I don't want you to be ruined, Lanty; you were so kind to me, and took care of me that day of the seal-hunt, and Master Manus likes you so much; he says you're a broth of a boy, and he'd be so sorry too. That was what kept worrying me all the time I was ill, that if I didn't get well quick you'd have been ruined; and the very first moment Anstace would allow it, I made her bring you upstairs. I want you to promise me that you'll never make potheen again."
"Sure it's too bad intirely that ye should ha' been throublin' yerself for the likes o' me, Miss Norah; an' there's nothin' on this mortial airth I wudn't do for yer axin'—" he hesitated, but the eyes that seemed to have grown so large of late were fixed pleadingly upon him, and with desperate resolve he added: "Divil resave the dhrop o' potheen I'll make nor swally from this oot, not if Malachy an' the rest o' the boys curshed till they broke their hearts. I've promised that, Miss Norah, an' troth I'll kape it."
"I'm so glad," said Norah gratefully. "I won't have to trouble any more about you; and now I must say good-bye, Lanty, for I'm not strong enough yet to talk a great deal, and it makes me tired."
Lanty touched the thin morsel of a hand which she held out to him cautiously and reverently, as if it were an egg-shell, or costly china, which would break with rough handling. He was brushing his hand across his eyes as he came out into the corridor, and he nearly ran against Roderick, who was on his way to his little sister's room.
"Hullo, Lanty!" exclaimed the latter in some astonishment. "Have you taken to the doctoring trade, or what brings you up into Miss Norah's room?"
"Sure yer honour's always for havin' yer joke," said Lanty, grinning confusedly. "Miss Norah tuk a fancy to see me—'twas a little thransacsheeon her an' me was consarned about."
"Had the transaction anything to do with your making potheen on Drinane Head, and her going up there to tell you the police were coming?" asked Anstace quietly, from the window in which she had stood looking out on the pleasure-ground and waiting for the minutes allotted to the interview to be over.
Lanty faced round quickly.
"An' how did yer honour know that?"
Anstace laughed softly.
"I only guessed it before, Lanty; but I know it now. Miss Norah talked about it almost always when she was delirious, but what she said was so incoherent and confused we could not make much of it. Mr. Roderick would not believe that she could really have gone up to warn you, and thought it was only a delusion that had got hold of her, but I remembered two or three little things which happened that morning which made me suspect it was true; and now, Lanty, you have admitted it to me yourself."
"Yer honour's too cute for a poor boy like me," said Lanty in wheedling tones; "but sure it's not yerself, Miss Anstace, that wud inform agin us, an' me jist afther promisin' Miss Norah that I'd quit out of the business wanst an' for all?"
"Well, I'm glad to hear that, at any rate, Lanty; and if you do turn over a new leaf and settle down steadily to some honest trade, you may be quite sure that neither Mr. Roderick nor I will ever breathe a word of what we know."
"I'll thry me livin' best," protested Lanty earnestly; "but whin ye're used to sthravagin' over the counthry wid ne'er a thing to do but plaze yerself, settlin' down to work stiddy is the mischief's own job."
And Lanty heaved a prodigious sigh.
"I'll make you an offer," said Roderick, who had been listening to the colloquy with much amusement. "Old Pat Lannigan, the gamekeeper, is getting past his work, and Mr. O'Brien has been talking of engaging some strapping young fellow as under-keeper to assist him. Now if you're really going to turn over the new leaf Miss Anstace talks of, and will promise to keep from drink and potheen-making and poaching for the future, I'll try to induce my uncle to give the berth to you. That will give you the sort of roving, outdoor life that you like; and if you are steady and give Mr. O'Brien satisfaction, there will be every likelihood that when old Pat finally gives up work you will become gamekeeper in his stead."
Lanty flushed up under his freckles, and his eyes beamed with pleasure.
"Thank ye, Misther Roderick; sure that's what I'd rather be nor nothin' besides."
"One thing I'm sure of," and Roderick looked at him with a twinkle in his eyes, "that there's not a boy in the country that knows the ways of every creature that has feathers or fur, and where to find it, better than yourself. But remember, Lanty," he added more gravely, "if I speak to my uncle on your behalf I shall expect you not to disgrace my recommendation."
"No fear, yer honour, not the taste of a fear," asseverated Lanty joyfully, as he vanished in the direction of the backstairs.
* * * * * * *
"And when you are married, Ella will be my sister—my real, own sister, like Anstace? Oh, I do think it's the most wonderful and the very jolliest thing that ever happened!"
It was a few days later, and Norah had been moved for the first time from her bed to a sofa.
"I quite agree with you, Norah," said Roderick, who, with Anstace and Ella, had gathered in her room for afternoon tea, and who was sitting on the arm of the sofa looking down at his little sister. "What you have to do now is to get well and strong as quickly as possible, for Ella is determined not to be married till you can be her bridesmaid. The very first day you are able to go out of the house I will take you down and show you the Monk's Walk, where this most wonderful and jolly thing came to pass, and Ella promised to bestow herself on my unworthy self."
"But Norah has seen the Monk's Walk before, surely?" exclaimed Ella. Roderick laughed.
"You forget what strangers we all were to each other till Norah broke the ice for us, and her own head into the bargain, by tumbling down from the abbey window. She had never even set foot inside Moyross till she ran over that night with Manus to give you warning that the miners were coming, had you, little woman?"
To Roderick's astonishment, Norah's pale face crimsoned slowly from chin to brow.
"Yes, I was in Moyross before—once," she said, after a few minutes' painful hesitation; "and I came up the Monk's Walk, only it was so dark we couldn't see anything, Manus and I. I've wanted to tell about it ever so often since I've been ill, only I was afraid it would make Uncle Nicholas so dreadfully angry that perhaps he'd have another quarrel with us. But there can't be a family feud now, can there, when Roderick and Ella are going to be married?"
"No, dear, of course not; and now lie quiet and try to go to sleep," said Anstace soothingly. She thought this strange talk on Norah's part must mean that she had been over-excited and that her mind was beginning to wander as it had done during her illness.
But Norah's eyes were far too wide and bright for any possibility of sleep.
"Not even when Uncle Nicholas hears that it was Manus and I who shot holes into his table-cloth?" she asked anxiously.
"Norah, you are not in earnest surely?" said Roderick sternly, whilst Anstace laid her hand quickly on her little sister's forehead. She was quite certain now that Norah was suffering from a sudden return of fever.
Norah, however, shook herself from under the cool, quieting clasp.
"It is true, it is indeed!" she said piteously. "It was that night when we were coming back after killing the seal in Ballintaggart Cave, and Lanty put us ashore out of his coracle in the cove, because he was in a hurry— Oh, but I forgot," interrupting herself; "that was a secret too!"
Roderick looked even more grave.
"I think we know pretty well about Master Lanty and his doings, Norah," he said; "betraying them is not of much consequence. But I confess I don't like to hear of all this underhand work and keeping of secrets which seems to have gone on behind Anstace's and my back. Let us have the rest of the story now, please; we have not heard about the table-cloth yet."
Very falteringly and tremulously it was told, for Norah, though she was very fond of Roderick, stood also in some awe of him and of his displeasure.
"And why did you not come forward at once when you saw Miss Browne and Ella, and tell them how it had happened, and how sorry you were for the mischief you had done?" demanded Anstace at the end of the recital.
Poor Norah hung her head.
"We were so much ashamed, and we were afraid, too, because Miss Browne seemed so angry about the table-cloth. And Manus said everyone would laugh at us so dreadfully if they heard that we had thought a table-cloth hanging on a tree was a ghost, so we agreed to keep it a secret; but, oh dear! I'm glad it's told, for secrets do weigh on one so much."
Ella stooped quickly to kiss her.
"Never mind, Norah dear, it doesn't matter in the least, not if you had shot all the table-cloths in Moyross into rags. Roderick, you are not to frown like that, I won't have it!"
Roderick, in truth, in his efforts to keep the muscles of his face under control, and to maintain a proper air of severity while Norah was telling her story, had contracted his forehead into a most portentous frown. At Ella's command, however, issued with a pretty air of imperiousness that was quite new to her, he gave up the struggle to retain his gravity and indulged in a hearty and prolonged fit of laughter, in which Anstace and Ella were not slow to join.
"Hey! Hullo! What's all this about?" said a voice behind them.
Mr. O'Brien had come in without anyone hearing him, and was standing leaning on his stick, holding a fine bunch of grapes in his other hand.
"Norah shall tell you what the joke is," said Roderick. "Yes, Norah, every word, just as you have told us now, before you touch one of the grapes Uncle Nicholas has brought you. I ordain that as your penance."
So the whole story had to be told over again, but this time Norah, conscious of having the sympathy of the larger part of her audience with her, was not as nervous as on the first occasion. There was even a roguish twinkle in her eyes as she finished up with:
"But you see, Uncle Nicholas, if it hadn't been for that table-cloth ghost, I'd never have thought of being a ghost up in the abbey window; so it was a good thing it happened after all."
"So it was, my dear, a first-rate thing," said the old man. "And you deserve your grapes for telling it so well. You were a pretty pair of cowards, you and that young rascal Manus; but perhaps we'd none of us have been heroes under the circumstances." And he laughed with as keen enjoyment as anyone else.
"Norah is getting on so well, Uncle Nicholas," said Anstace, "that I think we shall not have to trespass on your kindness much longer. In a few days, if you will lend us the carriage, I think we shall be able to take her home to Kilshane."
"Eh, what's that?" said Mr. O'Brien, wheeling round upon her. "I thought, my dear, you understood that 'home' for you was here from henceforward. I'll lend no carriages to take anyone away from here till one is needed to drive Mr. and Mrs. Roderick O'Brien on their wedding-journey. And that wedding is going to be a big affair, I've made up my mind about that. It shall be remembered in the county when Miss Norah here is brushing a gray head. There's one thing I would like you to understand, nephew Roderick," he said after a pause, fixing his eyes keenly upon him. "Nothing which has occurred during the last few weeks alters your future prospects in any way. You only hold the position which you have held since your father's death. Nothing would have induced me to leave an acre of O'Brien land away from the rightful heir."
"There, didn't I tell you so, Anstace?" exclaimed Norah triumphantly from her sofa, before anyone else could speak.
"Told me what, dear? What are you talking about?" asked her elder sister, somewhat puzzled.
"Don't you remember that first day when you came to Treherne House and told me that Cousin Ansey had left Kilshane to us, and that we were all coming over to live here? You said then you were sure that Uncle Nicholas would not make up the feud, and that he would leave Moyross Abbey to Harry Wyndham; and I told you he hadn't a right to leave half a quarter of a yard of O'Brien land to anyone except an O'Brien."
"Really, Norah, you have become extremely forward since you have been ill," said Roderick, with considerable annoyance. "No one has asked for your opinion, and in future please to remember that little girls should be seen and not heard."
"Just you leave her alone," said Mr. O'Brien gruffly, as the tears sprang into Norah's eyes at her brother's rebuke, and he patted her hand kindly. "If she said anything of the sort, it only showed that she had more sense in her composition than all the rest of her family put together. She's always been the one to cut the Gordian knot and find the way out of difficulties for everyone—miners, smugglers, and quarrelling relatives included." He paused and sighed heavily, then added as by an overmastering impulse, "I wish your father Piers were here to see this day."
"I wish indeed that he were, sir, or even that you and he might have met and made up your quarrel before he died," said Roderick earnestly.
Mr. O'Brien sighed once again.
"You cannot desire it as I do, Roderick. I would gladly give half the little life that is left to me that he and I had shaken hands even once. He wronged me deeply, but he was my only brother, and many a time of late years I should have been glad if any opportunity had arisen to end the estrangement. But I let the time slip by, waiting for the chance that never came, and then one day I heard it was too late."
There was a few minutes' silence, and then Anstace said softly:
"It will be a year next week since he died. How little we thought then that we should all be here, gathered in his old home."