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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75934 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: "THERE'S THIM THAT'LL NOT FORGIT" _Page_ 182]
+
+
+
+
+  A Little Irish Girl
+
+
+  BY
+
+  J. M. CALLWELL
+
+  Author of "A Champion of the Faith" "Little Curiosity"
+  "The Squire's Grandson" &c.
+
+
+
+  BLACKIE & SON LIMITED
+  LONDON AND GLASGOW
+
+
+
+
+Printed in Great Britain by Blackie & Son, Ltd., Glasgow
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAP.
+
+I. THE MISS CLARKSONS' EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT FOR YOUNG LADIES
+
+II. COUSIN ANSEY'S LEGACY
+
+III. NORAH'S FREAK
+
+IV. WITHIN SOUND OF THE SEA
+
+V. ENGLISH IDEAS AND IRISH WAYS
+
+VI. COUSINS
+
+VII. MOYROSS ABBEY
+
+VIII. BALLINTAGGART CAVE
+
+IX. THE GHOST IN THE MONK'S WALK
+
+X. CAPTAIN LESTER, R.M.
+
+XI. ON DRINANE HEAD
+
+XII. DISCOMFITED
+
+XIII. MALACHY'S ORATION
+
+XIV. MR. O'BRIEN SEES A VISION OF THE PAST
+
+XV. IT WAS ALL NORAH'S IDEA
+
+XVI. PEACE AND HARMONY
+
+
+
+
+A LITTLE IRISH GIRL
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+  THE MISS CLARKSONS' EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT
+  FOR YOUNG LADIES
+
+A goodly number of years ago there stood in one of the northern
+suburbs of London a large, old-fashioned red-brick house.  In former
+days, somewhere about the middle of the last century, it had been a
+stately family mansion.  A broad flight of stone steps led up to the
+hall-door, and in the iron railings on either side there still
+remained the extinguishers with which the linkboys had been wont to
+put their torches out, after escorting some fashionable lady home in
+her sedan-chair from a gay rout or assembly.
+
+Within doors, too, the stone-flagged hall, the wide staircase, and
+the lofty rooms with their carved mantel-pieces and richly-decorated
+ceilings, bore witness to the ancient glories of Treherne House.
+Those glories, however, had long passed away.  The original owners,
+the Trehernes, had sold it many years before, when fashionable people
+moved to other parts of London; and though the old house retained its
+high-sounding name, it had known many vicissitudes and changed hands
+many times since then.  For some dozen years or so it had been owned
+by three middle-aged sisters, the Miss Clarksons, the principals of a
+large and flourishing school, or--to quote the inscription on the
+huge brass plate affixed to the hall-door--of an educational
+establishment for young ladies.
+
+If anyone had chanced to stand in the entrance-hall of Treherne House
+upon a certain sunny spring morning, he could not have failed to
+perceive that this work of education was being carried on even more
+vigorously than usual.  A busy hum of voices pervaded the whole
+house, and burst forth more loudly every now and again with the
+opening of a class-room door, while somewhere far aloft indefatigable
+fingers raced up and down the piano over sharps and flats in
+persevering efforts to master a difficult passage.
+
+Both pupils and teachers, indeed, were working at full pressure, for
+the Easter holidays were barely three weeks off, and the examinations
+which marked the conclusion of each school-term were to begin the
+following week.
+
+To Miss Euphemia, the youngest of the three Miss Clarksons, the care
+of the juniors of the school was specially confided.  She was at
+present giving a geography lesson to her class, which numbered
+fourteen or fifteen girls of ages ranging from eleven to thirteen, in
+a large and dingy room on the ground-floor.
+
+"Turkey in Asia lies between latitudes 30° and 41° North, longitudes
+26° and 48° East," a flabby-looking, flaxen-haired girl was drawling
+out.  "It is bounded on the north by the Dardanelles, the Sea of
+Marmora, the Bosphorus, the Black Sea, and the Caucasus; upon the
+east by Persia, upon the south by the Persian Gulf and Arabia, and on
+the west by the Mediterranean."
+
+"Very correctly answered indeed, Louisa, my dear.  Constance Lane,
+which are the principal rivers of Turkey in Asia?"
+
+"The Euphrates and Tigris, falling into the Persian Gulf; the Kizil
+Irmak, into the Black Sea; the Sihoon, Jihon, and Orontes, into the
+Mediterranean; and the Jordan into the Dead Sea."
+
+"Quite right also.  Norah O'Brien, name the chief towns in the order
+of their relative importance."
+
+This time there was not the same ready response.  Miss Euphemia
+rapped her desk sharply with her pencil and spoke again.
+
+"Norah O'Brien, be good enough to attend to the lesson instead of
+staring out of the window!  What have I just asked you?"
+
+A well-meant nudge from a neighbour's elbow helped to bring the
+little girl addressed to herself with a sudden start.  She was the
+youngest in the class, but sat nearly two-thirds up the row of girls;
+and her eyes, as Miss Euphemia had said, had wandered away from the
+dismal class-room, with its well-worn school furniture and walls hung
+with smoke-stained maps, out through the window opposite to her.
+There was not much to be seen there, only a wilderness of roofs and
+walls, with the spring sunshine lying bright and hot upon them, and
+three smutty sparrows chirping with might and main on the solitary
+plane-tree that grew in the back-garden, and which, notwithstanding
+London smoke and soot, was sending out fresh green buds all along its
+grimy branches.
+
+"Chief towns," good-naturedly whispered a big girl who sat beside
+Norah, the one who had already given her that friendly midge.  But
+Norah, whose thoughts had strayed away far beyond the back-garden and
+its sparrows, and who had only been brought back to stern reality by
+the rapping of Miss Euphemia's pencil and the sudden, sharp question
+fired off at her like a pistol-shot, was too confused and bewildered
+to profit by the kindly hint.  The silence of the class made her
+aware that a reply of some sort was expected from her, and answering,
+not Miss Euphemia's question, but the train of thought in which she
+had herself been engaged, she stammered out:
+
+"Tuesday fortnight, Miss Euphemia."
+
+There was a general titter from all the girls.  Tuesday fortnight was
+the day on which the school was to break up for the Easter holidays,
+so no one had any difficulty in guessing where Norah's thoughts had
+drifted to.  A frown from Miss Euphemia and another tap of her pencil
+brought instant silence however.
+
+"Norah O'Brien, go to the bottom of the class!  You will not
+accompany the rest of the school upon their walk this afternoon.  You
+will remain indoors and write out the geography lesson instead.  If I
+have to call you to order again for inattention I shall be compelled
+to report you to Miss Clarkson."
+
+There was no penalty more dreaded by all the girls in Treherne House
+than to be reported to Miss Clarkson, the severe and stately ruler of
+the educational establishment, and to be summoned to appear in her
+special sanctum for reprimand and admonition.  It was with no little
+dismay, therefore, that Norah gathered up her books and moved down
+the class to the place assigned to her, seating herself below a
+little girl with pretty pink cheeks and long silky curls, who till
+then had occupied the lowest place with all apparent contentment.
+
+Lily Allardyce was the next youngest girl in the school to Norah, and
+they were close friends and companions.  She gave Norah's hand a
+little consolatory squeeze as she moved up to make room for her, and
+whispered:
+
+"Never mind, Norah, it's ever so much nicer when we're together than
+when you're up near the top of the class.  It's Fräulein's turn to go
+out with us to-day, and I'll coax her to let me buy something to
+bring home to you."
+
+Lily was the little heiress of the school, and always more abundantly
+provided with pocket-money than anybody else.  Her parents were
+wealthy people, who delighted in heaping presents of clothes, of
+books, of playthings, and of expensive trifles of every kind upon
+their only child.  It was strange that she and Norah should have come
+to be such allies, for not only in their appearance, but in their
+tastes and dispositions, and in all other respects, they were as
+great a contrast as two children nearly of an age could possibly be.
+
+Lily, as already said, was a soft, fair, pink and white little thing,
+always beautifully dressed in the daintiest of frocks.  No one had
+ever seen Lily flushed, or tossed, or untidy.  She was always
+well-behaved too; a quiet, plodding little maiden who was not
+brilliant in any way, but who learned her lessons steadily and never
+got into scrapes, except when she was led into them by her more
+venturesome companion.
+
+One of her brothers had once teasingly, but not at all inaptly,
+described Norah as "short and dark, like a winter's day".  She was so
+small as to look much less than her eleven years, and she had a thick
+shock of short black hair which resembled a pony's shaggy mane more
+than anything else.  With her turned-up nose and rather wide mouth
+Norah would have been undeniably plain, if not absolutely ugly, if it
+had not been for her dark-blue eyes--Irish eyes, Norah loved to have
+them called.  In general those eyes of Norah's were brimful of fun
+and mischief, but on this particular morning they looked as though
+tears were much nearer to them than laughter, for together with her
+Irish eyes Norah had inherited the quick Irish temperament with all
+its April-day changes of mood.  Usually she was the ringleader in
+every frolic and in every piece of mischief that was set on foot, and
+at once the torment and the delight of her teachers.  She was so
+bright and intelligent that when she gave her mind to her lessons she
+could master them in half the time that it took the rest of the class
+to plod through them, and girls considerably her seniors were wont to
+consult her about difficulties in their sums and exercises.
+Unhappily, however, there were very frequent occasions when Norah's
+mind was not given to her lessons, but was running on all sorts of
+other things, so that it was no uncommon experience to her to find
+herself, as at present, sent to the bottom of the class with a
+punishment in prospect.  Not even the strictest of her governesses,
+however, could retain their displeasure against her very long, and as
+for the girls, they one and all adored little Norah.  The elder ones
+petted and made much of her, and amongst the juniors, youngest of all
+though she was, she had constituted herself the leading spirit, the
+originator of freaks and schemes of daring which would never have
+occurred to any of them except herself.
+
+"I'm Irish, you know, it all comes of that," Norah would say modestly
+when complimented on her fertility of invention.
+
+There was nothing indeed of which she was so proud as of her Irish
+name and her Irish descent, although she herself had never set foot
+in Ireland in all her life.  She did her best--not very
+successfully--to cultivate an Irish brogue, and no one could have
+displeased her more than by spelling her Christian name without the
+concluding _h_, which marked it as distinctively Irish.  The shabby
+black frock which Norah wore, adorned by more than one
+unscientifically-cobbled rent, with cuffs and collar of frayed-out
+crape, betokened that she must be in mourning for someone near to
+her, not long dead; and there were times, as all her companions knew,
+when even in her wildest and merriest moods some chance word
+carelessly uttered would call up old memories and send Norah in
+floods of tears into some dark corner to sob her heart out in
+passionate grief and fruitless longings.
+
+Poor Norah's troubles were weighing very heavily upon her on this
+first morning of our making her acquaintance.  It was her first term
+at school, and as has been seen, the holidays were close at hand.
+Already the forty girls at Treherne House talked of little else but
+what each of them hoped and intended to do during those happy weeks;
+Norah alone, out of the whole forty, had no home to go to, no plans
+or projects to make.  Lily Allardyce, however, had promised to ask
+leave to bring her down with her to her home in Hampshire, and Norah
+knew that Lily's parents were not the least likely to refuse her
+anything which she might ask.
+
+On this very morning, however, Lily had had a letter from her mother,
+to tell her that she and her father were so pleased by Miss
+Clarkson's report of her conduct and progress during the term, that
+they had determined, as a reward for her diligence, to take her to
+Paris in the holidays, and to let her have her first glimpse of
+foreign life.
+
+"You shall come to us in summer instead, Norah," Lily had said
+consolingly.  "We shall have six weeks' holidays then instead of
+three, and there will be picnics and boating parties, and ever so
+much more fun than we'd have had now."
+
+To poor Norah, however, the prospect of a longer and pleasanter visit
+several months off seemed but meagre compensation for three weeks of
+loneliness and desertion in the immediate future.  Even the Miss
+Clarksons themselves were going to the sea-side for the holidays, and
+she would be left to inhabit the gaunt, empty rooms, with no other
+company than Fräulein Glock, the German governess.  She had loyally
+done her best to conceal her disappointment and to enter into Lily's
+delight at the promised trip, but it was hardly to be wondered at if
+her eyes strayed wistfully out of the prison-like school-room to the
+sunshine outside, or if her thoughts wandered away from Turkey in
+Asia and its towns and rivers back to her old home on Hampstead
+Heath, and to the joyous, untroubled home life which had been
+interrupted so rudely by her father's death six months before.
+
+It had been a very easy-going, harum-scarum household in which Norah
+had grown up, almost as Irish in its ways as if it had been situated
+amongst the old ancestral possessions of the O'Briens on the wild
+west coast of Ireland instead of in an eminently orderly and
+respectable suburb of London.  Norah's father, Piers O'Brien, with
+his cheery, genial manner, his unfailing spirits, and the soft Irish
+accent which he had never lost, had been the life and soul of the
+little home on the green heights of Hampstead.  He had been its
+mainstay and support too, for it was the brilliant, racy articles for
+newspapers and magazines, which flowed so freely from his pen, that
+furnished the means for providing for the wants of the household.
+But coming out from London one wet night in the previous autumn Piers
+O'Brien had caught a severe chill.  A sudden and serious illness
+followed.  There were a few days of agonized anxiety and distress,
+and then all was over, and the young O'Briens found themselves left,
+orphaned and well-nigh penniless, to face the world as best they
+could.
+
+Their mother had died long before, quite beyond Norah's memory; but
+Norah had never felt the want of a mother's love, her elder sister
+Anstace, with her sweet womanly ways, had filled the vacant place so
+completely.  Anstace was the second of the family; the eldest was
+Roderick, the tall brother of whom they were all so proud, who had
+just finished his college career with honours and distinction, and
+who was to have gone to the bar.  He was twenty-one, and Anstace was
+two years younger, and after her there had been a stretch of seven
+years before the next brother, Manus, the special object of Norah's
+devotion, had made his appearance.  Norah herself, the fourth and
+youngest, made the little family circle complete.
+
+Roderick and Anstace were both very young to have such a heavy load
+of anxiety and responsibility thrust suddenly upon them.  Careless
+and easy-going in money matters as in everything else, their father
+had not troubled himself about laying up any provision for the
+future, and when once the expenses of his illness and the funeral had
+been paid, there was but little left.  The brother and sister,
+however, set themselves to bear their burden bravely.  They decided
+with all promptitude that what little money remained, together with
+all that they could spare from their own scanty earnings, must be
+devoted to the two children and to their education, whilst they made
+shift to provide for themselves as best they could.
+
+Anstace in former days had been a favourite pupil in the Miss
+Clarksons' educational establishment, and she had always kept up
+friendly relations with its principals.  They now offered to take
+Norah into Treherne House on very much reduced terms, an offer which
+Roderick and Anstace most gratefully accepted.  A cheap school, too,
+was, after some trouble, found for Manus in Kent.  Roderick,
+relinquishing his hopes of the bar, accepted employment as a lawyer's
+clerk with as much apparent cheerfulness as if he had never looked
+forward to any other career, while Anstace became governess in the
+family of the doctor who had attended their father in his last
+illness, who had come to know their circumstances and was anxious to
+befriend them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+COUSIN ANSEY'S LEGACY
+
+Norah did not let her mind wander again during the rest of the
+geography lesson.  At its conclusion Miss Euphemia gave three taps of
+her pencil on her desk and said in her sharp, determined tones,
+"Dictation!"
+
+In a moment, with the precision of an infantry battalion going
+through its drill, each girl had her exercise-book open before her
+and her pen dipped in the ink, ready to begin to write at the first
+word which should fall from Miss Euphemia's lips.  Before that word
+had been spoken, however, the door opened and the neat parlour-maid
+appeared.
+
+"If you please, m'm, Miss O'Brien is in the drawing-room, and she
+hopes you'll excuse her, but she wishes to see Miss Norah most
+particular if you'd kindly give her leave for a few minutes."
+
+Miss Euphemia hesitated.
+
+"Really, Norah, your conduct this morning has not been such as to
+entitle you to any indulgence--" she was beginning, when she caught
+the imploring glance fixed on her by Norah, who had sprung to her
+feet at the first words of the parlour-maid's message.
+
+She paused involuntarily.  There was something pathetic about the
+little figure in its well-worn mourning, and in the pleading blue
+eyes, and Miss Euphemia, strict disciplinarian though she was, had
+yet a kindly heart.
+
+"As, however, your sister wishes so very specially to see you, I
+suppose you may be allowed to go to her.  I hope you will show your
+gratitude by increased application to your studies afterwards," was
+the manner in which, after a moment's hesitation, she ended her
+speech.
+
+It was doubtful if Norah heard the concluding words at all.  She let
+her pen fall with a clatter from her fingers, dropped a jerky little
+curtsey, and gasping out "Thank you, Miss Euphemia, thank you so
+much!" she whisked out of the room and raced upstairs to the
+drawing-room, where Anstace stood awaiting her, a slight graceful
+figure in her simple black gown, with coils of shining hair wound
+round beneath her hat.
+
+Norah crossed the room in one bound and flung her arms round her
+sister.
+
+"Oh, Anstace, Anstace, darling!" with a hug between each word.  "It's
+such an age since I've seen you, I began to think you weren't ever
+coming again."
+
+"I couldn't get away last Sunday afternoon: two of the children were
+not well, and so I did not like to leave Mrs. Trafford alone,"
+Anstace said, seating herself in an arm-chair and lifting her little
+sister on her knee, where she held her closely folded in her arms.
+"Why, Norah, you are as wild a little Irishwoman as ever; school has
+not tamed you in the least.  And oh, my dear child," as her eye fell
+on the roughly-darned rents in the front of Norah's frock, "look at
+the state your dress is in.  How could you have got it so torn?"
+
+"I can't help it, Anstace, I can't indeed; it will hook on to things
+and tear.  It's getting ever so much too short for me, too.  See!"
+and Norah slipped off Anstace's knee and stood up before her with her
+feet in the first position, to show what a very little way the scanty
+black skirt reached below her knees.
+
+"So it is indeed," Anstace said with a sigh, as she turned up the hem
+and examined it critically to see if any letting down was possible.
+"Norah dear, I do wish you would try to be more careful of your
+things; you know how difficult it is for Roderick and me to buy new
+ones for you."
+
+"I do try my very best," Norah protested, with a threatened return of
+the tears that had been so near to her all morning, "but it's no use;
+I do think nails and spikes stick themselves out on purpose to catch
+me.  There's Lily Allardyce, who might have a new frock every week if
+she liked, and her clothes never tear or have things spilt over them.
+Oh dear, wouldn't it be nice if we were rich like the
+Allardyces?--but I don't know either; they're only city people, and
+her father made his money selling chemicals or something of that
+sort, and we're the old, old O'Briens, no matter how poor we are.
+
+"And one of the old, old O'Briens is a goose to talk such nonsense,"
+said Anstace gravely; then, as her quick eyes took in the signs of
+recent trouble on the little girl's face, she asked solicitously,
+drawing her close to her side: "What is the matter, dearie?  Have you
+been in difficulties over your lessons this morning?"
+
+"Well, yes, but it wasn't that altogether," and Norah hid her face
+against Anstace's shoulder.  "You know that Lily promised to ask
+leave for me to go home with her to Heron's Court for the holidays,
+but she's heard from her mother that they're all going to Paris for
+Easter; and I do feel horrid and mean, for of course it's splendid
+for Lily, and I ought to be glad that she's going to have such fun,
+but I can't.  It's so miserable to think that I'll have to spend all
+these weeks here alone with Fräulein.  And hearing all the others
+talk about going home, and all that they're going to do in the
+holidays, makes it worse."  And the tears which had been kept back
+with such difficulty hitherto were coming in real earnest now.
+
+Anstace stroked the little rough head that lay upon her shoulder
+tenderly.
+
+"Do you remember, Norah," she said, "when I used to teach you at
+home, and you came to the heading in your copy-book, 'Never cross a
+bridge till you come to it', that you said it was the most ridiculous
+nonsense you had ever heard, for no one could possibly go over a
+bridge till they got there?"
+
+"Yes," said Norah, dully, not understanding where this was going to
+lead to.
+
+"Well, Norah, you have just been doing that very thing to-day in
+fretting about something that is not going to happen.  You are not in
+the least likely to spend the holidays at Treherne House."
+
+"Anstace! why, what do you mean?" Norah started upright and brushed
+the tumbled hair back behind her ears, whilst the tears still hung
+from her eyelashes.  A strange light was shining in her sister's eyes.
+
+"A very wonderful and unexpected thing has happened.  We have come
+into a fortune, Norah."
+
+Norah clapped her hands and whisked wildly round the room.
+
+"Oh, I know, I know, Anstace!  It's Uncle Nicholas!  He's forgiven us
+and made up the feud, and we're all going over to live with him at
+Moyross Abbey, and Roderick's to be the heir.  Is that it?"
+
+"No, dear," Anstace returned a little sadly, "that is not it, nor is
+it at all likely to happen, as far as I know.  It is only a little
+property which has been left to us--a very small one which I dare say
+a great many people would despise, but we are only too thankful for
+it.  Did you ever hear Father speak of his old relation Anstace
+O'Brien, who was my godmother, and whom I was called after--Cousin
+Ansey he used to call her?"
+
+Norah was doubtful, but thought she remembered having heard of such a
+personage.
+
+"She died last week.  Poor old woman, she had had a very sad life.
+Years ago, when she was quite young, she was engaged to be married,
+and her lover went out to America to make his fortune and then come
+home and marry her.  Perhaps he died out there, or perhaps he forgot
+poor Cousin Ansey and married someone else, but at any rate no one
+ever heard of him again, and Cousin Ansey kept waiting and watching
+for him for years and years, till she had grown to be an old woman.
+She lived on in the place that had been her father's, and where her
+lover had known her, so that when he came home he might have no
+difficulty in finding her, but come there straight.  Her mind gave
+way at last, and they had to take her away and shut her up in an
+asylum in Dublin, and she lived twelve years there.  I only saw her
+once; she came to see us when I was quite a little girl, but she
+would only stay a day or two.  'I must go home, Piers,' I remember
+her saying to Father, 'I cannot tell what day Hugh might walk in',
+and so back she went.  It was soon afterwards that she went out of
+her mind."
+
+"And about the fortune; oh quick, quick, Anstace!" Norah cried
+eagerly, and then hung her head with some shamefacedness as she
+caught her sister's reproving look.  "Oh yes, I know, Anstace, but
+you can't expect me to be sorry for someone just because she was my
+cousin, when I never even saw her, and she was mad before I was born.
+I think if she was shut up all those years she must have been rather
+glad to die."
+
+"Perhaps she was, poor thing!" said Anstace, with feeling in her
+voice.  "She certainly had not much to live for.  However, Norah, she
+had always been very fond of our father, and so when her will was
+opened--it had been made long ago when she knew what she was
+doing--it was found that she had left everything she had to him and
+to his children, if Hugh Masters, the man she was to have married,
+should not have been heard of before her death."
+
+"And he hasn't been; so of course we get it," said Norah promptly.
+
+"Yes, dear.  The little property is only worth about a hundred a
+year, but there is a small old-fashioned house upon it with a garden
+and a few fields belonging to it.  It is called Kilshane, and is
+about two miles from Moyross Abbey.  It was part of the O'Brien
+estate, and was sliced off to be a younger son's portion for Cousin
+Ansey's father."
+
+"And we're all going to live there in that little old house, and be
+together again, and be done with school, and London, and everything
+that's horrid?" cried Norah, skipping gleefully about.
+
+Anstace could not help laughing.  "I hope so, Norah.  Roderick came
+to have a long talk with me last night.  He has been over at Moyross
+Abbey attending poor Cousin Ansey's funeral."
+
+"At Moyross Abbey?  Oh, Anstace, why didn't you tell me sooner?  Did
+he see Uncle Nicholas?  And what is he like?  And is he going to be
+friends?"
+
+"My dear child, how could I possibly answer so many questions all at
+once?  He only went to Moyross Abbey because all the O'Briens for
+generations have been buried there; the old abbey is close to the
+house.  Don't you remember how Father used to describe it all to us?
+He himself is the only one not buried there."  And Anstace's eyes
+filled with tears as she thought of the crowded cemetery where her
+father's last resting-place had been made.  "Uncle Nicholas was at
+the funeral; he is an old gray-haired man, Roderick says.  He
+evidently noticed Roderick and asked who he was, for he turned quite
+white when he was told, but he never spoke to him, or took any notice
+of him.  Roderick felt it a good deal, I think; it was so sad for him
+to be actually at Father's old home and not to be asked even to come
+inside the door.  If it had not been for Mr. Lynch, the old
+clergyman, who knew Father long ago, and who made Roderick come to
+the rectory with him, Roderick would have had to drive straight back
+to the railway station.  As it was, he walked over with Mr. and Mrs.
+Lynch the next day to see Kilshane.  He says the house stands almost
+on the edge of the cliffs, and looks out right over the Atlantic.  It
+is small, and rather out of repair, but that cannot be wondered at,
+for no one has lived in it since poor Cousin Ansey was taken away.
+Still, it is quite habitable, and the furniture and everything
+remains in it just as it was in her time.  Roderick thinks he could
+farm the land that belongs to it.  And he wants to know if we would
+be satisfied to go over and live there with him."
+
+"Satisfied?  I should think so!  How can he ask anything so silly,
+the dear old delightful donkey?  Why, Anstace, it's almost too
+wonderful to believe;--we four all living together again in a lovely
+old house of our own; no more London streets, and school-rooms and
+lessons, and going out two and two--"
+
+"Yes, Norah, but it is just about all that I want to speak to you,"
+Anstace interposed gravely.  "If we go over to live at Kilshane we
+shall not be at all well off.  As I told you already, the little
+property is not worth much; and though Roderick thinks he could make
+a little by writing--he has had one or two articles accepted by
+magazines lately--I don't suppose it would bring him in a very large
+sum.  We must try to keep Manus at school whatever happens, but we
+could not possibly pay for his schooling and yours too.  We should be
+obliged to take you away from this--
+
+"Oh, but I shouldn't mind that in the least," Norah hastened to
+assure her sister.
+
+"I dare say not, dear, but Roderick and I would mind your growing up
+a wild little ignoramus very much indeed.  However, I am quite
+willing to teach you if you will only try to be steady and attentive.
+Will you promise to do your best, Norah?"
+
+"Oh yes, Anstace, I will, I will indeed!  It's so glorious to think
+of, and then to have heard of it to-day just when I was so
+miserable!"  And Norah once more spun madly about the room in a
+manner that argued none too well for the promised steadiness, till
+she came into violent contact with the grand piano, and subsided,
+panting, on to the sofa.
+
+"I cannot tell you what a weight it has lifted off my mind, our
+coming in for this little property," Anstace went on, speaking more
+to herself than to her little sister.  "I have been so anxious about
+Roderick of late; he has grown so pale and thin, poor fellow, and has
+had that nasty hacking cough ever since the winter.  Dr. Trafford
+examined him two or three weeks ago, and told me afterwards that it
+was the close confinement and long hours of desk work which were
+telling upon him, and that though his lungs were not actually
+affected, there was an undoubted delicacy which might develop into
+something serious if it were not checked.  But at the time it was
+impossible to see how he could give up his employment, and I have
+been so wretched and so worried about it!  We shall find it hard
+work, I dare say, to make both ends meet over in Ireland, but that
+will be a trifle if Roderick gets well and strong again; and Dr.
+Trafford says that nothing could possibly be better for him than the
+outdoor life that he will lead there, on the very edge of the
+Atlantic."
+
+"Of course there couldn't; it would be enough to make anyone ill to
+be shut up in an odious poky office all day," said Norah, with as
+much decision as if she were an authority on medical matters.  She
+sat silent for a minute or two, and then asked suddenly, "Anstace,
+why does Uncle Nicholas hate us all so?  What did Father or any of us
+ever do to him?"
+
+Anstace hesitated before she answered.  "It's a very old story,
+Norah, and Father never cared to talk much about it, so I only know
+it in a vague sort of way from things he once or twice said to me.
+Uncle Nicholas was only Father's half-brother, you know, and years
+older than he.  They didn't see very much of each other either, for
+Uncle Nicholas lived at Moyross Abbey always, and Father came to
+London and took to writing when he was quite a young man.  However,
+Uncle Nicholas became engaged to a girl whom he met when he was over
+in England once on some business.  I don't believe she cared much
+about him.--she was quite young, and Uncle Nicholas must have been a
+man of forty or more at the time.  It was more to please her father
+than for any other reason that she promised to marry Uncle Nicholas.
+Her father was very ill--dying, and he was anxious to see her
+provided for, and of course Uncle Nicholas was a rich man and a great
+match for her.  So it was all settled, and the day for the wedding
+fixed, and Uncle Nicholas wrote to Father to come down and make his
+future sister-in-law's acquaintance, and be present at his marriage.
+I don't know how it all came about after that, Norah, but Father and
+she were thrown a good deal together, and they found out that they
+loved each other.  It was all very wrong, no doubt, and not
+straightforward, but they stole away together and came up to London,
+and were married the very day before her wedding with Uncle Nicholas
+was to have been."
+
+"Then that girl was our mother?" Norah cried, with her eyes open to
+their widest.
+
+"Yes, dear; Marion Belthorpe her name was, and that was the way in
+which she and Father were married.  It was a very unhappy business
+altogether, for the shock killed her father--he was in bad health, I
+told you,--and she never saw him again.  Uncle Nicholas never got
+over the blow either; he had been really and truly fond of our
+mother, and he was a changed man from that time out, so everyone who
+knew him said.  Father and Mother tried more than once to make it up
+with him, but he would take nothing to do with them.  Perhaps it was
+hardly to be expected that he would."
+
+"He must be a horrid, mean, unforgiving old thing!" Norah said
+indignantly.  "And does he live at Moyross Abbey all by himself?"
+
+"No; the children of a niece of his live there with him.  She and her
+husband died out in India some years ago, and Uncle Nicholas brought
+the children home and adopted them.  There are two of them, a boy and
+a girl; so Mr. Lynch told Roderick.  I don't quite know how old they
+are, but I suppose that Harry Wyndham will be owner of Moyross Abbey
+some day."
+
+Norah stared at her sister in angry amazement, as if she could hardly
+believe that she had heard aright.
+
+"But he has no right to it--he's not an O'Brien, and Moyross Abbey
+has belonged to O'Briens for hundreds and hundreds of years!  Harry
+Wyndham! why, he might as well be called Smith, or Robinson, or
+anything else," she burst out vehemently.
+
+Anstace could not forbear smiling a little at her impetuosity, but
+she sighed too.
+
+"It is hard upon Roderick that the old O'Brien estate should pass
+away from him, for however our father wronged Uncle Nicholas,
+Roderick had no share in it.  But then, Norah, you must remember that
+the Wyndhams' mother was Uncle Nicholas' own niece, while our father
+was only his half-brother; so that though they are not O'Briens they
+are really nearer to him than we are.  Besides, I am afraid that our
+father and Uncle Nicholas did not get on very well together, even
+before that last quarrel.  Uncle Nicholas was always very prudent and
+careful himself, and he thought Father reckless and extravagant--it
+never was Father's way to be careful of money."
+
+And Anstace gave another sigh.
+
+"I'm sure Uncle Nicholas is an old curmudgeon," said Norah decisively.
+
+"If he is, he has something to show for it; and if it had not been
+for him Moyross Abbey would most likely have passed away from the
+O'Briens long before this.  The property was loaded with debt when it
+came to him, and the house was falling to ruin.  Father has often
+told me so.  Uncle Nicholas was quite a young man then, but he set
+himself steadily to redeem the estate, and worked hard and
+economized, and denied himself in every way till he had paid the
+mortgages off, bit by bit, and rebuilt the house.  Then a vein of
+copper was discovered on the property, and he managed to raise money
+enough to begin mining, and was his own engineer and manager, and now
+that mine brings him in a very large income.  I don't wonder that he
+looks upon Moyross Abbey as absolutely his own, and considers that he
+has a right to leave it to anyone he pleases."
+
+"He has not, then!  He has no right to leave one half-quarter of a
+yard of the O'Brien land to anyone except an O'Brien.  Oh, Anstace,
+how can you sit there and talk of it all so quietly?  One wouldn't
+think that you cared the very least bit."
+
+The look of pain which crossed Anstace's face might have told a
+keener observer than Norah that her brother's exclusion from the old
+family inheritance, which should have been his by rights, was by no
+means a matter of indifference to her.  She only said, however, in
+her wonted quiet way, as she rose to go:
+
+"It seems to me, Norah, that it is wisest for us to make the best of
+things as they are, instead of fretting over what they are not, and
+to be thankful that at least one little bit of O'Brien land has come
+to us.  You had better run back to your lessons now.  I hope Miss
+Euphemia will not be annoyed at my having kept you so long.  I must
+speak to Miss Clarkson and tell her of the change in our plans, and
+that you will be leaving at the end of the term."
+
+The sisters parted at the foot of the first flight of stairs.  A door
+upon the landing gave access to the eldest Miss Clarkson's sanctum, a
+small room where she transacted the general business of the school
+and had interviews with the parents of present or future pupils.  No
+girl in Treherne House, even if not summoned into that room to
+receive reproof and admonition, ever approached it without some
+trepidation, and Norah, as she continued her way down to her
+class-room, felt a sort of wondering admiration at the smiling
+unconcern with which Anstace, having first tapped at the door and
+received permission to enter, disappeared within the dreaded precinct.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+NORAH'S FREAK
+
+Perhaps no little girl ever underwent punishment with so light a
+heart as Norah did that afternoon.  She was quite cheerful as she
+watched the long train of girls file out two and two through the
+hall, Fräulein Glock and Miss Euphemia bringing up the rear, and when
+they were gone she shut herself up in the empty school-room, and
+whilst she got out pen and copy-paper she hummed gaily:
+
+  "St. Patrick was a gentleman
+    And come of decent people,
+  He built a church in Dublin town
+    And on it put a steeple".
+
+
+Miss Euphemia might not have approved very highly of the song if she
+had heard it, but it is to be feared that Norah did not trouble
+herself very much about that.
+
+She did not make very rapid progress with Turkey in Asia and its
+latitudes and longitudes.  Her pen was laid aside very frequently,
+and Norah either sprang from her seat and capered round the room as
+if the spirit of gladness had got into her very feet, or else leaning
+back against the form she gave herself up to long and delicious
+daydreams.  She pictured to herself the happy life which they would
+all lead in that little old house of which Anstace had spoken, and
+how she and Manus would wander by the sea-shore and climb the rocks
+and crags of that wild, western coast upon which her father's boyhood
+had been spent, and of which he had told them so many stories.
+
+The click of a latch-key in the lock of the hall-door brought her
+back to sober reality again, and warned her that the walking party
+had returned.  Worse and more dire disgrace would await her if her
+allotted task were not accomplished.
+
+Scratch, scratch, scratch.  Norah's pen absolutely raced over the
+paper in her efforts to make up for lost time, whilst she could hear
+the girls laughing and chattering as they trooped upstairs to take
+off their outdoor things.  The blotting-paper had just been passed
+over the last page of copy, and Norah with a huge sigh of relief had
+laid down her pen, when the door opened and Miss Euphemia sailed in.
+She had laid aside her bonnet and mantle and resumed the high white
+cap, which within doors lent severity and classic dignity to her
+features.
+
+"Is the lesson written out, Norah?" she enquired.
+
+"Yes, Miss Euphemia," Norah replied, handing over the written pages,
+though not without some anxiety that in the haste with which the last
+portion had been copied out, errors and omissions might have crept
+in.  Miss Euphemia's scrutiny seemed to satisfy her, however, and she
+gave the paper back to Norah, saying only: "Very well, my dear, put
+everything away tidily before you go upstairs.  I trust I shall not
+be again driven to such a painful necessity as keeping you indoors."
+
+Norah reddened and fidgeted uncomfortably.
+
+"I hope not, Miss Euphemia," she said awkwardly.  In the overflowing
+spirits which she was in, it was not possible to her to speak in a
+tone of proper penitence, and perhaps Miss Euphemia had expected a
+greater appearance of contrition and was disappointed.
+
+"If I had mentioned the matter to Miss Clarkson she would have been
+very gravely displeased," she began, as she moved towards the door,
+"and if you should show yourself so inattentive again, I shall feel
+obliged to do so; but I hope it will not occur again, Norah."
+
+"I hope not, Miss Euphemia," once more responded Norah; and Miss
+Euphemia quitted the room, closing the door rather sharply behind her.
+
+It was opened again a minute later, and this time it was Lily
+Allardyce who appeared, her pink cheeks pinker than ever, after her
+walk in the spring wind, holding something very closely clasped in
+both her hands.
+
+"Poor Norah," she said, in her pretty, cooing way.  "I took my things
+off ever so fast, and ran down before any of the others were ready.
+I kept thinking of you, shut up here by yourself and writing that
+horrid punishment lesson, all the time that we were out.  See what
+I've got for you!  A woman was selling a whole basketful of them in
+the street, and Miss Euphemia let me stop and buy one."  And opening
+her hands, Lily disclosed a large pincushion shaped like a sunflower,
+with rays of yellow calico all round it, and the centre stuck,
+hedgehog fashion, with pins.
+
+Norah rewarded her by a boisterous hug, more perhaps as an outlet to
+her feelings than from any special delight in the pin-cushion.
+
+"Lily, Lily!  I'm the luckiest girl in the whole world!" she cried.
+"I couldn't get a chance before of telling you why Anstace--that's my
+sister, you know--came to see me this morning."
+
+"Anstace, yes," said Lily meditatively.  "It's such a funny name,
+Norah.  I never heard of anyone called that before."
+
+"It's Irish; all our names are Irish," Norah answered, with a touch
+of pride in her voice; "there have always been Anstaces and Norahs
+among the O'Briens.  And we're all going over to Ireland, Lily; going
+to live there for ever, and never come back to London any more.  What
+do you think of that?"
+
+Lily's eyes grew big with wonder and dismay.
+
+"Going away for ever, and we're never to see each other again?  And
+you're glad?"  This last with much reproach and a sound as of
+gathering tears.
+
+Norah bestowed another hug by way of comfort.
+
+"I wish you could come and live in Ireland too, but you can't; and
+you're going to Paris, that's luck enough for you; though I wouldn't
+take fifty thousand Parises for Kilshane, that's what our own place
+that we are going to live in is called;" and Norah drew her small
+stature up to its tallest.  "Come along now," as she flung
+geography-book and paper into her locker with a reckless air; "I
+shall only just have time to get ready for tea."
+
+As the two children crossed the hall, hand in hand, Norah's attention
+was arrested by the large wooden tray, in which the cups and saucers
+for the school tea had been carried up from below stairs.  It stood
+empty now on its trestles outside the dining-room door, and from
+within could be heard the clatter of china as the servants moved
+about, laying the table.  Norah, in her present mood, was ready for
+any freak, no matter how daring.
+
+"Lily," she exclaimed under her breath, "did you ever toboggan down
+the stairs upon a tea-tray?"
+
+"Did I ever do what?" questioned Lily in perplexity.
+
+"Toboggan down the stairs--slide down, you know.  It's the most awful
+fun.  Manus and I used to do it at home sometimes, but it was such a
+poky little staircase it wasn't much good.  The stairs here would be
+splendid, and that tray would hold us both most beautifully."
+
+"Oh, Norah, just think how angry the Miss Clarksons would be!" gasped
+Lily.
+
+"They won't know anything about it.  Everybody is upstairs in the
+dormitories, and it always takes the other girls half an hour to take
+their boots off and wash their hands.  We'll just have one go, not
+down this flight, the one above.  No one will see us there, and if
+Jane and Ellen miss the tray they won't know where it's gone, so they
+can't tell tales."
+
+Grasping the heavy tray in both hands, Norah was already half-way up
+the stairs.  Lily followed in much alarm, but too timid to resist
+Norah's stronger will.  As Norah had said, the fine staircase in
+Treherne House, with its broad shallow steps and long flights of
+stairs, was eminently suited for a toboggan slide, though it was
+hardly likely that it had ever been put to that use before.
+
+She set her burden down with a triumphant air at the top of the
+flight which led down from the drawing-room.  "Get in quick, Lily,
+while I hold the tray to prevent it slipping down," she whispered
+imperatively.
+
+"Oh, Norah, I couldn't," faltered poor Lily nervously.  "Just think
+if Miss Clarkson happened to be in her sitting-room and heard us!"
+And Lily cast a terrified glance at the closed door on the landing
+below.
+
+"You little goose!  Did you ever know Miss Clarkson to be down here
+at this hour?  The tea-bell will ring directly, and she'll come
+sailing from upstairs with her evening cap on and her handkerchief in
+her hand."  And Norah lowered her eyelids in imitation of the air of
+serene self-importance with which the head of Treherne House was wont
+to lead the procession into the dining-room.  Then, breaking into her
+brusque tone once more, "Now, Lily, pack yourself in, and sit tight."
+
+"I couldn't, Norah, I couldn't indeed; I'd be too frightened,"
+protested Lily more tremulously than before.
+
+"Nonsense, you've no idea how jolly it is!  I'll go in front, and
+then if we do get spilt you can't be hurt, you'll only fall on the
+top of me.  Now then, are you in?  Hold on by the bannisters till I
+get in too, and then catch me by the shoulders."
+
+Lily obeyed trembling, her powers of resistance as usual not being
+proof against Norah's determination.
+
+"Tally ho!" cried Norah joyously, as the improvised sledge flew
+downwards on its mad career.
+
+At that very moment, however, the door upon the landing opened, and
+out came Miss Clarkson with evening cap and handkerchief, just as
+Norah had described her.  She stopped, absolutely rigid with
+amazement, as she beheld the two youngest of her pupils seated in the
+tea-tray and shooting down the stairs.  The sudden appearance of her
+school-mistress was too much for Lily, whose nerves were already
+overstrained by the headlong speed with which they were rushing
+through the air.  She uttered a piercing shriek, and clutched
+desperately at the bannisters.  The sledge, thus suddenly arrested on
+its downward course, slewed to one side and tilted over.  Both its
+occupants rolled out, bumped down the remaining steps, and fell in a
+heap upon the landing, the big wooden tray tumbling over on the top
+of them.
+
+The crash of their fall reverberated through the house, doors opened
+above stairs, exclamations and questioning voices were heard, and the
+whole school came trooping down to find out what had happened, while
+the servants left their work and ran up from below.  Norah had fallen
+undermost, but she was on her feet again in a moment, her hands
+clenched, and her small white teeth set tight.  Her head had come in
+violent contact with the floor of the landing, and a bump had already
+started out upon her forehead, which was swelling visibly and
+promised before long to display a variety of shades of blue and
+green.  She was conscious besides of a bruised knee and sundry
+smaller injuries, but Norah was a heroic little soul, and she deemed
+it beneath her to cry merely for pain; so whilst poor Lily, after
+struggling out from under the tray, could only sit in a forlorn
+little heap and sob pitifully, Norah boldly faced Miss Clarkson, who
+had not yet recovered sufficiently from the shock she had received to
+utter a syllable.
+
+"It was my fault, Miss Clarkson, it was indeed.  I made Lily come
+with me, and she didn't want to.  I knew it was naughty, but the tray
+was standing in the hall as we came out, and I couldn't help it.  I
+haven't known what to do all day, I've been so glad since Anstace
+told me that we were all going over to live in Ireland.  I've been
+very happy here," she added with sudden recollection, for Norah
+possessed a share of Irish politeness with all her other Irish
+qualities, "but it's school, you know, it's not home; and if you had
+thought that you weren't ever going to have a home of your own again,
+or at least not for years and years, and then heard all at once that
+you had got the dearest, most delightful old house in Ireland to live
+in--oh, Miss Clarkson, if you'd been me, and you had seen that tray
+standing in the hall, you'd have wanted to toboggan down-stairs too!"
+
+The whole of the school had flocked down-stairs by this time.  Miss
+Susan, the second Miss Clarkson, had been foremost to reach the scene
+of the disaster.  She had picked poor disconsolate Lily up, and was
+examining into the extent of her injuries, whilst Miss Euphemia stood
+with the fallen tray in her hand, and the girls and the French and
+German teachers crowded upon each other on the stairs in their
+efforts to get a view of what was passing.
+
+An absolute shiver went through the close-pressed ranks at Norah's
+audacious speech, which called up a vision of Miss Clarkson seated in
+the tea-tray and careering madly down-stairs with her cap ends
+streaming behind her.  In awe-struck silence the whole throng waited
+for the thunder of Miss Clarkson's wrath to fall on the daring
+offender's head.  There was a momentary pause, and then Miss
+Clarkson, as if prompted by some overmastering impulse, stooped and
+kissed, yes, actually--a thing which, in the memory of the oldest
+girl present, she had never been known to do before--she kissed the
+little upturned face that gazed so earnestly at her.
+
+"I scarcely think that, my dear," she said in answer to Norah's
+venturesome suggestion, "but I was truly rejoiced to hear of your
+good fortune from Anstace this morning, even though it means that we
+shall lose you from amongst us very soon.  Under such exceptional
+circumstances I can make a certain allowance for your feelings having
+carried you beyond yourself, especially considering what a little
+wild Irishwoman you are.  Your behaviour was of course most
+reprehensible," she went on, straightening herself and resuming her
+wonted scholastic manner, as she remembered her audience and the
+effect that might be produced upon them by such unexampled lenity.
+"Nothing would induce me to pass over a repetition of it, but for
+this once, considering the circumstances as I have said, and that you
+and Lily have already suffered from the consequences of your very
+silly and unladylike freak, I will take no further notice of it.
+Jane, carry the tray back to the pantry at once.  Euphemia, be good
+enough to take Lily upstairs and put some sticking plaster on her
+face.  We will now proceed to the dining-room, girls.  When Norah and
+Lily have made themselves tidy and fit to appear at table, they will
+join us there."
+
+And Miss Clarkson swept down-stairs with her most stately air, the
+girls exchanging wondering glances and whispered comments as they
+followed, two and two, to take their places at the long table in the
+dining-room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+WITHIN SOUND OF THE SEA
+
+The remainder of the school term passed quickly over.  To Norah's
+credit it must be recorded that she bore in mind what pleasure it
+would give Roderick and Anstace if she were proved to have made good
+progress during her stay at Treherne House, and notwithstanding the
+intoxication of delight that she was in, she worked away assiduously
+at her lessons during the time which still remained to her.
+Accordingly, when the examinations were over, she was found to have
+won a place very near the top of her class for herself.
+
+The great day of the breaking up of the school arrived at length.
+The hall was filled with boxes, and cabs drove away from the door
+with luggage piled upon the roof and happy faces inside.  From
+earliest morning Norah had been the busiest of the busy, helping to
+carry handbags, and rugs, and parcels of all kinds down-stairs, and
+receiving the affectionate farewells of the girls as they departed.
+It was quite wonderful how sorry they all seemed to say good-bye to
+her, and innumerable parting tokens in the shape of pencil-cases,
+purses, and such small articles were showered upon her.  As for Lily
+Allardyce, whose parents arrived early in a brougham to carry their
+darling off to the station from which they were to start for Paris,
+her joy at seeing them again was quite swallowed up by her grief at
+parting from Norah.  Her eyes were swelled almost past recognition,
+and her little frame was shaken by sobs when she was at last induced,
+most unwillingly, to quit her hold of Norah, and to follow her
+parents to the carriage which waited for them.
+
+Norah was after all to remain at Treherne House and to share Fräulein
+Glock's solitude for a week, as Roderick and Anstace had been unable
+to complete their preparations for leaving London any sooner.  This
+appeared a very trifling hardship to her now, however, and in the
+evening, when she had seen the three Miss Clarksons, who had been the
+last to leave, drive away in their turn, she settled herself down
+quite cheerfully by the fire in the empty school-room to keep
+Fräulein company till bed-time.
+
+Fräulein Glock, for her part, seemed amply contented whilst she had
+her days to herself and was not required to give her usual dreary
+round of lessons in German grammar and translation.  She was engaged
+upon a crochet antimacassar of most intricate design, which required
+an incessant counting of stitches.  She had, besides, a friend, a
+German teacher like herself, who was also spending her holidays in
+solitude in another school a few streets away, and the two were wont
+to pass many hours together, exchanging low-voiced confidences with
+each other.  They were very kind to the little girl, who had perforce
+to make a third in their party, and strove spasmodically to entertain
+and amuse her.  Norah could not but feel, however, that she was more
+or less an encumbrance to them, and she generally preferred to steal
+away to a sunny window on the stairs, where she curled herself up on
+the wide window seat, and let her imagination run riot in happy
+visions of the future.
+
+Norah had counted on her fingers the number of days that she would
+have to remain at Treherne House.  Beginning with the little finger
+of her right hand, they reached as far as the forefinger of her left;
+and each morning when she woke she dug the finger representing the
+day just begun into her pillow, saying to herself, "We've got as far
+as you now".  And each evening when she went to bed she made another
+dig with the same finger, saying triumphantly, "There, you're over".
+Thus the days went by till the forefinger of her left hand was ticked
+off like the rest; and in the evening Roderick, her tall,
+dark-haired, dark-eyed brother, arrived to carry her off to Euston
+station, where Anstace was to meet them.  And so the doors of
+Treherne House closed behind little Norah for good and all.
+
+She was so wild with glee and in such boisterous spirits that Anstace
+had some difficulty in keeping her within the bounds of due decorum
+during the quarter of an hour that they had to wait for the departure
+of their train.  More than once indeed Anstace had occasion to remind
+her of the ancient nursery adage, that "too much laughing ends in
+crying".  The saying was to prove true enough, for a few hours later
+poor Norah, tossed to and fro in her berth, and enduring all the
+agonies of sea-sickness, was in truth a vast deal nearer to tears
+than to laughter, and both she and Anstace presented a very limp and
+woebegone appearance when they landed next morning in a drizzling
+rain upon the wharf in Dublin.
+
+Their surroundings were not calculated to raise their spirits.  A raw
+wind blew cheerlessly in their faces, and the tall dark buildings
+that lined the quays, the forest of masts on either hand, and the
+air, all seemed dripping with moisture.  Roderick alone maintained a
+cheerful demeanour; the rough crossing appeared to have had rather an
+exhilarating effect upon him.  He had been on deck since daylight,
+pacing up and down with his cap drawn over his eyes and the skirts of
+his ulster flapping about his legs, quite regardless how the steamer
+lurched and rolled under him, whilst he watched the Irish coast
+coming gradually into view.  He exerted himself to the utmost for his
+sisters' comfort, and carried them off to an hotel, where, however,
+neither Anstace nor Norah was able to taste the breakfast set before
+them.  Then came long hours of railway travelling, diversified by
+wearisome delays at junction stations, and at last, in the dusk, they
+alighted at Ballyfin, the terminus of the railway, and its nearest
+approach to the wild coast region where their future home was
+situated.
+
+The drizzle of the morning had developed by this time into a heavy
+and continuous downpour, and poor Norah, cold, hungry, and tired out,
+felt more wretched than she had ever done in all her life before, and
+in her secret soul, I believe, would have been rejoiced could she
+have found herself back in the deserted school-room of Treherne
+House, where Fräulein Glock counted her interminable crochet
+patterns.  At any other time she would have been in transports of
+delight at the novel sights and sounds which greeted her on every
+side--at the strange, guttural utterances of a group of frieze-coated
+men and blue-cloaked women, who, regardless of the rain, were talking
+volubly in Irish; at the scent of peat-smoke, which hung in the air;
+above all, at the outside-car which, on issuing from the station,
+they found waiting to carry them the twelve Irish miles which had
+still to be traversed.  Now, however, Norah could only rouse herself
+to a very faint interest in all these things, and in silence she
+allowed Roderick to lift her on to the seat beside Anstace.
+
+The little town of Ballyfin, with its market-place and its one long,
+straggling street, was soon left behind, and they emerged upon a
+level tract of dreary bog-land, the monotony of which was only broken
+here and there by a squalid cabin streaked green with damp, or by a
+few fields fenced in from the road and from each other by walls of
+loosely-piled gray stones.  The leaden sky hung low above their
+heads, and the mountains were wrapped in mist down to their very
+base.  It was impossible to hold up an umbrella, so fierce and wild
+were the gusts that swept across the bog.  Anstace and Norah sat
+close to each other, a shawl drawn over their heads and held together
+in front, while Roderick, on the other side of the car, with the
+collar of his ulster turned up about his ears and a travelling-rug
+wrapped round his knees, shielded himself from the weather as best he
+could.  On and on the car sped through the seemingly interminable
+waste, till at last Norah, who had hardly spoken since they had
+started on their drive, said, with something that sounded
+suspiciously like a sob:
+
+"Anstace, I didn't think Ireland was one bit like this.  I thought it
+was the nicest place to live in in the whole world; and ugh! it is so
+ugly and so miserable."
+
+"You could not expect any place to look well on such a night as this,
+dear.  If it were a beautiful sunny evening it would all have seemed
+quite different to us," Anstace returned as cheerfully as she could,
+though her own heart sank within her as she looked out from under the
+fringe of the shawl at the sodden, treeless plain stretching away
+till it was lost in the fast-gathering twilight, and wondered if it
+was indeed in this desolate region that their future home was to be
+made.
+
+Nine miles were laid behind them thus, and it had become wholly dark,
+when the car made a sudden bend, branching off apparently upon a
+cross-road, and a sound which hitherto had mingled indistinctly with
+the wind and rain--a hoarse, deep murmur, now falling, now swelling
+out louder--seemed of a sudden to fill all the air.  Even Norah
+roused herself to ask what it was.
+
+"You'll never have that noise out of your ears, little one, while you
+live here," Roderick answered good-naturedly from the other side of
+the car.  "That's the Atlantic, Norah, two hundred feet below us,
+singing a song to itself.  If it were daylight you would see that the
+road comes out here just above the cliffs.  Another mile will bring
+us home now."
+
+"Troth, an' if 'twasn't that the wind is off ov the shore, it's not
+sing-songin' that fashion the say wud be, 'twud be thundher and fury
+wid it, and dashin' agin the racks as if 'twud swape the whole
+mortial airth away," the driver struck in.  "Whin yer honours has
+been a winter at Kilshane ye'll have no need to be axin' what sort
+the roar of th' Atlantic is."
+
+A few minutes more, as Roderick had said, and they turned in at a
+gate left open in evident anticipation of their coming.  With a
+"Hurroo! stir yerself now!" and a cracking of his whip, the driver
+urged his steed on to its utmost pace, and they tore up the avenue at
+such a frantic gallop that Norah, desirous though she was to prove
+herself a true Irishwoman, and therefore able to sit upon an
+outside-car as to the manner born, could not refrain from clutching
+the iron rail beside her with all her might.  The trees and shrubs on
+either hand flitted past like shapeless black phantoms.  One long
+straggling branch which stretched itself out into the roadway struck
+Anstace and Norah a sudden stinging blow in their faces, sending a
+shower of cold spray over them from its rain-laden leaves.  Before
+they had recovered themselves and had had time to dash the water out
+of their eyes, the car rounded a corner and pulled up with a jerk
+before the house, of which only a vague outline could be
+distinguished in the darkness.
+
+At the same instant the hall-door was flung wide open, letting a
+flood of light stream out into the night, and two black figures came
+hurrying out.  One held a sod of blazing turf aloft in a pair of
+tongs, to light the travellers, and waved it in wild whirls of
+welcome, regardless how the primitive torch hissed and sputtered as
+the rain-drops fell on it, while the other, springing forward with an
+uncouth yell, caught Norah in his arms and bore her in triumph into
+the hall, exclaiming as he set her down:
+
+"Begorra, an' it's meself that'll carry one of the O'Briens in over
+the thrashel of their own dure.  'Tis the great day that sees the
+ould shtock back in Kilshane, an' God an' His saints give them luck
+an' prosperity, an' blessin's airly an' late--"
+
+"Arrah, whisht wid ye, Tom," commanded the torch-bearer, whom Norah
+now perceived to be an elderly woman clad in the rough red skirt and
+cotton bodice common to the country, with a wisp of gray hair coiled
+up closely at the back of her head; "there's no ind to ye, so there
+isn't, an' it's frightenin' the little darlint ye'll be wid yer
+goin's on."
+
+"Not a bit of him, Biddy; only delighting her heart with such a right
+Irish welcome," said Roderick, as he came into the hall and shook
+Biddy and Tom heartily by the hand.  "And here's a new Miss Anstace
+for you," he added, drawing forward his sister, who had been so
+encumbered with wraps and mufflings, and so stiff with cold and the
+long drive, that she had found some difficulty in descending from the
+car.
+
+"An' wudn't I have known it widout the tellin'," declared Biddy, as
+she caught the hand which Anstace held out to her and kissed it
+fervently.  "Sure 'tis the very moral of ould Miss Ansey she is, the
+darlin' jool.  An' who wud she take after, if twasn't her own
+godmother that she's called for?"
+
+"I'm glad Miss Anstace was so alive to her duties as to have a proper
+resemblance to her namesake," said Roderick merrily.  "And now,
+Biddy, I hope you're prepared to give us something to eat, for I'm
+pretty ready for it after travelling all the way from London, and
+I've no doubt the others are too."
+
+"Yis sure, Masther Roderick, an' I've a fire in the parlour anyway
+that'll do yer heart good to see.  If yer honours'll warm yerselves a
+weeny minute I'll have the tay wet an' all ready.  Musha, go long wid
+ye, Tom, an' help to carry the luggidge upstairs, i'stead o' stannin'
+there, not able to take yer eyes out of Miss Norah!"
+
+And with this last authoritative utterance Biddy flung the parlour
+door open, revealing a cozy interior, heavy curtains closely drawn, a
+snowy-covered table laid for supper, and at the end of the room the
+blazing turf fire of which she had spoken.  Biddy herself disappeared
+down the passage leading to the kitchen, where a vigorous hissing and
+spluttering was presently heard, betokening that preparations for the
+meal were being pushed forward with all possible speed.
+
+Norah retained but a very confused recollection of the after-events
+of that evening.  The warmth of the parlour made her drowsy; there
+was a buzzing in her head as if she were still in the train, and at
+times the floor seemed to heave and stagger under her feet as the
+steamer had done.  She roused herself in some degree when Biddy
+reappeared with tea and a smoking dish of eggs and bacon, but even
+during supper her head was nodding forward, and it was with
+difficulty that she kept her eyes from closing.  She was only too
+glad, as soon as the meal was over, to let Anstace lead her upstairs
+and help her to undress.  And almost before she had stretched her
+weary little limbs out in the huge four-post bedstead, with faded
+chintz curtains, which filled half the room, she had sunk into the
+oblivion of a deep and dreamless sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ENGLISH IDEAS AND IRISH WAYS
+
+It was broad daylight when Norah woke next morning, and she sat up
+and stared about her, bewildered for a moment by finding herself in
+the strange, old-fashioned room, with its low ceiling crossed by
+heavy beams, and its dark mahogany furniture.  The next instant,
+however, she remembered that this was Kilshane, and that they were
+really at home in Ireland at last.  Soft regular breathing by her
+side made her aware that Anstace was still wrapped in soundest sleep,
+but Norah was fully awake now, and quite too much on fire with
+excitement and curiosity to yield herself to slumber again.
+
+The room had only one lattice-paned window, opening in casement
+fashion, and even that was darkened and encroached on by the
+luxuriant growth of clematis and climbing roses which mantled the
+walls outside and flung their long trails across the narrow window
+space, so that but a comparatively small amount of cool, greenish
+light could find its way in.
+
+Norah slipped down out of the lofty bed, and pattered across the
+floor in her bare feet.  Pushing the casement open, she leant far
+out, regardless of the shower of dewdrops which she shook down upon
+herself, drinking in in one gasp of delight the freshness of the
+early morning, the salt sea-breeze that blew in her face, and the
+undreamt-of beauty of the prospect that lay outstretched before her.
+
+Immediately below her the green lawn sloped down to the cliffs,
+though from the window at which she stood nothing could be seen of
+the dizzy precipice; the low wall that bounded their little domain
+stood out against the mid-sea, as though one could have stepped from
+it far out upon that shining blue plain which stretched away to the
+far misty horizon, its solitude unbroken by even a single sail.  Upon
+the left rose the great purple mountains which had been invisible the
+night before, and beneath them lay a wide tract of heathery moor, of
+gorse-clad hills and green pasture land.  Lower still was a long
+range of woods, and below them the bold coast line, with its lofty
+headlands, its sheer black cliffs and jagged rocks, over which even
+on that calm and sunny morning the long Atlantic surges broke in foam.
+
+Anstace's voice behind her recalled Norah to herself.
+
+"You will catch your death of cold, child, hanging out of the window
+in your night-gown.  Come in and dress yourself.  You will have
+plenty of time to look at the view afterwards."
+
+Norah reluctantly drew her head in.
+
+"Oh, Anstace, it's the loveliest place in the whole wide world, and
+we are the very luckiest people to have got it all for our own."
+
+Anstace laughed.
+
+"Well, that sounds more cheerful than your remark when we were
+driving: here last night.  Do you remember how dismal you were then?"
+
+Norah gave her shoulders an unwilling shake.
+
+"As if one could know what anything was like, sitting in pouring rain
+with a shawl over one's head.  And you haven't half looked at the
+view, only given it a sort of glance out of the corner of your eye."
+
+"My dear, the view won't run away," said practical Anstace, "and we
+shall be late for breakfast if we don't hurry on.  Do begin to dress
+yourself!"
+
+The dressing operations partook something of the nature of the famous
+race between the hare and the tortoise.  Norah's toilet should have
+occupied far less time than Anstace's, seeing that she had no long
+tresses of hair to brush out, to plait and coil up; but there was so
+much to attract her attention in the room, that she was making dives
+hither and thither to examine some fresh object of interest between
+each garment that she put on.  Now she was perched on a chair peering
+at one of the discoloured prints in black frames which hung upon the
+wall, now exploring the drawers and pigeon-holes of the tall old
+mahogany bureau which stood in one corner, and now she was
+scrutinizing her face in the little clouded mirror above the
+chimney-piece; so that Anstace, proceeding steadily all the while
+with her dressing, had put in the last hair-pin, and stood
+faultlessly neat from her smoothly-parted hair to the tie of her
+shoes, in the same moment that Norah, wriggling into her frock after
+a fashion peculiarly her own, and dragging the buttons and
+button-holes together in haste, proclaimed herself ready.  Just then,
+too, Roderick's door was heard to open, and his step and whistle
+sounded on the stairs, so Anstace and Norah lost no time in following
+him down to the little parlour where they had had supper the night
+before.
+
+The window, which was embowered in green, like that of their bedroom
+above, stood wide open, letting in the fresh morning breeze and all
+the sweet spring-tide scents, but there was no appearance of
+breakfast, and Biddy, who came from the kitchen in a state of morning
+deshabille, declared "She'd niver had a thought their honours would
+be that early, an' they desthroyed wid cowld an' hardship the night
+before ".
+
+Seeing that there was likely to be some delay before their morning
+meal was ready for them, the new-comers strolled out of doors and
+down by a moss-grown path which led to the edge of the cliffs.
+Viewed from without, the house was a rambling, irregular structure,
+two stories high in some parts, only a single story in others, but
+overgrown everywhere with the same luxuriant green mantle of roses,
+jessamine, and ivy, all matted and intertwined.
+
+Anstace's eyes soon wandered back from the house to Roderick's face,
+on which they rested anxiously.  She was afraid he might have caught
+a chill from the exposure of the previous evening, but he laughed her
+fears away.
+
+"I feel another man already," he said, drawing a deep draught, as he
+spoke, of the vigorous sea air; "I shall write to Dr. Trafford and
+tell him I have tossed all his tonics and physic bottles over the
+cliffs.  It was that stifling city den, and the everlasting scribble,
+scribble from morning till night, which were doing for me."
+
+Whilst toil had been needful, Roderick had worked on bravely and
+uncomplainingly, but now that those months of drudgery were laid
+behind him, he could not conceal how irksome his life in the lawyer's
+office had been to him.
+
+Norah interposed here to ask what the dark woods were which stretched
+along the cliffs some two miles away.
+
+"Those are the woods of Moyross Abbey, where our father lived when he
+was a boy, and Uncle Nicholas lives now," Roderick answered.  "Do you
+see how, on beyond, just this side of the headland--Drinane Head it's
+called--the cliff is all scarped and cut away, and the red earth
+thrown out upon the hillside?  That is the copper-mine which Uncle
+Nicholas set going, and there is an iron pier down below that he
+made, for ships to lie at to load the ore."
+
+"It was a wonderful undertaking," said Anstace, following the
+direction in which her brother pointed.
+
+"It was, indeed, for one man to plan and carry out.  He deserves all
+the wealth which the mine has brought him in.  See, Norah, you can
+just make out the chimneys of Moyross House above the trees.  The
+ruins of the abbey where the monks used to live in old times are
+close to it, and behind the abbey there is a little wooded glen, with
+a steep path winding down through it to a little cove below, one of
+the very few places along the coast where a boat can find shelter in
+rough weather.  I suppose that was one of the reasons why the monks
+chose that particular site for their abbey.  Some of the steps going
+down to the sea are the very ones, I believe, that the monks put
+there, and the stones have deep hollows worn in them by all the feet
+that have gone up and down for hundreds of years."
+
+"But Roderick, when did you see it all?" cried Norah.
+
+A cloud came over Roderick's face.
+
+"I walked down through the glen that one day that I was at Moyross,
+the day of poor old Cousin Ansey's funeral.  I had heard our father
+talk so often of that Monks' Walk, as it is called, and I wanted to
+see as much as I could of his old home."
+
+"And you'll take me to see it all some day, won't you?--the old abbey
+and the Monks' Walk, and all?" pleaded Norah, hanging coaxingly on
+his arm.
+
+Roderick shook his head.
+
+"Not unless Uncle Nicholas invites us there, and that, I think, is
+hardly likely.  He has made it plain that he has not forgiven our
+father, even in his grave, for the wrong he did him, nor us, for
+being our father's children."
+
+Roderick spoke with a bitterness very unusual to him, but, after all,
+it was hard that whilst almost all he could see around him--great
+mountains, wide sweeps of moorland, woods and farms, and rocks rich
+in minerals--had belonged to his ancestors, he himself should be an
+alien and a stranger there.  Even that low creeper-covered house,
+with its two or three fields stretching along the edge of the cliffs,
+had only come to him by the bequest of a distant relative, and in all
+probability, if the old man who now held the great O'Brien estate in
+his grasp had had the power to keep it from them, not even that one
+small corner of the family domain would have descended to his own
+kith and kin.
+
+"Uncle Nicholas is an old horror!" said Norah with energy; "and if he
+doesn't want to have anything to say to us, I'm sure we don't want
+him either."
+
+And just then Biddy appeared in front of the house, and by vehement
+waving of her arms gave them to understand that the tardy breakfast
+was at length ready.
+
+Their first morning repast in the quaint old-fashioned parlour was a
+very gay and cheerful one, though Anstace's housewifely eye detected
+many things that did not please her: the little heaps of dust in the
+corners which no intrusive broom could have disturbed for a very
+considerable period, and the long cobwebs that hung down from the
+ceiling and swayed slowly to and fro as the fresh breeze blew in at
+the open window.  When breakfast was ended, they started to explore
+the old house which had come into their possession with all that it
+contained.  Opposite the parlour was the drawing-room, a long,
+low-ceiled room, furnished with spindle-legged tables and chairs,
+with tall old cabinets, black with age, ranged against the walls.  A
+glass door opened out into what had once been the garden but was now
+a wilderness, where evergreen shrubs, tall weeds, and a few hardy
+flowers which had survived years of neglect struggled with each other
+for the mastery.  Ragged fuchsia hedges fenced in the little plot,
+and in the kitchen-garden beyond, the old fruit-trees stretched out
+their branches, laden with snowy blossom, over the sea of tangled
+vegetation that grew about their roots.
+
+"There will be no lack of work there for some time to come," said
+Roderick cheerily.
+
+After his months of drudgery at a desk and of close confinement in a
+city office, occupation of any sort in the open air was alluring, and
+he opened the glass doors as he spoke and stepped out upon the
+grass-grown walk, eager to commence the herculean task of digging and
+uprooting without even a moment's delay.  Anstace turned down the
+flagged passage which led towards the back of the house, in quest of
+Biddy, and Norah followed her.
+
+At the kitchen door Anstace stopped short and gave a little
+exclamation of dismay, involuntarily gathering her skirts about her,
+and undoubtedly anyone accustomed to the neatness and cleanliness of
+an English kitchen was likely to receive a shock at the first sight
+of the premises presided over by Biddy.  A cavernous fireplace
+without a grate occupied almost the whole of one wall.  The turf fire
+was built upon the hearthstone, and a huge three-legged pot was
+suspended over it by a hook and iron chain, whilst a low stone hob in
+front kept the burning peats from falling on to the floor.  The walls
+had once been whitewashed, but time and turf smoke had mellowed them
+to a warm yellowish tint, which deepened near the hearth to a rich
+dark brown, and it must have been long, very long indeed, since the
+floor had made acquaintance with soap and water or a scrubbing-brush.
+
+Biddy had not allowed herself to suffer from loneliness, at least in
+so far as dumb companionship went, for a large and motley family were
+lodged within the kitchen.  A mongrel collie, blind of an eye, had
+been arrested on its way in from the yard by Anstace and Norah's
+sudden appearance, and stood regarding them mistrustfully out of its
+remaining orb.  A large black cat, snugly curled up in front of the
+fire, was sleepily keeping watch out of one eye on the gambols of two
+kittens as they rolled each other over and over on the floor; and on
+the top rail of a chair beside her, over the back of which some
+articles from the wash-tub had been hung to dry, a chicken was
+perched, shaking out its feathers and pluming itself in evident
+enjoyment of the warmth.  It seemed to Anstace, in a rapid survey of
+the kitchen furniture, that this was the only chair possessed all at
+once of a back, a seat, and the full complement of legs, all others
+being destitute of one at least of these appurtenances.  An
+old-fashioned mahogany wine-cooler in one corner had been turned to a
+use for which it had not originally been intended, for at that moment
+a hen flew up out of it, and with loud and long repeated cackles made
+everyone within hearing aware that she had laid an egg.  Another hen,
+with a dozen yellow balls of chickens running at her feet, was
+stalking about the floor, pecking hither and thither in hope of
+finding something to eat; and the door of a cupboard which stood open
+revealed a turkey seated in a basket within and engaged in the
+important business of bringing out a clutch of eggs.
+
+Norah subsided on to the floor with a little cry of delight, divided
+in her ecstasy between the soft, furry kittens and the softer, downy
+chicks; but Anstace remained standing, her skirts still gathered up,
+gazing with a face of rueful disgust at the kitchen and its denizens,
+and at the collection of miscellaneous articles which were piled
+pell-mell upon each other in the corners.  There were old
+fishing-nets and fishing-lines, chairs without seats and jugs without
+handles, empty bottles and broken plates--even odd boots and shoes
+were stored up with the other lumber.
+
+Biddy came in just then from the yard, carrying a pail of water,
+which she splashed freely round her as she walked.  She smiled
+broadly upon the girls, quite unconscious that there was anything
+amiss with herself and her surroundings, and with a flourish of her
+disengaged arm drove out the hen, which was still loudly and
+insistently proclaiming its feat just achieved.
+
+"Quit out o' this, this minnit, the noisy crayther that y' are!  Who
+wants to be hearin' ye, d' ye think?"
+
+Anstace's feelings had been too deeply stirred to permit her to keep
+silence, and she broke out impatiently:
+
+"Biddy, is there not a hen-house outside to keep the fowl in, instead
+of having them in the kitchen?"
+
+"Och, yis sure, Miss Anstace, but the roof's bin off it this long
+start; Tom tuk the rafthers away for firin' one winther whin the turf
+was scarce.  An' what wud ail the craythers bein' in the kitchen?
+'Tis warm an' snug for them, an' handy for me to throw them a praty
+whin I'd be at me dinner."
+
+"But I cannot possibly have hens sitting and laying in the kitchen,"
+protested Anstace.  "I will ask Mr. Roderick to have the hen-house
+put to rights, and then the fowl must go out there."
+
+"Well, plaze yerself, alannah," said Biddy resignedly, "but 'tis kilt
+they'll be wid the cowld an' the lonesomeness."
+
+"And Biddy," went on Anstace, with all the zeal of a young reformer,
+not understanding that it is sometimes well to introduce reforms
+gradually, and one at a time, "there is surely no need to have all
+this litter piled up here.  Why, one can hardly turn round with the
+quantity of things collected in the kitchen."
+
+"Och, darlin' dear, 'tis just for convaniency, that they'd be there
+for me to put me hand on whin I'd be in a throng of a hurry."
+
+"But there are some things here which you could never want to put
+your hand on, whether you were in a hurry or not."
+
+And Anstace, still holding up her dress to keep it from any possible
+contact with the grimy floor, stepped daintily across the kitchen and
+lifted the battered remnant of a basket without bottom or handle out
+of the rubbish heap.
+
+"Now what use could that ever be to anyone?"
+
+"Trath, yis, Miss Anstace, 'twill be jist iligant for lightin' the
+fires some marnin' whin the shticks is wantin'."
+
+"Well then, Biddy, this won't light fires, and I don't know what else
+it could be good for;" and Anstace's next dive into the accumulated
+rubbish produced a rusty, lidless kettle, which she held up to view.
+
+"Well, maybe no, Miss Anstace," admitted Biddy, "unless 'twud be for
+givin' the hens a dhrink out ov, for 'tis treminjous the crockery
+thim fowl does break.  'Twas but yisterday, whin I was runnin' twinty
+ways at a time to git the clanin' done an' all set to rights afore
+yous 'ud come, that I put their mate for them in the vegetable dish
+that was ould Miss Ansey's, an' I declare to ye, Miss Anstace, I
+hadn't it but jist set down out ov me hand than thim divils had it
+broke wid their fightin' an' their carryin' on, an' it more years in
+the house nor ye could count."
+
+And with a tragic gesture Biddy pointed to some broken fragments
+lying amongst the ashes on the hearth, the rich colouring and quaint
+design upon them proclaiming that they were of rare old china.
+Before Anstace could attempt any further remonstrance, however, or
+suggest that in future the fowl should be given their food in less
+costly feeding-vessels, there was a shrill cry from Norah, who all
+this while had been goading the kittens into frenzy by trailing her
+handkerchief slowly before them, and flicking it suddenly high out of
+their reach just as they were in the very act of pouncing upon it.
+
+"The dog! the dog!" she cried, with a shriek of laughter.  "Look at
+the dog!"
+
+The one-eyed collie, finding that no one was paying him any
+attention, had crept across the kitchen and in under the table, and
+was engaged in licking up the tempting sediment of grease which
+remained in the frying-pan in which the breakfast bacon had been
+cooked.
+
+"Ye tory! ye thief o' the world!" screamed Biddy, turning round
+quickly and hurling the first missile which came to her hand--a
+battered tin candlestick as it chanced--at the offender, with so true
+an aim that he fled with a yelp of pain and terror, his tail between
+his legs, and was seen no more.
+
+The speckled hen, startled by the sudden clatter, flew shrieking
+across the kitchen, her yellow brood scuttling after her; the chicken
+which had been pluming itself before the fire sought refuge upon the
+chimney-piece; the two kittens bounded into the recesses of the
+piled-up lumber, whence they peeped out in much alarm; the old cat
+alone refused to allow her sleepy dignity to be discomposed, and
+merely opened her other eye for a moment to see what the disturbance
+was about.  Norah sat back on the floor and laughed till the tears
+ran down her face, and even Anstace, vexed though she was, could not
+help joining in her merriment.  Judging, however, that no further
+remonstrances were likely to prove of much effect just then, she drew
+the reluctant Norah on to her feet and out of the kitchen, declaring
+that it was time they should get their boxes unpacked and the
+contents put away in their bedroom upstairs.
+
+Anstace was a good deal disconcerted by the laughter with which
+Roderick received her account of her first visit to Biddy's domain.
+It was when they met again at their early dinner that she gave it to
+him, and it was chiefly the horror-stricken air with which she told
+of the discoveries she had made, and the condition of things which
+prevailed there, which diverted Roderick, but Anstace was provoked
+none the less.  And when Norah, looking up from her mutton chop,
+said: "I suppose all Irish people keep their kitchens like that,
+Anstace, and the best we can do is to get used to Irish ways as fast
+as we can, then it will seem quite natural to us too;" she answered,
+with a sharpness very unusual to her: "My dear, you and Roderick can
+do as you please, but I must remind you that our mother was an
+Englishwoman, and we are as much English as Irish.  For my own part I
+trust I shall always remain sufficiently English in my ideas not to
+find it natural that hens should lay in wine-coolers, and dogs lick
+the frying-pans clean."
+
+And in her own mind the young mistress of Kilshane determined that
+her first act after taking over the reins of government should be to
+institute such a cleaning-down and clearing-out of the old house as
+it had probably never known since it was built.
+
+In the afternoon the two girls started to make further explorations,
+and went through the long unused rooms upstairs, where the furniture
+was still standing exactly as it had stood in the days when the elder
+Anstace O'Brien had dwelt in the little lonely house upon the cliffs.
+The family lawyer had furnished Roderick with a huge bunch of rusty
+keys, and Norah and Anstace went about fitting them to the doors of
+cupboards and presses.  The locks and hinges that had grown stiff
+with years of disuse creaked dismally as they yielded and disclosed
+to view long-hidden services of quaint old china, old-fashioned
+silver that bore the O'Brien crest and was worn by the handling of
+generations of dead and gone O'Briens, antiquated jewels in faded
+velvet-lined cases,--all covered thickly with dust that had filtered
+slowly in on them through cracks and crevices.  There were filmy
+laces too, and embroideries, and richly-coloured Indian shawls, all
+carefully laid away in the bedroom that had been old Miss Anstace's,
+and smelling still of the lavender and sandal-wood that had been put
+amongst them to preserve them.  It seemed almost like sacrilege to
+the two girls to be going about thus letting in the light of day on
+these hoards, the cherished possessions of the poor old woman whose
+life had been a living death for twelve years before she died.
+
+Biddy had invited herself to assist in the researches, and each fresh
+store-place that was opened produced a torrent of exclamations and
+recollections from her.
+
+"Troth, I mind them well, ivery fork and ivery spoon that's in it.
+Many's the time I've seen all the quality in the county sittin'
+down-stairs aitin' their dinner wid that silver an' off that chaney,
+an' Miss Ansey herself sittin' at the top of the table in her silks
+an' her lace, as grand as ye plaze, while me an' the other girls wud
+be peepin' in at the door to get a sight of the ladies' fine dresses.
+'Twas always Miss Ansey we called her, for all that she'd the right
+to be Miss O'Brien, an' carriage an' demanour she had enough to fit a
+duchess.  To see her sweepin' along wid her head in the air an' her
+silk gown a yard on the ground behind her!  'I must keep up my
+poseetion, Biddy,' says she to me times an' agin; 'sure any wan as
+marries an O'Brien looks to marry into wan o' the first families o'
+Clare, nor they'll not be disappinted by me,' says she.  An' all the
+while her heart was aitin' itself oot wid sorra an' lonesomeness, an'
+miny's the hour I've seen her stannin' where ye're stannin' this
+minnit, Miss Anstace, starin' oot over the say as if that 'ud dhraw
+the man she was waitin' for back to her.  But he niver come for all
+her watchin', an' at the last she tuk to goin' bansheein' about the
+cliffs, ballyowrin' and wringin' her hands till we was feared 'twud
+be throwin' herself over she'd be."
+
+"Poor Cousin Ansey!" sighed Anstace; "and so they had to take her
+away from here and shut her up where she would be safe?"
+
+"Yis indade, Miss Anstace.  'Twas yer own uncle, Mr. O'Brien of
+Moyross beyant, that fetched a gran' gintleman a' the way from Dublin
+to see her; an' between them they tuk an' carried her away, an' sure
+that was the last that any of us here iver seed of her.  Thin yer
+uncle he come down, an' locked all up, an' give me the charge, an'
+not a key's bin turned nor a ha'porth stirred till this blessed day
+that yer own hands has done it--an' who'd have the betther right?"
+
+"And have you and your husband lived here in Kilshane ever since old
+Cousin Ansey went mad and was taken away to Dublin?" asked Norah.
+
+Biddy turned to regard her with amazement.
+
+"Musha, what's come to the child?  Husband, says she!  Sorra wan o'
+me iver was married, Miss Norah, or iver will be nayther."
+
+"But the man who lifted me off the car and carried me into the house
+last night, I thought he must be your husband.  Who was he, then?"
+
+"Och, that's jist Tom, me brither Tom, that was coachman to Miss
+Ansey, an' dhruv her in her own carriage--more be token the carriage
+is in the coach-house yit, only the mice--bad scran to thim!--has th'
+inside of it ate out an' desthroyed.  He's livin' noo in his own
+house, that yez passed upon the road, if there'd been light to ha'
+seen it, an' his sivin orphins wid him--herself's been dead this
+twal'month past.  Sorra tak ye, Lanty!  What d'ye come stalin' into
+people's hooses, an' frightenin' the sinses out o' them, an' me
+spakin' about ye this very minnit?"
+
+They had descended by this time from the upper regions to the pantry
+beside the kitchen, and Anstace had been opening the presses in the
+wall and bringing to view dusty hoards of glasses and decanters of
+the fashion of fifty years before.  A slight noise behind them had
+made them turn to behold a red-headed, loutish-looking lad standing
+in the doorway, a string of fine rock-codling in his hand.  With an
+awkward bow to the young ladies, he muttered something about having
+been at the fishing with his father, and thinking their honours might
+like a few fresh fish; and having deposited the codling on the
+flagstone at his feet, he lost no time in making off, without
+awaiting Anstace's thanks.
+
+"Yis, that's Lanty, that's the ouldest of the sivin, an' not his ekal
+in the counthry for divvlement an' mischeeviousness," said Biddy,
+looking dispassionately after her nephew's retreating form.  "He's
+for iver sthreelin' an' sthravagin' aboot i'stead o' doin' an honest
+day's work.  Theer, if it's not foive o'clock as I'm a livin' woman,
+an' the hins, the craythers, niver fed yit!"
+
+And away Biddy hurried.
+
+Two or three days passed over very busily and very happily.  Anstace
+was hard at work within doors and Roderick no less hard at work
+without, digging, pruning, clearing away the tangled overgrowth in
+the neglected garden, or else walking about the two or three fields
+which comprised the little domain of Kilshane, deep in consultation
+on farming matters with Tom Hogan, Biddy's brother, who, since those
+bygone days of state when he had driven Miss Ansey in her own
+carriage, had acted as steward, gardener, shepherd, and farm-labourer
+all in one to the little property.
+
+They were halcyon days for Norah.  No one had much leisure to attend
+to her, there were no lessons, no irksome school-room restraints; she
+was free to wander where she pleased, Roderick's prohibition against
+going near the cliffs being the only restriction laid upon her.  From
+time to time she proffered her valuable services to her elder brother
+or sister, but her efforts to assist them in their labours were
+somewhat spasmodic, and in general she proved fully as much a
+hindrance as a help, so that Roderick and Anstace were generally glad
+to dismiss her to amuse herself as she could.
+
+She had speedily made acquaintance with most of the dwellers in the
+cabins near at hand, welcomed wherever she went with Irish heartiness
+and good-will.  She was on a specially friendly footing, however,
+with the Hogan family, and had soon come to know all the seven
+"orphins", from red-haired Lanty down to Kat, the two-year-old
+bare-legged baby, which spent its time for the most part seated on
+the door-step scooping water in a broken cup from the stagnant pool
+in front of the door.  A very few days had demonstrated the
+impossibility of retaining Biddy as servant, indeed she herself had
+no wish to remain, declaring "she'd be kilt wid the clanin'" which
+Miss Anstace seemed to consider indispensable.  She had departed,
+therefore, to the family residence of the Hogans, to keep house for
+her brother, carrying her cats, her hens, and her other belongings
+with her, and the orphan next in age to Lanty, a bashful,
+rosy-cheeked girl of whom Anstace hoped in time to make a neat little
+hand-maiden, had come to Kilshane in her stead.
+
+It was quite wonderful, even by the end of the first week, how much
+had been effected towards making the little house upon the cliffs
+more home-like.  Open windows and well-polished window-panes, fresh
+air and light let in everywhere, had done much; Anstace's taste and
+skill even more.  Heavy and dusty hangings had been taken down and
+fresh muslin curtains put up in their place, bright chintz covers
+fashioned by Anstace's deft fingers concealed the faded upholstery of
+the chairs and couches in the little drawing-room.  Some rare old
+china jars and bowls which had been discovered amongst Miss Ansey's
+belongings had been brought down from the hiding-places where they
+had been stowed away so long, and were disposed upon the
+old-fashioned cabinets and whatnots; and such books and photographs
+and other knick-knacks as they had brought from London were scattered
+here and there.  Norah had borne her part in the decoration of the
+drawing-room, for it was she who had brought in all the spring-tide
+spoils--the purple violets and pale primroses, the delicate wood
+anemones, the silvery catkins and branches of larch just breaking
+into their first vivid green--which were set everywhere, on the
+tables, the chimney-piece, the window-sills, and gave grace and
+beauty to the little room.
+
+It was perhaps no wonder that Anstace, lying back in her chair when
+Saturday evening came, said in a voice that was tired but triumphant:
+
+"Well, I do think we may feel proud of our little home."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COUSINS
+
+Another week or two sped by, very happily and very busily.  Most of
+the neighbouring families, though they all lived at considerable
+distances, had come to visit the O'Briens and to express their
+pleasure at seeing them established at Kilshane.  But by those who
+were nearest to them both in kinship and propinquity no notice of
+their existence had been taken--no sign had come from Moyross Abbey
+of any desire for truce or reconciliation, and it seemed only too
+clear that Roderick had been right when he said that Nicholas O'Brien
+could not forgive his brother even in his grave for the wrong that he
+had done him.
+
+The old rector of the church which stood on the cliff's midway
+between Moyross Abbey and Kilshane--a weather-beaten, gray building
+which seemed as though it had been specially built to withstand the
+wild Atlantic winds--Mr. Lynch, and his wife, had been the first to
+call, and they remained the O'Briens' chiefest friends.  From them
+the new-comers learned that matters were not running altogether
+smoothly upon the Moyross property.  New machinery had recently been
+introduced at the mine, the great undertaking which Mr. O'Brien had
+built up from its first commencement, and of which he was justly
+proud, and with the machinery had came a Scotch manager to assume the
+control, which Mr. O'Brien had hitherto kept in his own hands, but
+which was beginning to prove too heavy a burden to him.  The new
+functionary had loudly expressed his scorn of the easy-going fashion
+of working which had prevailed hitherto, and his intention of
+introducing an entirely new system.  The ire of the whole country
+side had been roused, and reprisals of a sort but too common in
+Ireland had followed: the new machinery had been broken, and a skull
+and cross-bones painted on the manager's hall-door.
+
+"If Nicholas O'Brien were the man he was ten years ago, it would not
+have happened," Mr. Lynch said, with a shake of his head.  "He
+understood the people and how to deal with them, but they've put his
+back up now, and he'll uphold M'Bain through thick and thin.  A
+thoroughly determined man Nicholas O'Brien always was--there's no
+turning him aside when once his mind is made up--and M'Bain is
+another of the same sort.  But if they're as tough as steel, the
+people are like tinder, and between them I shouldn't wonder if there
+was a big flare-up one of these days."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Lynch, do tell us something about the Wyndhams who live at
+Moyross Abbey!" called out Norah, who was perched on the window sill,
+and had not understood much of the previous conversation.  "They are
+a kind of cousins of ours, you know, and we have never even seen
+them; it is so funny."
+
+"Cousins of yours?  Of course they are," said the old clergyman
+briskly.  "Their grandmother was Jess O'Brien, the eldest of the
+family.  She married and went out to India while your father was in
+petticoats.  I knew your father before he was the height of that,"
+holding up his walking-stick for Norah's inspection, "and I'd have
+known you for his child anywhere: you've just got his eyes and the
+cock of his nose.  As to the Wyndhams, Harry and Ella, why, they are
+a nice, pleasant-mannered pair of young people.  I shouldn't wonder
+but there might be trouble in that quarter too.  Your uncle has been
+drawing the rein too tight with the boy--just the mistake he made
+long ago with your father, Roderick.  He thinks no will but his is to
+prevail, and he has made up his mind that Master Harry is to
+undertake the management of the mine some day; but I've a notion that
+that young gentleman has different views of life for himself.
+However, he's been sent off to some Austrian mining works to be
+trained for a couple of years, and we'll see what comes of it."
+
+"It must be very lonely for Ella, poor child, living in that big
+house at Moyross with no other society than old Mr. O'Brien, and that
+good soul they call Brownie," said Mrs. Lynch, a very trim little old
+lady in the neatest of black silk mantles and bonnets.  "She was the
+children's governess years ago, and came home with them from India
+after their mother died.  She manages the servants and the
+housekeeping, and is quite wrapped up in Ella."
+
+"She's as little like a brownie as anyone I ever saw," laughed the
+old rector.  "Come along, my dear, it's time for old folks like us to
+be getting home.  Miss Anstace, you and your brother and sister are
+to dine with us to-morrow after church--nonsense, we'll take no
+excuse!  We're not new acquaintances to be paying calls and leaving
+our pasteboards on each other.  Bless me, we're old friends!  I boxed
+your father's ears over his Latin grammar forty years ago!"
+
+And the kindly old pair trotted off together.
+
+Anstace and Norah, and indeed Roderick too, had a great curiosity to
+see the relatives of whom they had heard so much and who were so
+closely connected with themselves, but there did not seem much
+likelihood of their desire being gratified.  In the church the
+Moyross family occupied a pew in a recess of the chancel, where they
+were invisible to most of the congregation, and passed in and out by
+a side-door, and nowhere else was there much chance of their meeting.
+
+The trio at Kilshane were at breakfast one morning when the post
+brought a letter to Roderick addressed in Manus's round schoolboy
+hand.  Roderick opened it, and a look of some vexation gathered on
+his face.
+
+"There is nothing wrong with Manus, I hope?" asked Anstace, pausing
+in her occupation of pouring out the tea.
+
+"Not with Manus himself, but it is a most unfortunate business, and
+worse for other people than ourselves.  Diphtheria has broken out at
+the school, and the doctor has ordered all the boys to be sent home
+at once."
+
+Norah let her bread and butter fall, and jumped to her feet, clapping
+her hands.
+
+"Then Manus will be coming home, coming here at once!  How splendid!"
+she cried.  "Oh, Roderick, don't sit with that terrible long face, as
+if it was a misfortune."
+
+"It is certainly a misfortune for poor Dr. and Mrs. Ford, and for the
+boys who are ill," said Anstace.  "Does Manus say whether any of the
+cases are serious?"
+
+"No; the young rascal is so taken up with the idea of coming over
+here that he does not seem to have been able to think of anything
+else."
+
+Roderick picked up Manus's letter, and read it through again with a
+frown.
+
+"Really, Manus's writing is disgraceful, the lines are all up and
+down the paper.  Surely a boy of twelve ought to know better than to
+spell 'diftheria' with an _f_, and 'hollidays' with two _ll_'s.  I
+must try and find time to give him some teaching while he is here,
+for I suppose we shall have him on our hands for three months at
+least."
+
+"Oh, but Manus need not begin lessons at once.  I'm sure after all
+the hard work he's had at school a little rest will be good for him,"
+said Norah, with the funny old-fashioned manner she put on at times.
+
+"I don't think Manus is likely to have worked hard enough to injure
+himself," said Roderick grimly; "it's about the last thing we need be
+afraid of."
+
+"It is very unlucky this interruption coming just after Dr. Ford had
+written to you that Manus was beginning to settle down properly to
+his school work.  However, we can only be thankful that he has not
+fallen ill himself," remarked Anstace.  "Does he say what day he will
+be over?"
+
+"He speaks of starting 'to-morrow', whatever day that may be," said
+Roderick, turning over the leaf.  "I suppose as usual he has not
+dated his letter, so that we might know what he meant.  Yes, he has
+though--'Monday!'  Why, that's two days ago.  The letter hasn't been
+posted in time, of course.  Then in that case--"
+
+"He must have started yesterday, and he'll be here to-day, this very,
+very day!" cried Norah, jumping from her seat and skipping round the
+table, almost beside herself with joy.
+
+"My dear Norah, do sit down and finish your breakfast like a
+reasonable mortal," said Anstace.  "I suppose she is right, Roderick,
+and Manus will arrive this evening.  Someone must drive into Ballyfin
+to meet him.  Will you go?"
+
+Roderick shook his head.
+
+"I have to go off with Tom after breakfast to arrange about letting
+the grazing of a couple of the fields for the summer, and there's
+that article for the _Piccadilly_ besides, which must be finished
+to-night."
+
+Roderick had inherited a considerable share of his father's talent as
+a writer, and his contributions to newspapers and periodicals
+promised in time to bring in material aid to the slender resources of
+the family.
+
+"I don't think I can go either," said Anstace.  "Mrs. Lynch is
+bringing Lady Louisa Butler over to tea this afternoon.  She knew
+Father in old times, and wants to make our acquaintance."
+
+"But there's not the least necessity for anyone to go to Ballyfin.
+I'll tell Connor, who drove us here the night we came, to meet Manus
+at the station; that's all that's needful."
+
+"But I can go.  Oh, Roderick, do let me drive in to meet Manus,"
+cried Norah eagerly.
+
+"Well, I suppose there is no reason why you should not," said her
+brother good-naturedly.  "You won't tumble off the outside-car, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Of course not.  How can you be so silly?" returned Norah, drawing
+her little self up with much dignity.
+
+"All right, I didn't mean to offend your ladyship.  I'll tell Connor
+to be here with his car at three."
+
+And Roderick left the room laughing.
+
+Probably there was no prouder little girl in all Connaught than Norah
+that afternoon, as she drove from the door, sitting up very straight
+on one side of the car, her hands folded on the rug which Roderick
+had wrapped round her before starting.  She and Connor, who was sole
+occupant of the other side, had become quite confidential before the
+ten miles' drive was accomplished.  Connor had acquainted her with
+all his family affairs, and Norah had promised to pay a visit on the
+earliest opportunity, partly to his old mother, but more especially
+to the litter of a dozen little pigs which had been born only a few
+days before.
+
+Very important Norah felt, too, as she went in and out of the two or
+three shops of which Ballyfin boasted, executing various small
+commissions with which Anstace had entrusted her.  She had more than
+an hour in which to wander about the little country town, as Connor's
+horse required rest and a feed before commencing the homeward
+journey.  And as Ballyfin did not possess very many attractions and
+objects of interest, she found herself at the station a full
+half-hour before there was any possibility of the train's arrival.  A
+porter pointed it out obligingly to her at last, almost at vanishing
+point upon the track that stretched away with undeviating
+straightness through the flat bog-land.  Norah watched its gradual
+approach, a prey to fears that after all it might not contain Manus,
+that he might have arrived late at Euston or been left behind
+somewhere on the journey.  Her mind was relieved of this anxiety,
+however, long before the train reached the station, by seeing Manus's
+close-cropped, bullet head protruding from one of the windows.  Norah
+ran to the end of the platform to meet the train, and then had to run
+back for her pains, keeping up with the carriage at the door of which
+Manus was standing.  Almost before Manus had time to alight she had
+thrown her arms round his neck and was kissing him with all the
+fervour that was possible, seeing that she had to stand on tiptoe
+even to reach the point of his chin.
+
+"There, hold on, don't squeeze the breath out of a fellow!" said
+Manus, striving to disengage himself from Norah's embraces, and
+looking round rather sheepishly to see if anyone was observing their
+meeting.
+
+"Oh, Manus, and I haven't seen you for such an age, not since
+Christmas!" said Norah reproachfully, withdrawing her arms, but
+continuing to devour her brother with her eyes.
+
+"You needn't make a gazabo of yourself all the same!" retorted Manus.
+"Come along, and let's see after my traps.  I suppose you have some
+sort of shandrydan outside?"
+
+And Manus sauntered towards the luggage-van with an easy
+man-of-the-world air which filled Norah with admiration, but accorded
+none too well, if the truth be told, with his broad, sunburnt face
+and squat schoolboy figure.  As for Norah, she danced along by his
+side, for in her present ecstasy of delight it was quite impossible
+for her feet to pace along at an ordinary walk.
+
+Once, however, that they were seated side by side on the car and
+driving over the bog road, Manus condescended to relax in some degree
+from his new-born dignity and to become more like his former self.
+He even permitted Norah to hold one of his hands under cover of the
+rug, but rebelled when in an outburst of affection she rubbed her
+cheek against his sleeve.
+
+"The driver fellow is looking," he muttered ungraciously, jerking her
+off with his shoulder.
+
+Connor, however, who occupied the other side of the car conjointly
+with the carpet-bag and large brown-paper parcel, which contained all
+Manus's worldly goods, and were by him somewhat grandly designated
+his "traps", kept his eyes stolidly fixed upon his horse's ears, and
+seemed to take no heed of the pair across the well.  The drive home
+was a very silent one for him, for Norah and Manus had so much to
+tell each other that their tongues never once ceased wagging during
+the whole of the drive, and Connor did not seem called upon to take
+any part in the conversation.  It was after dark when they drove up
+to Kilshane, and found Roderick and Anstace at the door waiting to
+welcome the traveller.
+
+"This is a long way jollier than school," observed Manus half an hour
+later, when he was seated at the supper-table with Anstace smiling at
+him from behind the tea-urn, and Norah hovering round, herself unable
+to eat in her excitement, and her desire to pile his plate with
+dainties.
+
+That brief remark brought balm to his little sister's heart, for
+Norah had been troubled by terrible misgivings that the brother who
+had come back to her would prove quite different from the Manus of
+old.  She had feared that after a term of school-life and of the
+companionship of other boys he would look down upon her as being
+"only a girl"--an inferiority which Norah fully recognized and the
+irremediableness of which she most deeply deplored--and refuse her
+the place in his affections and his confidence which she had hitherto
+enjoyed.
+
+The next day was wild and boisterous, with fierce rain squalls
+sweeping in from the Atlantic and beating on the window-panes.  To
+venture on any distant expedition was therefore out of the question,
+and Norah had to content herself with showing off the house and
+garden to Manus, and taking him down to gaze over the cliffs into the
+wonderful clearness of the green depths below, where the great
+forests of sea-weed could be traced lying like purple shadows far
+beneath the water.  Upon the following day, however, she proposed
+that he should accompany her upon her promised visit to old Mrs.
+Connor and the family of infant pigs, and Manus was graciously
+pleased to accede to the suggestion.
+
+The Connors' abode was situated at the end of a long boreen or lane,
+very narrow and muddy, with high furze-topped banks on either side.
+It had originally been a tolerably well-built and comfortable cabin,
+but was much impaired by dirt and neglect.  The thatched roof was
+fastened down by ropes elaborately interlaced, and weighted with
+stones to prevent its being swept bodily off in the wild Atlantic
+gales, and the approach to the house was by a causeway with a
+manure-heap on one hand and a pool of stagnant filth upon the other.
+Mrs. Connor, an old woman in a wondrously-quilled night-cap, came to
+the door on hearing steps and voices outside, and welcomed the
+children with great heartiness and good-will.  It was quite
+unnecessary to express a wish to be taken to see the interesting
+family of pigs, since on entering the kitchen they and their grunting
+old mother were found to be in possession of the most comfortable
+place in front of the fire.  Mrs. Connor, whilst edging them to one
+side with her foot to enable her to set chairs for the visitors,
+explained that this was necessitated by the cannibalistic tastes of
+the old sow, who had on one or two previous occasions demolished some
+of her offspring soon after their birth.
+
+"It takes Thady an' me, turn an' turn, day an' night, to kape an eye
+on her, the ould villin; but glory be to goodness the craythers is
+growin' that fast they'll put it beyant her to ait them soon."
+
+Then, whilst Norali eyed the unnatural parent with horror, Mrs.
+Connor proceeded to hang a griddle--a round iron plate--above the
+turf fire, and to arrange upon it a goodly supply of potato scones,
+in the kneading of which she had been engaged when interrupted by the
+children's arrival.
+
+"Thady--that's the boy that dhruv ye, Miss Norah--'ull be fit to
+break his heart he wasn't here, but he's away to the bog to cut turf
+since cockshout, an' I was gettin' his tay ready agin he'd come home.
+Yez'll take bite an' sup now afore yez go."
+
+Looking at the table on which the cakes had been prepared, and the
+smoky interior of the cabin, Norah had some qualms about accepting
+the proffered hospitality.  She hardly saw her way to refusing it
+with politeness, however, and Manus manifestly was not troubled by
+any inconvenient fastidiousness, for he was sniffing the fragrant
+smell of the potato bread, as the old woman moved it to and fro and
+turned it in the griddle, with evident satisfaction.  Norah thanked
+Mrs. Connor, therefore, with the best grace that she could, and
+having once overcome her scruples, was fain to admit that she had
+never tasted anything more delicious than potato scones buttered hot
+from the fire, and accompanied by draughts of new milk, the seasoning
+imparted by a previous walk in the sea-breezes not being omitted.  It
+was with promises of paying another visit before long to see the
+progress of the little pink porkers that Manus and Norah took their
+leave at last.
+
+They had reached the confines of Kilshane, and were discussing
+whether to go round in orderly fashion by the gate, or to attempt a
+short cut by scrambling through the hedge, when they heard the sound
+of horse hoofs coming full gallop down the road.
+
+"Whoever that is, they're going a stunning pace," observed Manus.
+
+The next instant a black pony, stretched out like a greyhound, came
+tearing round a bend in the road.  The girl who rode it was sitting
+back in the saddle, pulling with all her might on the reins.  Her hat
+was gone, and her fair hair had become loose and was flying in a
+cloud about her.  As she flashed past them, Manus and Norah had an
+instant's glimpse of a white, set face and eyes wide with terror.
+Even to their inexperience the peril of the situation was manifest.
+A few hundred yards farther on, the road ran steeply downhill,
+turning sharply at the foot of the descent over a bridge which
+spanned a little stream.  Going at its present pace, it would be
+little short of miraculous if the pony took that turn in safety.
+
+"That girl will be killed, she will indeed!" gasped Norah, clutching
+her brother by the arm.  "Oh, Manus, can't something be done?"
+
+"Nothing whatever," said Manus, from whose ruddy face the colour had
+faded.  "Cart ropes wouldn't stop that pony."  Then in a tone of
+sudden relief: "Oh look, Norah, there's Roderick; he's rushing across
+the field!  Oh, I say, I do hope he'll be in time."
+
+Norah said nothing, she only tightened her hold on Manus's arm, and
+in silence both children strained their eyes on their brother as he
+raced at top speed towards the road.  Would he reach it before the
+pony in its frantic gallop had passed him by?  Another minute would
+bring it to the brow of the hill.  There was a second or two of
+sickening suspense, then they saw Roderick vault over the gate of the
+field and almost in the same instant catch the pony by the bridle.
+He let himself be dragged along by it for a few paces, then with a
+sudden jerk brought it up short in its career.  The terrified animal
+made an attempt to rear, but Roderick's hand was at its nostrils,
+squeezing them with an iron grip, and feeling itself mastered it
+dropped on its forefeet and stood still, panting and quivering all
+over.
+
+"She's saved!  Hooray! hooray, three cheers!  Well done, Roderick!"
+cried Manus, beginning to run, and Norah ran too, keeping up with him
+as well as she could.
+
+When they came up, the stranger was sitting in her saddle, deadly
+pale and trembling from head to foot.  It was evidently only by a
+great effort that she succeeded in keeping back her tears.  Roderick,
+somewhat out of breath, and hardly less pale, stood at the pony's
+head.
+
+"You saved my life, I think," the girl said tremulously, as soon as
+she had regained sufficient self-control to speak; "I should have
+thrown myself off in another minute if you had not caught Sheila, I
+knew it was my only chance.  I am very, very grateful to you."
+
+"There is nothing to be grateful about," Roderick returned lightly.
+"It was most fortunate I was near enough to reach the road in time;
+anyone who had been where I was would have done just the same."
+
+"You saved me all the same," the girl repeated; "and poor little
+Sheila, too, she must have been killed.  Even if I had escaped, she
+never would have got over the bridge safely."  And she leant forward
+to pat the pony's mane.
+
+"The little brute hardly deserves so much commiseration after running
+away with you," said Roderick.
+
+"Oh, but it was not Sheila's fault," the girl cried eagerly, "it was
+mine quite as much as hers.  She has not been out of the stable for
+two or three days, and that made her fresh and fidgety; she is
+generally as quiet as a mouse.  I was riding carelessly, not keeping
+a look-out as I ought to have done.  A wheel-barrow which someone had
+left upside down on the road frightened her and made her shy, and
+before I knew what I was about she had got her head and was tearing
+down the road."
+
+She stopped short with a shiver she could not repress.
+
+"Don't think any more about it," Roderick said cheerily.  "Our house
+is close by, and you must let me lead the pony there and give you
+into my sister's charge till you have recovered from the shock you
+have had."
+
+"Oh, thank you, I must go home.  Brownie--Miss Browne, I mean--would
+be so frightened if I did not come back at the right time; she is
+always nervous when I am out by myself, and she would be sure
+something dreadful had happened to me," and the stranger laid her
+hands on the reins as if she wished to take them into her own keeping
+again.
+
+Roderick, however, held them fast.
+
+"Something dreadful very nearly did happen," he said gravely, "and
+you are quite too much shaken to attempt riding anywhere at present.
+I can send a message to Miss Browne to assure her of your safety, and
+meanwhile you must rest at Kilshane."
+
+"But--but," and the girl's eyes grew big with alarm, "you must be Mr.
+Roderick O'Brien."
+
+This time Roderick could not forbear laughing.
+
+"So I am, but I am not a very formidable personage notwithstanding."
+
+"Oh, indeed, it is not that," and confusion and distress brought the
+colour back into her cheeks, "but I ought to tell you who I am; my
+name is Wyndham--Ella Wyndham--and I live at Moyross Abbey."
+
+"In that case, Miss Wyndham," said Roderick courteously, but making
+no attempt to claim relationship, "the best arrangement will be to
+have a carriage sent for you from Moyross Abbey.  You are really not
+fit to ride back, and I hope you will not mind waiting at our house
+till it comes.  Manus, run up the road and see if you can find Miss
+Wyndham's hat."
+
+Perhaps Ella was too shy to make any further resistance, perhaps in
+her secret soul she was not sorry that fate had willed that she
+should make acquaintance under their own roof with the kinsfolk from
+whom she had hitherto been kept apart.  At any rate she offered no
+opposition when Roderick turned the pony's head towards Kilshane.  He
+kept a careful hand on the bridle all the way to the house, though
+Mistress Sheila, who had had the fire taken out of herself very
+effectively by her wild race, walked along very soberly and evinced
+no inclination for any further pranks.  With a thoughtfulness which
+Ella fully appreciated, he left her to herself to recover her
+composure in some degree, and chatted gaily with Norah as they walked
+along, questioning that small personage about her ramble and her
+visit to old Mrs. Connor.
+
+Anstace was nailing up a rose-tree on the porch when the party
+arrived, but she took prompt possession of Ella, and conveyed her
+upstairs to the quiet of her own room, where she made her lie down
+upon the bed.  Ella submitted very docilely; she was very young and
+evidently still accustomed to be looked upon and treated as a child.
+When, however, Anstace, having seen her comfortably settled, was
+about to leave the room, she stretched out imploring hands to detain
+her.
+
+"Do stay with me," she pleaded, "and don't call me Miss Wyndham, it
+sounds so cold and distant.  We are cousins, you know, though we have
+never seen each other before, and why should we not be friends, you
+and I?"
+
+"Why not indeed?" said Anstace pleasantly; "that is, if you will do
+as you are told, and not talk or excite yourself, otherwise I shall
+have to be angry and scold you, as I do Norah."
+
+"I don't think I should mind being scolded by you," returned Ella,
+looking up into Anstace's face.  "Norah is your little sister, I
+suppose, and you are Anstace.  I heard your brother call you so
+downstairs.  It is such a pretty, quaint name, and it suits you so
+well.  No, I will not talk any more if you will sit where I can see
+you."
+
+And with a sigh of contentment Ella lay back amongst her pillows.
+
+Roderick meanwhile had written a hasty note to Miss Browne at Moyross
+Abbey to tell her what had occurred.  Pride forbade his thrusting
+himself in any way upon the notice of the uncle, who hitherto had not
+deigned to take any notice of his existence.  A messenger to convey
+the note to Moyross Abbey was found in the person of Lanty Hogan,
+Biddy's red-headed nephew, who, since Manus's arrival at Kilshane,
+was generally to be found hanging about the back door or the
+out-offices.
+
+Lanty had already fired Manus's imagination full by the accounts he
+gave of the breeding-places of the sea-birds upon the coast,
+well-nigh inaccessible spots all of them, where the gannets, the
+gulls, and the kittiwakes in thousands laid their eggs on narrow
+ledges high above the boiling surf--fastnesses which could only be
+scaled by the most experienced and most daring climbers.
+
+Manus saw himself in fancy returning to school the possessor of a
+collection of birds' eggs which should make him the envy of every
+other boy there.  Lanty threw out other hints, too, that were no less
+alluring, about the enormous trout which peopled a trout stream a
+couple of miles away, real "breedhauns" in Lanty's speech, who seemed
+acquainted with the exact haunts of each of these monsters of the
+finny tribe and with the fly that would infallibly land him in the
+angler's basket.
+
+"He knows a good deal more about it than he has any business to do,
+I'll be bound, the poaching young rascal!" was Roderick's comment
+when some of these wondrous tales were repeated to him by Manus; but
+that did not cause Manus to take any less delight in Lanty's society.
+
+Half an hour's rest had so far composed Ella's nerves that she would
+not allow Anstace to bring tea up to her as she proposed, but
+insisted on accompanying her down to the little drawing-room, where
+she was received with general acclamation.  Roderick pulled the most
+luxurious chair which the room boasted of forward beside the
+tea-table for her, and Norah, who was always ready to strike up
+friendships upon the briefest acquaintance, established herself upon
+a footstool at her side, with her small black head on a level with
+the arm of Ella's chair and her eyes fixed admiringly upon her.
+Manus had returned triumphant from his search after Ella's hat, which
+he had found reposing in a pool by the roadside.
+
+As he and Norah had already had their afternoon repast at Mrs.
+Connor's, and as not even Manus's powers, though prodigious in that
+direction, were equal to commencing a second meal after so short an
+interval, they were able to contribute even more than their usual
+share to the conversation, and their tongues ran on so persistently
+that Anstace asked Ella, laughing, if she had ever heard so much
+nonsense talked before, and Roderick proposed to banish them both
+summarily from the room.
+
+"Oh, don't stop them, please don't!" Ella said earnestly, laying her
+arm round Norah's shoulders.  "I like to listen to them.  I wish I
+had a little sister like Norah to live with me at home.  It's so
+quiet and so silent at Moyross since Harry--that's my brother--went
+away.  Uncle Nicholas lives almost entirely in his own rooms, and
+there are only Brownie and I to sit together in the evenings."
+
+She stopped short and flushed painfully, afraid that she had betrayed
+more than she had intended of her home life to these strangers.  In
+truth, she had been contrasting the cosy, home-like air of the little
+drawing-room, shabby and faded though its furniture might be, with
+the chill stateliness of the great rooms at Moyross Abbey, where
+tables and chairs and ornaments were set out with the formality and
+precision which Miss Browne deemed correct.
+
+Before another word could be said, the crunching of wheels was heard
+outside, and an open carriage, with a gray-haired lady as its
+solitary occupant, drew up at the door.
+
+"That is Brownie; she has come for me herself.  Oh, I do hope she has
+not been frightened about me!" exclaimed Ella, starting up anxiously.
+
+Miss Browne on her part had alighted almost before the carriage had
+drawn up.  She entered the house without any of the ordinary
+formalities of knocking or ringing, and came straight into the
+drawing-room.  She was a tall, thin woman with a slight stoop, and
+light blue, near-sighted eyes which compelled her to wear glasses.
+She would have been a ludicrous figure had it not been for her
+manifest anxiety and distress, for her bonnet was put on backwards,
+and in her haste she had caught up a table-cover to put about her in
+place of a shawl.
+
+"Oh, Ella, my darling child, then you are not so very badly hurt
+after all!" she exclaimed, seizing her by both hands and peering
+nervously into her face.  "I was so afraid I had not been told the
+worst, and that you were seriously injured--or even killed."
+
+"Brownie, dear, why will you always worry yourself for nothing?" Ella
+returned, smiling.  "I am not the very least bit hurt, and you have
+not spoken to Miss O'Brien yet, and to Mr. O'Brien, who caught Sheila
+and stopped her."
+
+"You must never ride her again, never.  I should not have an easy
+moment if I knew you were on her back," declared poor Miss Browne
+vehemently.
+
+She drew a long breath of relief notwithstanding, and her eye
+wandered round the room, taking in the paraphernalia of the
+tea-table, and the family group which her unceremonious entry had
+disturbed.
+
+"Dear me!  I think I did allow myself to be alarmed needlessly.  I am
+always so nervous where dear Ella is concerned.  How do you do, Miss
+O'Brien; we have not met before.  How do you do, Mr. O'Brien.  I am
+most obliged to you for your services to Ella."
+
+It was all said very jerkily and awkwardly, for as poor Miss Browne's
+fears and anxieties subsided, she became painfully aware of the
+eccentricities of her attire, and of the open-eyed amazement with
+which Norah was regarding her, while Manus had only too evident
+difficulty in suppressing his laughter.  Ella, too, looked annoyed,
+and made one or two furtive but vain attempts to pull the unlucky
+bonnet right.  Miss Browne prided herself on her neatness and her
+habits of order, and to have appeared in such guise before strangers
+was therefore to her unspeakably mortifying.
+
+"No, thank you, we cannot stay," in answer to Anstace's invitation to
+sit down and partake of tea.  "We must not keep the horses standing,
+and Ella's uncle is coming from Dublin by the evening train, and will
+expect to find us at home.  If you have finished your tea, dear, we
+had better start at once.  I must thank you once again, Mr. O'Brien,
+for the assistance you rendered Ella this afternoon."
+
+"It is quite unnecessary, I assure you," Roderick said rather
+loftily, as he escorted Miss Browne to the carriage.  "I am very glad
+to have been of service to Miss Wyndham; my being at the spot was a
+mere accident."
+
+Ella had lingered in the drawing-room to say good-bye to Anstace and
+Norah.
+
+"Thank you so much for all your kindness to me," she said, holding
+out both her hands to Anstace.  "It was so nice to be here with you
+all."
+
+"Then I hope you will come and pay us another visit before very
+long," said Anstace cordially, as she kissed her.  "We shall always
+be very glad to see you."
+
+"Oh yes, you must come back very soon!" chimed in Norah, holding up
+her face in turn to be kissed; "and when you do, I will show you the
+bantam cock and hen which Mrs. Lynch gave me, and the cliffs, and the
+garden--oh, and lots of things besides!"
+
+"I should like dearly to come and see you again," said Ella, but as
+she spoke she looked round the little room into which the westering
+sun was streaming, and wondered if she would be allowed to enter it
+again.
+
+"Ella, my dear, make haste, I am waiting for you," came from the
+carriage, in which Miss Browne was already seated, and with a brief
+nod of farewell the girl hurried out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+MOYROSS ABBEY
+
+Miss Browne's feelings, as she drove homewards with Ella, were of a
+somewhat mixed nature.  Roderick in his note had made as light of
+Ella's adventure, and of his own share in it, as possible; he had not
+the least wish to glorify himself, or to endeavour to pose as a hero
+in his uncle's eyes.  None the less, had he been anyone else, Miss
+Browne would have been ready to fall at his feet in her gratitude to
+him for having rescued Ella from any position of peril.  She had made
+up her mind from the first, however, that the O'Briens of Kilshane
+were an artful, designing family, who had come over to the little
+lonely house upon the cliffs specially to work their way into their
+uncle's good graces, and to oust Ella and her brother from the place
+which they held in his affections.  Miss Browne, ordinarily the most
+simple-minded and unsuspicious of mortals, was almost inclined to
+imagine that it must have been by some crafty and deeply-laid plot
+that Ella's pony had been made to run away just at the gate of
+Kilshane, thereby forcing on an acquaintanceship between the two
+families.
+
+Poor Miss Browne had been left an orphan without near relations, and
+had therefore become a governess at a very early age.  She had taken
+charge of many children, and had been tossed to and fro in many
+directions before fate drifted her out to India to Mrs. Wyndham's
+bungalow at Dinapore upon the Ganges.  For the first time in her
+lonely and unconsidered life she found herself treated with real
+kindliness and thought, for it was gentle Mrs. Wyndham's way to
+endeavour to make everyone dependent on her happy.  Miss Browne
+repaid her employer's good-will by lavishing all her starved
+affections on her, and on the two fair-haired children who were in
+her charge.  Before she had been two years with Mrs. Wyndham, the
+dread scourge cholera smote the cantonment.  Captain Wyndham was
+amongst the first of its victims, and a few days later his young wife
+was stricken too.  Miss Browne nursed her with unbounded and fearless
+devotion, and Mrs. Wyndham's last whisper to her was:
+
+"You love the children, Brownie, and there is no one else.  Promise
+me to stay with them always--promise."
+
+Miss Browne had promised, and had kept her promise faithfully; indeed
+it might be doubted if their own mother could have devoted herself to
+the two children, gentle dreamy Ella and her handsome high-spirited
+brother, more unselfishly than she had done.  She had come home with
+the two little orphans from India, and for their sakes she had dwelt
+for the past dozen years in what was to her a wilderness, shut in
+between the wild mountains and the wilder sea.  For the grandeur of
+the scenery she had no appreciation, a trimly-kept suburban road
+would have been a far more pleasing prospect to her than the wide
+stretch of rugged coast that Moyross House looked out upon; and the
+Irish peasantry, with their guttural language, and their disregard of
+dirt and disorder, repelled her almost more than the dusky natives of
+India had done.
+
+If Miss Browne had ever had any hopes or aspirations for herself,
+they were dead long ago.  All her aims and ambitious projects were
+for the charges whom their dying mother had left to her care.  From
+her first coming to Moyross Abbey she had made up her mind that Harry
+was to be his grand-uncle's heir, and succeed to the old heritage of
+the O'Briens.  She was certain that Piers O'Brien had been a very
+worthless and undeserving person, and that his family were no better
+than himself.  Indeed Miss Browne entertained but a poor opinion of
+Irish people in general, the only flattering exception she made being
+in favour of old Mr. O'Brien himself, and the commendation that she
+was wont to pass upon him to Ella was:
+
+"Indeed, my dear, no one would ever imagine that your uncle was an
+Irishman."
+
+During the past few months poor Miss Browne had been painfully aware
+that the fair castle in the air which she had built up was only too
+likely to fall in ruin.  There had been serious differences between
+Harry Wyndham and his uncle, since the former had left school and
+come to live permanently at Moyross Abbey.  The boy was hot-headed
+and wilful, and not inclined for either the steady work or the
+implicit obedience which Mr. O'Brien expected from him.  As an
+outcome he had been despatched to Austria for a couple of years'
+training in practical mining.
+
+"He's likely to come to his senses there," Mr. O'Brien had remarked
+grimly.
+
+And now whilst Harry was absent, banished, and more or less in
+disgrace, here were these formidable rivals of the old name
+established close by, and eagerly on the watch, no doubt, to seize
+every advantage for themselves.  Quite unconsciously to herself, Miss
+Browne's prejudice against the new-comers had been aggravated just a
+little by the mortifying recollection of the laughable figure she had
+cut in the drawing-room at Kilshane.  Nature certainly had never
+intended her for a conspirator, but just as a timid moorhen will
+ruffle up her feathers and peck fiercely at the enemy who menaces her
+brood, so, for what she conceived to be the interests of her charges,
+poor Miss Browne was ready to plot and scheme, and accordingly, as
+the carriage turned in at the entrance gates of Moyross Abbey and
+bowled up the smoothly gravelled drive, she said impressively to
+Ella, "My dear, I would say as little as possible to your uncle of
+what took place this afternoon.  Of course you were not to blame in
+any way; still, I am afraid he will not be pleased to hear that you
+have made the acquaintance of a family with whom he evidently wishes
+to have nothing to do."
+
+"But that is such a pity," said Ella, looking at her with wide,
+innocent eyes, "and if he could only see them, and how nice they all
+are, I am sure he would wish to be friends.  Their father was his own
+brother, and they are the only relations he has of his own name--Oh,
+Brownie, wouldn't it be delightful if we could persuade Uncle
+Nicholas to make up that dreadful old feud, you and I?"
+
+Miss Browne gave an embarrassed cough; this was hardly according to
+her mind.
+
+"One must be careful not to let one's self be influenced too much by
+outward appearances, dear," she said in judicial tones; "I am sure
+the young O'Briens were very pleasant and polite to you this
+afternoon, they would be anxious to make as good an impression as
+possible.  Their father was not Mr. O'Brien's own brother, you must
+always remember, but only his step-brother, which is quite a
+different thing, and we all know how shamefully he behaved, after
+your good, kind uncle had educated him, and done everything for him.
+Indeed, he was a very extravagant, good-for-nothing person, from all
+I have ever heard; he wrote for magazines and newspapers and things
+of that sort."  Miss Browne brought this forward as if it were an
+undoubted proof of an idle, ill-regulated life.  "I should doubt if
+his children were much better than he," she went on; "they have no
+sooner inherited that little property of Kilshane than that young Mr.
+O'Brien throws up whatever employment he had in London, and comes
+over here, no doubt to set up as an Irish country gentleman, and lead
+the same sort of spendthrift, wasteful life that too many of his
+ancestors did."
+
+"I am very glad he was on the road to-day, and not in London, or
+Sheila and I would have fared very badly," Ella answered, rather more
+sharply than was usual to her, and in her heart she thought that
+whatever the sins and follies of bygone generations of O'Briens might
+have been, Roderick and Anstace did not look as if they were likely
+to embark on any wild career of debt and dissipation.
+
+The carriage swept round the last bend of the avenue and came in view
+of the house, a square erection, solidly built of gray stone.  On one
+side, and separated only from the house by a stretch of smoothly
+shaven greensward, rose the old abbey from which Moyross had its
+name, with its broken arches and cloisters--grand even in its
+desolation.  Behind it lay an old, old graveyard, with great
+beech-trees stretching their long branches out over moss-green
+tombstones.  And at the back, where the path wound down through the
+little glen to the shore below, an opening in the trees allowed the
+blue plain of the sea to be seen, tracked with glistening streaks and
+wavy tide-marks.
+
+The butler, who came down the steps to open the carriage door for the
+ladies, informed them that Mr. O'Brien had arrived from Dublin half
+an hour previously, and had asked for Miss Ella.
+
+"I will go to him at once then, before I change my dress," Ella said,
+gathering up her riding habit.  "I am not very untidy, am I, Brownie?"
+
+"No, my love, you look very nice, as you always do," said Miss
+Browne, gazing at her with fond admiration.  "But as I said before,
+be cautious, Ella, and don't make too much of the little occurrence
+this afternoon, or you may vex your uncle."
+
+The poor lady would have liked to be more explicit, but she shrank
+from instilling any of her worldly motives, unselfish though they
+might be, into Ella's pure mind.  As for the girl herself, no thought
+of the future, with its possibilities of gain or loss, had ever
+entered her head, and as she went swiftly towards the wing of the
+house in which Mr. O'Brien's rooms were situated, she could only
+marvel at Brownie's strange manner that day.  Why! one of her most
+frequent complaints had been of the utter absence in the
+neighbourhood of Moyross of any suitable companionship for Ella, and
+Ella herself had often longed for a friend of her own age.  Could she
+have a more winning one than Anstace O'Brien, with her sweet face and
+gentle manner; her own kinswoman too?  Then there was her brother
+Roderick, who had saved her own life that day, and those two merry
+children--how delightful if they might all be on the easy, intimate
+footing which their relationship warranted, and why should these
+young O'Briens be held accountable for their father's sins and
+misdoings?  Ella could only shake her head in perplexity, as she
+opened the door of her uncle's study.
+
+Mr. O'Brien was sitting at his writing-table, opening the letters
+that had come for him during his three days' absence from home.  He
+was a handsome, high-bred looking old man, with keen dark eyes, a
+hooked nose, and a firm, thin-lipped mouth.  His hair and his
+eyebrows were both snowy-white, and his figure, that had been tall
+and erect, was somewhat stooped.  He looked tired and dejected, too,
+as though the letters he was reading were not altogether pleasant,
+but he roused himself with eager anxiety as Ella came in.
+
+"My dear child, I am very glad to see you; they told me something
+about an accident, but you seem none the worse."
+
+"No more I am, Uncle Nicholas," Ella answered brightly.  "I was a
+little frightened and shaken at the time, that was all.  Sheila ran
+away with me near the top of the long hill beyond Kilshane gate."
+
+Mr. O'Brien started; his superior knowledge made him understand the
+peril of the situation much more thoroughly than Miss Browne had done.
+
+"And a nastier place for a runaway there is not in the whole county.
+It was a most providential escape.  What stopped the pony?"
+
+"Young Mr. O'Brien--Roderick O'Brien--was in the field close by, and
+he jumped out over the gate and caught Sheila by the head."
+
+Mr. O'Brien did not speak for a moment or two.
+
+"He seems to have displayed great promptitude," he said then, slowly.
+"The consequences might have been very serious if he had not been
+there.  Well, what happened afterwards?"
+
+"He made me go back with him to Kilshane, while he sent over here for
+the carriage, and I had tea there with them all."
+
+Another pause, but Ella noticed how Mr. O'Brien's fingers were
+closing and unclosing on the paper-knife that lay before him.
+
+"Yes, I heard they had come over," he said at length, speaking more
+to himself than to Ella.  "They were not long in taking possession of
+poor Ansey's little place.  And whom does the 'all' consist of?"
+
+"Not very many," Ella said, trying to speak lightly, though she felt
+somewhat nervous, and Mr. O'Brien still continued to toy with the
+paper-knife without looking up at her as she stood beside him.
+"There is one grown-up sister and a boy and a little girl, besides
+Roderick O'Brien himself.  They were all very nice and kind to me,
+but I liked Anstace, the elder sister, best.  She is quite unlike the
+others, one would not take her for their sister at all; they are all
+dark, and the little girl has such merry blue eyes, full of fun and
+mischief.  Miss O'Brien has very fair hair and gray eyes; she is not
+pretty exactly, but she has such a sweet face, and it lights up
+wonderfully when she talks and smiles."
+
+She stopped abruptly as her eyes rested on a little water-colour
+sketch that hung over Mr. O'Brien's writing-table, the head of a
+young girl with fair hair, very smoothly banded down on either side
+of her face.  It had often moved Ella's childish curiosity in former
+days, and Mr. O'Brien had always put her off with some evasive answer
+when she questioned him about it, but now she gave an eager
+exclamation.
+
+"Why, Uncle Nicholas, that might be Anstace O'Brien herself, it is so
+like her!  I knew her face reminded me of something, but I could not
+remember what it was.  Is that a likeness of the old Miss O'Brien who
+died the other day, who left Kilshane to them?"
+
+"No, Ella," Mr. O'Brien said quietly, as he turned back to his
+letters again.  "That is not the portrait of any O'Brien."
+
+Ella had no need to ask any more, she knew that the little picture
+was the face of the one woman whom Nicholas O'Brien had ever loved,
+and whom--though she had been nearly ten years in her grave--he had
+neither forgotten nor forgiven.  She had intended to make a timid
+request that she might be allowed to keep up the acquaintanceship
+with her cousins which she had begun that day, but her courage failed
+her, as her uncle went on imperturbably reading and arranging his
+correspondence, and after a few moments' hesitation she stole away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BALLINTAGGART CAVE
+
+Some weeks passed over uneventfully.  May was almost ended, and June
+was coming in with its cloudless skies and long, clear twilights.
+Poor Norah, during those days, had many secret pangs of grief and
+jealousy as she watched the growing friendship between Manus and
+Lanty Hogan.  In London she and Manus had been the closest
+companions, sharing all each other's possessions and amusements, but
+now Norah was reluctantly driven to perceive that her company no
+longer sufficed to content Manus, and that she could not hope to
+compete against Lanty's greater attractions.  There were few mornings
+indeed on which Lanty's shock head did not make its appearance at the
+back door soon after breakfast, and then it would be:
+
+"Sure now, 'tis a grand marnin' for the fishin', Masther Manus,
+afther the rain, an' there'll be a great rise on the trout intirely.
+'Deed now, I wudn't wondher but we'd be gettin' the full o' the
+basket."
+
+Or else:
+
+"Glory be to goodness, Masther Manus, there's a schull o' mackarel in
+the bay, the say's shtiff wid 'em, it's jostlin' one another out o'
+the wather they is, an' whin we've had our divarsion wid thim theer
+boys, we might have a thry for a few cormorants' eggs, if yer honour
+had a mind for't.  The say's that calm, the coracle wud float us in
+amongst the rocks as aisy as if 'twas a duck settin' on a horse-pond."
+
+Norah shed a few tears in secret sometimes when she had watched her
+brother and his ally go off on one of these expeditions, whilst she
+was left behind to find what amusement she could for herself.  She
+took herself severely to task, like a loyal little soul as she was,
+for grudging Manus any pleasure merely because she could have no part
+in it; and when Manus came home at night, bringing back his trophies
+and brimming over with accounts of his own and Lanty's adventures,
+Norah was nearly as proud and delighted as he was himself.  Yet that
+did not hinder her from experiencing the same feelings of loneliness
+and desertion the next time Manus and Lanty went off fishing or
+sailing together.
+
+Anstace had her doubts as to whether Lanty's constant companionship
+was likely to be of benefit to Manus.  She spoke to Roderick on the
+subject, but he laughed her fears away.
+
+"You don't expect to keep a boy of Manus's age about the house like a
+tame cat, do you?  Nonsense, let him go about with that red-headed
+young scamp as much as he likes, and learn to row and fish and climb
+the rocks.  I only wish I'd had the same chance when I was his age,
+I'd be twice the man that I am now."
+
+A glance of loving admiration from Anstace said plainly that in her
+estimation Roderick was already perfect, and could not possibly have
+been improved upon.  Roderick was her special brother, as Manus was
+Norah's.  Concerning Lanty, however, she remained of the same opinion
+as before, though she attempted no further remonstrance.
+
+One bright, sunny afternoon Lanty appeared at the kitchen door with
+an air of unusual mystery.
+
+"Whisht, Masther Manus," he said, "there's bin spring tides this
+couple o' days past, an' the say's that smooth as ye'd not see't
+twiced in the twal' month, no, nor maybe wanst.  If you an' me was to
+be havin' that little adventure wid the sales in Ballintaggart Cave,
+that we've talked of, 'twud be the day for't an' no mistake."
+
+Manus hesitated.  "I told Mr. Roderick about it, Lanty, and he said
+he'd come with us, whatever day we went, with his gun and try a shot.
+He didn't think it would be safe for you and me to tackle the seals
+by ourselves, with nothing but clubs."
+
+"'Tis himself that knows, that niver was next nor nigh a sale
+before," Lanty muttered under his breath.  Aloud he said, "An' wudn't
+his honour come wid us this day, it's no finer one we'll be gettin'?"
+
+"He and Miss Anstace have driven into Ballyfin, you see, and they
+won't be home till evening."
+
+"Faix thin, that's the chanst for us," said Lanty, with a knowing
+look.  "We'll take the gun an' be off wid ourselves, unbeknownst.
+His honour can't say as we wasn't well armed, anyways, an' if we get
+killin' of a sale, I'll be bound it's not displazed he'll be, but
+quite contrary."
+
+Manus still hesitated; he had some qualms as to whether he ought to
+venture on the enterprise in Roderick's absence, and without his
+leave.  But a visit to Ballintaggart Cave, famed as the resort of
+seals, had been one of the most alluring schemes which Lanty had held
+out to him.  Manus knew that the cave could only be visited on rare
+occasions--at extreme low tide, and only then when the state of the
+weather permitted--so that few even of the fishermen upon the coast
+had ever entered it, and a chance once lost might not recur again.
+
+"All right, I'll come," he said briefly, and Lanty intimated his
+satisfaction by a nod.
+
+"We'll have no need to be burnin' daylight over the job," he said.
+"Wanst the tide turns 'twill be hurry out an' no mistake.  If ye'll
+be at Portkerin in half an hour, Masther Manus, wid the gun, I'll
+meet ye there wid the oars an' all else we'll be needin'."
+
+Neither Lanty nor Manus had any idea that there had been a listener
+to their colloquy.  The dairy window was close to where they stood,
+screened and overshadowed by a clump of tall shrubs that grew outside
+it, and Norah had been standing just within.  She had had no
+intention of playing eavesdropper, but it had never occurred to her
+that Manus and Lanty could have anything to say to each other which
+it was not open to all the rest of the family to listen to.  When
+they separated, however, and she heard Lanty's footsteps dying away
+outside, whilst Manus ran whistling into the house and upstairs, a
+sudden wild desire took possession of her.  She too had heard of the
+wondrous, seal-tenanted cave.  Why should not she be one of the party
+about to visit it?  If she were to beg Manus to take her with him she
+would only meet with a contemptuous refusal, she knew that well
+enough; but if she were down upon the shore when they were starting,
+perhaps she might prevail upon them to let her go too.  Deep down in
+Norah's heart, perhaps, besides her desire to see the cave, there was
+the thought that, if she were to prove herself a competent comrade
+upon the present occasion, Manus might not disdain her company
+occasionally in the future on his fishing and boating excursions.
+Poor Norah's aspirations were very humble; all she desired was to
+accompany Manus, much as a faithful dog accompanies his master, to
+watch him whilst he fished, or sit in the boat which he rowed, and
+she hoped to be able to convince him that the mere fact of being a
+girl did not of necessity disqualify her from such lowly
+participation in his pursuits.
+
+She knew that Lanty kept his boat at Portkerin, a little cove about
+half a mile away, and having made her escape out of the house unseen,
+Norah raced thither at flying speed.  A break-neck track, hardly to
+be called a path, trodden only by the feet of the fisherfolk, led
+down from the cliffs to the strip of sandy beach below, on which two
+or three coracles were lying, keel upwards, well above high-water
+mark.
+
+When Manus and Lanty came down the track together half an hour
+later--Manus walking first, and feeling himself of no small
+consequence with Roderick's gun over his shoulder and a well-filled
+cartridge-pouch slung round him--their astonishment was great at
+finding Norah in the cove before them, a solitary little figure
+sitting on a block of gray stone, where the sand and the bent--the
+coarse sea-grass--met.
+
+"Hullo, Norah, whatever are you doing here, sitting by yourself like
+a thingummy in the wilderness?" was Manus's greeting.
+
+Norah sprang to her feet, breathlessly eager.
+
+"I want to go to Ballintaggart Cave with you," she cried.  "I heard
+you and Lanty settling to go, Manus; I was behind you in the dairy,
+and I ran all the way to be here before you.  Do let me come!"
+
+"Rubbish!" said Manus loftily.  "Do you suppose you're fit to go
+after seals?  A fine funk you'd be in when it came to going into the
+cave, and you'd scream if the gun were fired."
+
+"I should not," Norah retorted indignantly.  "I was standing close to
+Roderick when he shot a magpie the other day, and I didn't scream; I
+didn't even put my fingers in my ears, and I don't mind going into
+dark places either."
+
+"An' why shouldn't she come if she's minded for't, the darlin' young
+leddy?" broke in Lanty.  "Afeard?  Troth, not she, an' her an O'Brien
+born!  Yis, come along, Miss Norah, an' I'll take care of ye, niver
+fear."
+
+Norah repaid his championship of her cause by a look of the most
+rapturous gratitude.  Lanty hoisted the coracle on to his back, and
+started off towards the sea with it, looking to the two children, as
+they followed him, very much like a gigantic black beetle reared upon
+its hind-legs.  Norah essayed to make herself useful by bringing the
+oars, which Lanty had been obliged to lay down, along with her, but
+as she carried them awkwardly, crosswise in her arms, not
+sailor-fashion over her shoulder, she provoked some uncomplimentary
+remarks about the "butter-fingeredness" of girls from Manus, who
+stalked airily along, only carrying the gun.  Manus, to say the
+truth, was in a somewhat ungracious mood, for it seemed to him that
+this visit to the seals' cave would not appear at all as tremendous a
+feat to have achieved if it became known that his younger sister had
+accompanied him.  However, by the time the coracle was launched, and
+they were floating out upon the deep, green water, his ill-humour had
+evaporated, and he was laughing and chatting gaily with Lanty.
+
+There were only seats for the two rowers in the frail little craft.
+Norah had to sit down flat in the stern, with her feet straight out
+in front of her, and her head not far above the gunwale.  At first
+she could not help feeling some internal tremors as the coracle
+skimmed the sea, its very buoyancy, as it topped the waves and slid
+down into the hollows between them, giving it a peculiar dancing
+motion which was painfully suggestive of instability.  It was
+somewhat alarming, too, to look at the tarred canvas stretched over
+the rude wooden framework, and to reflect that it was all that
+separated her from the deep sea all round, and that the smallest
+injury, a pin-prick even, would bring the salt water gurgling in.
+However, after a few minutes, finding that the coracle, bob as it
+might upon the waves, showed no inclination to upset, Norah's fears
+subsided, and she even began to enjoy the lapping of the wavelets so
+close beside her, and to gaze up in awe at the black cliffs that
+towered above their heads, and which looked so much loftier from
+below than when they were viewed from the top.
+
+They hed three miles to row to the cave of Ballintaggart, and it took
+them the best part of an hour to accomplish it.  They passed Moyross
+Abbey on the way, with its little glen wooded to the water's edge,
+and the house standing high on the cliff above.  A little farther on
+Lanty pointed out to Norah the ironwork pier which Mr. O'Brien had
+constructed years before for the shipping of the ore from his mine.
+It jutted out into the sea, protected from the great Atlantic rollers
+by a long wall of rock, which seemed as though it had been specially
+designed by nature for a breakwater.  A zigzag track had been cut out
+of the face of the cliff, and the trollies ran down it to discharge
+their loads into the holds of the ships lying at the pier below.
+
+No ship was in waiting there now, and an ugly scowl came upon Lanty's
+face as he looked over at the scarped rocks and the slender framework
+of the pier.
+
+"The curse o' the crows on M'Bain, an' the notions he's puttin' in
+th' ould masther's head," he muttered.  "'Tis a cliver pair they
+thinks themselves, but maybe the boys might larn them that they was
+cliverer yet."
+
+Norah remembered that she had overheard Roderick speaking very
+gravely to Anstace a few days ago about the disagreement between Mr.
+O'Brien and the miners, concerning the innovations introduced by the
+new manager.  "I fear there will be bad work before all is over," he
+had said.  No questioning on her part or Manus's could elicit
+anything more from Lanty, however.
+
+"'Twasn't manin' anythin' in partic'lar he was, but just a manner o'
+spakin'!" he declared, and relapsed into a dogged silence.
+
+Ballintaggart Cave, which they reached at length, was situated at the
+end of a narrow inlet, a fissure in the cliffs, guarded by a ridge of
+rocks which showed above the water like a row of jagged teeth, and
+round which the sea swirled and foamed.  It required extreme care to
+guide the coracle through the narrow passage, for a touch from the
+rocks on either hand would have ripped the canvas open as with a
+knife.  Once within the reef, however, they floated in calm water in
+a tiny natural harbour.  Before them was a low, dark opening--the
+entrance to the cave--which was generally covered by the sea,
+preventing any access to the interior.  Now, however, the sea had
+receded sufficiently to leave bare not only the mouth of the cave,
+but also a narrow strip of firm, white sand, which sloped to the
+water's edge.
+
+Lanty leaped overboard, and dragged the coracle up this little strand
+by main force, lifting Norah out carefully afterwards.  He stooped
+and examined the sand, and pointed with much exultation to tracks
+that led upwards into the darkness of the cave.
+
+"Thim theer boys is at home, sure enough," he whispered.  "'Twill be
+a poor thing an' we don't give an account o' wan or two o' thim.  The
+tide's flowin' too," he went on, looking critically at the margin of
+the sand.  "We'll need to hurry ourselves an' we wudn't be wantin' to
+swim out."
+
+The preparations for the adventure were speedily made.  Lanty
+produced a torch made of pieces of split bog-wood tied together and
+saturated with inflammable oil, and a few chips besides, similarly
+soaked, which he stuck in his hat, and signed to Manus to stick into
+his.  Then, still in silence, he placed two cartridges in the breech
+of Manus's gun and handed it back to him.
+
+"Kape close to me, an' don't fire till I give the word," he
+whispered.  "Miss Norah, will ye shtop out here an' wait for us while
+we go in?"
+
+But no, Norah was determined to prove her courage and go through with
+the adventure to the bitter end.  Perhaps, if the truth had been
+told, she was not very willing to be left alone on that narrow strip
+of sand between the deep sea and the lofty cliffs that towered sheer
+above her.  She preferred to face even the darkness of the cave, and
+the possibility of a rush of angry seals, so that she had at least
+living companionship.  None the less, however, her heart beat thick
+and fast as she followed Lanty and Manus up to the low archway which
+gave access to the seals' retreat.
+
+Lanty went first, the blazing torch in his left hand, a short
+bludgeon, loaded at the end with lead, in his right.  There was a
+yard or two of slimy passage and then the cave opened out into an
+underground chamber of considerable extent, floored with the same
+white sand that composed the strand outside.  Lanty stooped and
+examined it closely with his torch.  The tracks were still visible,
+leading upwards into the innermost recesses of the cave.  Without
+speaking a word he pushed Norah back till she stood in a sort of
+recess just within the arch by which they had entered, and lighting
+one of the bog-wood chips that adorned his own hat, he stuck it in
+hers.
+
+"Stand ye theer, Miss Norah, an' don't stir a ha'porth," lie
+whispered, with his mouth close to her ear.  "'Tis the doore they'll
+make for, an' ye're safe out o' their road.  Masther Manus an' me
+we'll folly on."
+
+Norah stood still as she was bidden, and watched the light of Lanty's
+torch growing gradually more and more distant till it showed only
+like a twinkling star far up within the cavern.  A moment later it
+was gone altogether, and Norah was left alone, the strange candle in
+her hat throwing a feeble radiance on the yellow sea-weed that
+clothed the rock beside her, and on the sand at her feet.  She could
+have screamed aloud, merely for the relief of hearing her own voice
+in the silence that surrounded her, but the fear of incurring Manus's
+contempt kept her from uttering a sound, and she stood motionless,
+clutching the long tangles of sea-weed in her hands as if even their
+cold and clammy touch gave a certain sense of comfort and support.
+
+Lanty and Manus meanwhile were making their way slowly and with much
+difficulty up into the interior of the cave.  The firm, white sand
+with which it was floored at its mouth soon gave place to rocky
+debris and great boulders, over which they had to clamber, as best
+they could, by the uncertain light of the torch.  As they proceeded,
+the cave gradually narrowed till it formed a mere passage a hundred
+yards or more in length, and so low that they had to bend nearly
+double to avoid striking their heads against the roof.  It was
+necessary to advance with extreme caution here, since they might at
+any moment encounter a charge of infuriated seals, for seals, though
+in general most peaceful and inoffensive animals, yet become savage
+if they are brought to bay.
+
+The passage opened out, as Lanty, who had visited the cave once
+before, knew, into a circular rocky chamber known as the "Seals'
+Parlour", and here at last they found their quarry.  A large male
+seal, but fortunately for them only one, the rest of the herd having
+made their way out again before their visit, was lying at his ease
+upon a slab of rock.  He gazed for a moment with a calm, sage air of
+wonderment at his unexpected and unwelcome visitors, then with a
+heavy flop he slipped from his couch and made, with an awkward,
+shuffling gait, for the passage they had just come by, the only way
+of escape to the sea.
+
+"Fire, Masther Manus, fire!" shouted Lanty, and Manus, bringing his
+gun up to his shoulder and aiming as well as his excitement would
+permit, pulled the trigger.  There was a flash, a deafening bang and
+cloud of smoke, and before the noise had died away the seal charged
+straight for Manus, between whose legs it sought to pass.  Manus was
+swept off his feet by the rush, and fell right before the seal, which
+gripped him fiercely by the arm as he lay.
+
+So close were boy and animal together that it was impossible to
+strike at one without risk of injuring the other.  Lanty, all the
+same, seeing the extremity of Manus's danger, whirled his club round
+his head and brought it down with such terrific force that the seal
+rolled, over, dead, with its skull shattered like an egg-shell.
+Manus scrambled to his feet again, hugely frightened but unhurt; the
+seal happily had only caught the sleeve of his jacket, but the long
+rent which its tusks had made showed plainly what the result would
+have been if they had closed upon the flesh of his arm.
+
+"Glory be to goodness, Masther Manus, but that might ha' been the
+mischief's own job!" panted Lanty, breathless between terror and the
+exertion that he had just made; "but sure what matther, so that the
+ould ruffin hasn't ye desthroyed."
+
+"Oh, I'm all right!" said Manus proudly, beginning to feel himself
+something of a hero as he looked at his fallen foe.  "All the same I
+should have been in Queer Street only for you, Lanty.  And now,
+however are we going to get the brute along?"
+
+This, indeed, seemed a task not very easy to accomplish, for the seal
+was nearly as heavy as a well-grown sheep, and considerably longer,
+whilst its slippery, glossy hide made it extremely difficult to catch
+hold of.  Lanty, however, giving the torch to Manus, went vigorously
+to work to convey it back over the rough road by which they had come,
+alternately dragging and shoving the heavy carcass over the rocks
+which impeded their course.
+
+To Norah, meanwhile, the leaden moments had seemed like hours as they
+crawled along, and she waited vainly to hear the sound of voices or
+catch a glimmer of the returning torch.  All sorts of horrible
+fancies began to crowd into her brain.  What if Manus and Lanty had
+encountered a whole host of furious seals or even more ferocious
+sea-monsters--for who could tell what terrible shapes and creatures
+might dwell far up in the inmost recesses of the cave?  They might be
+lying wounded or dying somewhere far underground, where no one had
+ever penetrated before, or perhaps they had lost their way in those
+subterranean windings and passages, and were vainly trying to retrace
+their steps.  What if she were to be left there whilst the tide came
+slowly creeping up over the strip of sand outside, and closed the
+arch by which they had entered, prisoning her and the others within!
+
+With trembling hands Norah groped upwards.  The rock was covered with
+sea-weed far above her head, as far as she could reach.  To that
+height, then, the tide must rise when it was at its fullest, and
+Norah, in her terror at making this discovery, would have screamed
+aloud, forgetful of Manus's disdain, for already she pictured herself
+shut in in the dark cave and drowning inch by inch as the water rose
+slowly around her.
+
+An iron grip, however, seemed to be upon her throat, compressing it
+and preventing her from uttering a sound.  It was an unreasoning
+panic after all, begotten of the darkness and the solitude, since the
+way of escape was at any rate still open, and Lanty's coracle floated
+safely in the little basin outside, and it was ended in another
+minute by a sharp ringing sound, the shot fired by Manus in the
+Seals' Parlour, which pealed and reverberated from rock to rock till
+the cavern seemed alive with echoes.
+
+A pause followed, during which Norah held her breath to listen, and
+then there came a shout, very faint and far away indeed, but none the
+less cheering and reassuring, especially as it was followed by
+another and another, for Manus, now that the necessity for silence
+and caution was at an end, was endeavouring, by a series of joyous
+halloos, to apprise her of their whereabouts and the victory which
+they had achieved.  Manus and Lanty were alive then, they were coming
+back to her, and Norah all at once became ashamed of her foolish
+fears of a minute or two before, and realized that after all she
+could not have been left so very long by herself.
+
+She had to wait a considerable time longer, however, before the first
+gleam of the torch reappeared in view; but when it did, rather than
+bear the suspense any longer, she started off to meet her brother and
+his companion, stumbling as best she could in the darkness over the
+fallen rocks and boulders, and guided by the lights which were
+growing larger and more distinct every moment.
+
+"Hullo, so there you are!" cried Manus jubilantly.  "We've got
+something to show you that'll make you open your eyes.  Look here,
+what do you think of that?"
+
+And he held the torch aloft to let its light fall on the dead seal
+with its long tusks and dark velvety hide.
+
+Norah instinctively shrank from contact with the slimy carcass, which
+emitted a strong and by no means agreeable odour, and contented
+herself with gazing at it with awe and admiration from a respectful
+distance.
+
+"Did you shoot it?" she enquired of her brother.
+
+"Well, no," Manus admitted.  "I fired at him, but I'm not sure that I
+hit him.  I didn't kill him at any rate, for he made for me and
+knocked me over.  I'd have been done for if Lanty hadn't come down on
+him with his club.  There, that's something like a whack!"
+
+And Manus pointed to the seal's battered skull.
+
+"Oh, Manus, he might have killed you!" said Norah, horror-stricken.
+
+"Well, he might, but you see he didn't; he only tore my coat," Manus
+returned philosophically, displaying the jagged rent which the seal's
+tusks had made.
+
+In his secret soul he felt himself no small hero at bearing off such
+traces of the conflict, and was already figuring to himself with much
+pride how high this adventure would raise him in the estimation of
+the other boys on his return to school.  Bodkin Major, who came from
+Galway, and hunted in the Christmas holidays, had hitherto been
+regarded as the Nimrod of the school, and a fox's brush, which had
+been presented to him for keeping up with special gallantry during
+one most notable run, had been the envy and admiration of all his
+school-fellows.  But Manus felt, with much inward elation, that
+beside the slaughter of the seal deep in the bowels of the rocks,
+even Bodkin Major's fox-hunting exploits would fade into nothingness.
+
+The wavelets were lapping almost up to the mouth of the cave when
+they emerged from under the low arch, winking and blinking as their
+eyes once more encountered the full light of day.  Manus, who had
+been torch-bearer on the return journey, tossed the bog-wood torch,
+which had burnt down almost to the handgrip, hissing into the sea,
+whilst Lanty, not without considerable difficulty, hoisted the seal
+into the coracle.
+
+"Bedad, Miss Norah," said the latter, when they had taken their seats
+in the canvas-covered bark once more, and he was shoving off with his
+oar, "ye've bate the whoule world out.  Sure ye're the first leddy
+that iver wint sale-huntin' in Ballintaggart Cave, an' 'tis like
+ye'll be the last."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE GHOST IN THE MONK'S WALK
+
+The row home proved to be a long and toilsome one.  The dead seal in
+the bottom of the coracle added no little to its weight, and the
+wind, which had freshened considerably whilst they were in the cave,
+was full in their teeth.  Added to this, both Lanty and Manus were
+tired after their exertions, and Norah, who tried taking an oar once
+or twice to relieve her brother, did not prove a very efficient aid,
+as indeed could hardly be expected of her, seeing that it was the
+first time that she had handled that implement of navigation.  Their
+progress accordingly was but slow, and the sun had sunk into the sea,
+leaving a wondrous rose-red glow behind it, before they rounded
+Drinane Head, the great black promontory which forms one of the
+extremities of the bay within which both Moyross and Kilshane lay.
+Norah was beginning to speculate rather uncomfortably as to whether
+Roderick and Anstace were likely to have got back from Ballyfin yet,
+and what they would think of Manus's and her own prolonged absence,
+when a sudden hail came across the water from the shadows that were
+beginning to gather under the cliffs, and the next moment a large
+boat, pulled by four rowers, shot out of the gloom and lay-to beside
+them.
+
+A most animated and voluble colloquy took place between Lanty and its
+crew, but as it was carried on wholly in Irish it was, of course,
+quite unintelligible to the children.  However, it was plain from the
+manner in which Lanty pointed to the dead seal and gesticulated, that
+he was giving them a graphic account of the slaughter in the cave,
+and the men, catching hold of the gunwale of the coracle, peered over
+at the slain sea-monster and evinced their astonishment and
+admiration by uncouth and guttural exclamations.  The steersman, a
+wild-looking, red-bearded man, doffed his battered head-gear to Norah
+and Manus, saying in English:
+
+"'Tis meself an' ivery mother's son here is proud an' glad to see yer
+honours this day.  No need to be tellin' that ye come of the ould
+fightin' O'Briens, for 'tis their sperrit that's in yez both, young
+masther an' little darlin' miss.  An' I say," and here he raised his
+voice and waved his hat, "God's blessin' on Moyross Abbey, an' on the
+blue sky over it, an' on thim that should be in it an' will be there
+yit some day, plaze God."
+
+After this, however, the conversation relapsed into Irish, and now it
+was the men in the other boat who were becoming vociferous, and were
+apparently, as far as Norah and Manus could gather from their
+gestures, urging something upon Lanty which he, with a glance towards
+the children, seemed to raise objection to.  Further vehement
+utterances on the part of the strangers followed and became more
+rapid and excited as Lanty still seemed to hold back; hands were
+pointed towards the cave below Moyross Abbey and then back towards
+the great headland that reared its heather-covered summit behind them.
+
+"_Thau_," Lanty called out at last, in evident consent, for "_thau_",
+as Norah and Manus had both already learnt, signifies "Yes" in Irish,
+and the strangers, satisfied as it would appear, dipped their oars
+once more and speedily disappeared from sight.
+
+The glow had almost faded away by this time, only a few gold and
+purple cloudlets still caught the light of the sun and marked where
+it had gone down.  Norah shivered, everything seemed to have become
+chilly and gray all of a sudden.
+
+"Sure 'twon't be long now till we have ye ashore, Miss Norah," Lanty
+said encouragingly.  "I was thinkin', Masther Manus," he went on,
+turning his head to address Manus, who was pulling the bow oar, "that
+'tis hard set we'd be to pull to Portkerin an' the wind blowin' us
+back ivery shtroke.  If we was to put in at Moyross, it's just there
+close forenenst, two good miles nearer, we cud run the coracle in
+handy, an' you an' Miss Norah wud be home in no time at all."
+
+Neither Manus nor Norah relished this suggestion.  They were both
+sure that Roderick would be very seriously annoyed if he heard that
+they had come home through the Moyross demesne, seeing that their
+uncle had not so far condescended to take the least notice of their
+existence, and the path from the shore, as they had heard, led past
+the abbey ruins and in front of the house.
+
+"And what matther for that?" returned Lanty.  "Hasn't ivery sowl that
+plazed gone up an' down the Monk's Walk since there was monks in it,
+aye, an' before too; an' who'd have the betther right to set foot in
+Moyross nor yerself an' Miss Norah?"
+
+Manus attempted some further remonstrance, but in vain.  It was
+evident that Lanty was determined to effect a landing in the little
+cove below Moyross Abbey and nowhere else.
+
+"'Tisn't like that Miss Ella or ould Browne"--so he disrespectfully
+termed the controller of the Moyross household--"wud be trapezin'
+about in the black night, an' if the masther's never set his eyes on
+you nor on Miss Norah sure he wudn't know ye if he was to meet ye
+itself."
+
+And in a few minutes more the sand was grating beneath the keel of
+the coracle as it ran in upon the beach.
+
+Lanty jumped overboard and hauled the coracle up out of the water,
+lifting Norah out, and then dislodging the seal by the summary method
+of turning the boat over and shooting the slain monster out upon the
+strand.  Within the cove all was shadow, but behind them the water
+still reflected the clear light of the sky, and the little waves, as
+they broke at their feet, were bright with a strange phosphoric
+radiance.
+
+With Manus's aid Lanty dragged the body of the seal up above
+high-water mark, wedging it in securely among some stones.  He said a
+few words low and energetically to Manus, and before Norah well
+understood what he was about, he had hurried down to the water's edge
+again.  Launching his tiny craft once more he pushed off, and pulled
+vigorously in the direction from which they had just come, his track
+marked by phosphoric flashes each time the oars were dipped in the
+sea.
+
+"Manus, he surely hasn't gone and left us here alone!" exclaimed
+Norah, as she looked with alarm at the dark wood which came down
+almost to the shore, and up through which they had to make their way.
+
+"Well, and what does it matter if he has?  He says the path is as
+plain as a pikestaff, we can't possibly mistake it, and when we get
+up above we'll come out upon the avenue."
+
+"It's so dark in there," faltered Norah, as she reluctantly followed
+Manus towards the shade of the overhanging trees, "and you know,
+Manus, they say--at least Bride does" (Bride was Lanty's sister, the
+little handmaiden who had been imported into Kilshane to take Biddy's
+place)--"that the Black Monk goes up and down here sometimes at
+night.  He was a wicked monk who lived long ago, and he did such
+dreadful things that he can't stay in his grave near the old
+abbey--people have seen him, they have really, Manus."
+
+"And you believed all that stuff?" Manus returned derisively.  "Well,
+I've got my gun and a cartridge in it, and if any Mr. Ghosts come
+bothering, they'll get the worst of it, I can tell them."
+
+Perhaps, in spite of his bold words Manus did feel a slight nervous
+tremor as he and Norah plunged into the thick darkness under the
+trees, and began slowly to mount the narrow path that wound up
+through the little glen.  Manus went first, his gun over his
+shoulder, stumbling up the uneven track as best he could, and Norah
+followed as close to him as the steepness of the path would allow.
+Upwards and upwards they went, Manus sometimes feeling his way with
+his hand up the rocky steps of which Roderick had spoken, or else
+edging carefully, foot by foot, along the rough path.
+
+"I say, Norah, there hasn't been much to be afraid of after all,"
+observed Manus in his loud, cheerful voice.  "Your friend, the Black
+Monk, doesn't seem to be on the prowl to-night, perhaps--"
+
+The words died upon his lips, for at that moment they turned the
+corner of the last zigzag and came in sight of the abbey ruins, their
+outline clearly discernible against the pale sky.  Before them on the
+path, one arm uplifted threateningly, as if to warn them back, stood
+a tall white figure, taller, as it seemed to Norah and Manus, than
+any living man could be.  They both came to a dead halt, and stood as
+though they had been rooted to the ground, staring with dilated eyes
+at the motionless form which barred their way.  Norah's heart was
+sending the blood up in suffocating thuds into her throat, she caught
+Manus's jacket, and clung to it with the grasp of despair.
+
+Manus's courage did not forsake him altogether; perhaps the knowledge
+that there was no retreat, and that the path behind them only led
+down to the sea-shore, helped to brace his nerves.
+
+"Look here!" he called out in accents which sounded strange and eerie
+in the darkness; "if you think that we don't know that you're someone
+dressed up, trying to frighten us, you're very much mistaken.  I've
+my gun with me, and it's loaded, and if you don't clear out of that
+double-quick, I'll shoot you."
+
+Manus's voice quavered a little towards the end, as if, for all his
+bold words, his teeth had had a certain inclination to chatter in his
+head.
+
+No answer was returned, only in the silence a little breeze crept
+sobbing through the tree-tops, and the figure seemed to lower its arm
+for an instant and then to raise it again more threateningly than
+before.
+
+Manus had his gun presented by this time, his cheek against the
+stock, and his finger on the trigger.
+
+"I give you fair warning, if you're not out of that before I count
+three, I'll fire.  Now then: One, two--"
+
+Manus never could be quite sure in his own mind afterwards whether he
+had really intended to carry out his threat, or whether it had been
+that his hand had trembled so, as he faced that white menacing form,
+that he had jerked the trigger involuntarily.  Be that as it may,
+even as he said "Three!" there was a crash and flare of light.  Norah
+and Manus both held their breath, for if what Manus had said was
+true, and it was some practical joker who had waylaid them, it was
+impossible at such close quarters for Manus to have missed his aim.
+
+There was no cry, no sound, however, and as the smoke cleared away,
+the white figure stood before them for a moment, erect as ever, then
+seemed to lean forward as though about to rush upon them, and the
+children waited to see no more, but turned and fled headlong down the
+path which they had climbed with such difficulty.
+
+How they got to the bottom they never knew, they scrambled and
+plunged down-wards, regardless of their footing and unheeding how
+they bumped and bruised themselves against stones and against the
+trunks of the trees.  They came to a halt at last in a little
+clearing a hundred yards or so above the shore, and there they stood,
+panting and breathless, partly with the haste they had made and
+partly with terror, as helpless and disconsolate a pair as could have
+been found in the length and breadth of the land.  Manus had
+abandoned all attempt at keeping up a show of bravery; he had his arm
+round Norah, and Norah had hers round him, and they clung to each
+other so close that they could feel the beating of each other's
+hearts, and each other's breath hot upon their cheeks.  That warm,
+close contact seemed to give them some little sense of comfort and
+protection, but in truth their position was a most pitiable one.
+Behind them there was only the strip of lonely beach and the sea, and
+they must either wait where they were all the night through, till
+daylight came, or mount the path again and face that dread white
+shape once more; and even whilst they stood clinging to each other,
+they were straining their eyes into the darkness, terrified lest they
+should see it loom out as it moved downwards in pursuit of them.
+
+Manus's shot, however, had not been without effect.  It had evidently
+been heard at the house, for voices now became audible--eager,
+excited voices, all speaking at once--and a light could be seen
+moving up above amongst the trees.  Manus's spirits began to revive a
+little.
+
+"Come, Norah, come along," he whispered, though his tongue was so dry
+that he could only form the words with difficulty.  "There are people
+up there now, and they--those sort of things, you know,--don't appear
+except when one's alone.  And if we did see anything we could call
+out.  Come on, quick! and let us get up through the wood before
+whoever's up there goes away and leaves us alone again."
+
+Norah was willing enough, and holding each other's hands tight they
+climbed up the steep path once more, not uttering a word, and
+treading softly, as though they feared to disturb the ghostly
+apparition which might be lurking somewhere still amongst the trees.
+
+The windings of the track had brought them immediately below the spot
+where the tall, spectral form had barred their path, and where the
+search-party with their lantern were now gathered.  They could hear a
+shrill voice scolding angrily above their heads, and mingled with it
+the sound of crying.  Instinctively they stopped short to listen.
+
+"Don't tell me any such nonsense, you idle, good for-nothing girl!"
+And though Manus and Norah had only heard Miss Browne's voice once
+before, on the occasion of her brief visit to Kilshane, neither of
+them had any difficulty in recognizing the high, thin tones as hers.
+"How would anyone have known that the table-cloth was hanging up here
+if you had not been in league with the vile, cowardly wretches?  One
+of the very best table-cloths, too; you took good care of that!"
+
+"Och thin, ma'am, the saints in heaven knows 'twas niver a thought of
+harm was in me mind;" broke in another voice, its utterance
+interrupted by frequent sobs.  "Run off of me feet I was this blessed
+day to git the washin' done, an' that cloth, the wan thing I kep'
+back to give it an exthry rinsin', seein' 'twas stained wid wine an'
+all sorts.  An' I jist run down a weeny minnit to the shore to see
+was me feyther's boat in, an' him away to the fishin' before
+cockshout, an' I thrown that cloth up on the three as I wint by, the
+way 'twud dhry, an' be handy to fetch in the marnin'.  Och wirra,
+wirra, to think 'tis clane desthroyed, an' it the beautifullest
+table-cloth iver was!"
+
+And the voice broke down in hopeless weeping.
+
+"And how often have I given orders that the washing is not to be hung
+out anywhere except upon the bleach-green that's intended for it?"
+Miss Browne's voice was shrill with indignation.  "It is all of a
+piece with those hateful, slatternly Irish ways that nothing will
+cure any of you of.  Of course you would rather hang the clothes up
+here on the trees, you would spread them on the rosebushes in the
+garden, or on the door-steps if you only could, rather than take them
+where there are clothes-lines and everything you require provided for
+you!--Not so far away?  Don't tell me any such nonsense!  I don't
+find that you're so anxious to save your time in general."
+
+Stealthily and cautiously, whilst this dialogue was proceeding, the
+children crept on up the path, and by moving in amongst the trees and
+treading with the utmost care, lest by chance the snapping of a dry
+twig under their feet should betray their whereabouts, they were able
+to gain a view of the group gathered on the pathway, whilst they
+themselves were completely shrouded in the darkness.
+
+Foremost, tall and erect, stood the English coachman with a
+stable-lamp in his hand, which he flashed about, here and there,
+letting the light fall on the stems of the trees on either hand, and
+making the spaces between them appear all the blacker by contrast.
+He did not seem to relish his position particularly, thinking, no
+doubt, that the light shed on the party from his lantern made them an
+easy mark for any miscreant who might still be lurking in the wood;
+and a knot of frightened maids, who were huddled together higher up
+on the path, their white caps and aprons just making them visible in
+the gloom, seemed to be of his opinion and to be afraid of venturing
+further.  Miss Browne's anger and vexation were too great to let her
+give a thought to possible danger, and with one corner of the
+table-cloth in her hand, and the rest of it lying in folds at her
+feet, she was scolding the luckless laundry-maid, who stood before
+her holding her apron to her eyes.  Ella was standing beside Miss
+Browne, and she interposed now, but in so low a tone that Manus and
+Norah could not hear what she said.
+
+"Nonsense, my dear, you would find an excuse for anyone, no matter
+what they did," Miss Browne returned sharply.  "I tell you, it was a
+plot, a vile plot, got up to annoy me, no doubt, because I am English
+and because I have persuaded Mr. O'Brien only to have English
+servants in the house.  Perhaps it was intended as a hint that if I
+did not take care I might be served in the same fashion as the
+table-cloth."
+
+With a dramatic gesture Miss Browne spread the luckless piece of
+damask out in full view, and as the light of the stable-lamp fell on
+it, Manus and Norah could see, even from the distance at which they
+stood, sundry large circular holes where the charge of Manus's gun
+had pierced, not the impalpable form of a ghost, but the warp and
+woof of one of their uncle's table-cloths!
+
+"But if they imagine that they will frighten me by any such
+proceeding they are greatly mistaken," Miss Browne went on, raising
+her voice with the evident intention of being heard by anyone who
+might be still within earshot.  "I shall stand my ground, and
+continue to do as I think right, without paying the least attention
+to miserable creatures who prowl about in the dark to shoot holes in
+table-cloths."
+
+"Then, begging pardon, ma'am," interposed the coachman, whose
+uneasiness had clearly not decreased during Miss Browne's last words,
+and who was peering apprehensively at the trunks and branches of the
+trees as the yellow glare of the lamp fell on them, "if standing your
+ground means setting ourselves up as figgerheads, for parties as is
+sitting behind bushes with guns to fire at, I says, the sooner we're
+out of this the better.  I don't yield to no man with a hoss, let him
+kick his worst, likewise rear or buck, but when it comes to these
+Irish ways of taking shots from no one knows where, then I ain't got
+no mind for it."
+
+And with a last twirl of his lantern he set off determinedly up the
+path towards the house, leaving nothing for Miss Browne and Ella and
+the maids but to follow him.
+
+Manus and Norah were left behind in the darkness of the wood.  In
+honour, no doubt, they ought to have come forward and acknowledged
+that they were the culprits who, by mistake, had damaged the Moyross
+table-linen.  Shyness, however, and a sense of the humiliation which
+it would be to confess before the whole of the Moyross household that
+they had mistaken a harmless table-cloth, hanging upon a tree to dry,
+for a ghost, and had fired at it, held them back, and so they waited
+till the steps and voices had died away, and the last gleam of the
+lantern had disappeared.  Then only did they venture on, silently and
+cautiously.  All their fears of supernatural appearances had melted
+away, and the ruined arches of the old abbey bore quite a friendly
+aspect as they skirted past them, keeping as far from the house and
+its lawns and gravel-walks as possible.  They struck the avenue some
+distance farther down, and walked rapidly along it, in momentary
+dread of being called upon to stand and answer who they were and what
+had brought them there.  Nothing of the sort occurred, however.  They
+passed unchallenged out of the gates, and drew a long breath of
+relief when they found themselves on the public road once more.
+
+Then only did they venture to speak to each other of their recent
+adventure, and they could not but admit that they had cut somewhat
+ignominious figures in the frantic terror with which they had fled
+from that weird, white object which had loomed up on them in the
+loneliness of the Monk's Walk.  Manus, in particular, felt himself
+getting hot all over at the thought of how everyone would laugh if
+the story of his firing at the table-cloth should be known, and what,
+oh what! if any ill wind should blow it to the ears of Bodkin Major
+over in Galway!  Would there be any end to the ridicule he would have
+to endure at school?  Even the glory of having taken part in the
+slaughter of the seal seemed but a trifling set-off in comparison.
+Then, too, Roderick, who, as it was, would most probably be annoyed
+by their staying out so late, would certainly be extremely angry
+about the whole business and at their having come home through the
+Moyross demesne.  These and other considerations induced Manus to
+observe to his sister as they were trudging homewards:
+
+"I say, Norah, there's no good in our telling Roderick and Anstace
+anything about our coming up by the Monk's Walk and all that affair.
+We'd look such a pair of thundering idiots, and Roderick's sure to be
+horribly angry at our having gone that way at all.  He'll pitch into
+us pretty well, I expect, as it is, for staying out so late, but
+he'll never think of asking what way we came back; and we needn't say
+anything if he doesn't."
+
+"But why shouldn't we, Manus?  There wasn't any harm really in our
+landing down there when it was blowing hard and we were so late; and
+I always tell Anstace everything."
+
+"Oh yes, that's all right for a girl, of course," said Manus loftily,
+"but when a fellow's been to school it's different.  He doesn't think
+it necessary to run and tell everything as if he was a small kid.
+And there's another thing, Norah; if we said anything about it,
+Roderick and Anstace would begin asking where Lanty was, and why he
+didn't come back with us."
+
+"And why didn't he?" in tones which made it clear that Norah still
+resented his desertion of them.
+
+"Oh, well, you see,"--Manus was becoming rather embarrassed,--"he'd
+promised to meet those other chaps in the boat up on Drinane Head, so
+he was going to get ashore at the iron pier and go up past the mine
+by the tramway that the trucks come down by--he can get out upon the
+Head that way.  He'll be back ever so early in the morning, before
+daybreak, and bring the seal round to Portkerin, so we can take
+Roderick and Anstace down after breakfast to-morrow to see him before
+he's cut up.  Lanty's going to get the oil out of him; he says
+there's a whole winter's burning, as he calls it, in him, and I'm
+going to have the head to keep."
+
+"But what are he and the other men going to do up on Drinane Head in
+the dark?  Are they going to stay there all night?" asked Norah in
+not unnatural amazement as she turned to look back towards the great
+promontory, which could be dimly descried rearing its rugged head
+against the sky, and which certainly did not seem to hold out much
+promise of comfortable quarters for the night.
+
+"Oh, there's some sort of house up there, and they've things to do,"
+mysteriously.  "Lanty's going to take me there some day.  He tells me
+almost everything, because he knows I'm safe; no fear of my blabbing
+or letting things out."
+
+And Manus drew himself erect with the proud consciousness of being
+Lanty's confidant and the trusted repository of his secrets.
+
+"I'm not going to blab either," said Norah in an aggrieved tone,
+feeling Manus's remarks in some sort a reflection on herself.
+
+The children were luckier than they expected, and perhaps than they
+deserved.  They found the house empty when they got back, and no one
+in it, upstairs or down.  Roderick and Anstace had not yet returned
+from Ballyfin, and Bride, the little maid, had availed herself of the
+absence of the whole family to slip over and spend an evening at her
+father's fireside.  The sight of their supper laid out and waiting
+for them in the parlour first brought to Manus and Norah's minds how
+many hours it was past the usual time of their evening meal, to which
+in the many and varied excitements of the evening neither of them had
+hitherto given a thought.  Even now, when they saw food laid ready
+for them, they did not feel any very ravenous desire to partake of
+it.  They sat down, however, at the table, and Manus found his
+appetite return to him in wondrous fashion when once he began to
+attack the eatables; whilst Norah, who had not yet recovered from the
+shock which the apparition in the Monk's Walk had given her, could
+make little more than a feint of eating.
+
+Their supper was just finished when the sound of wheels upon the
+avenue proclaimed Roderick and Anstace's return.  The children rushed
+out to the hall-door to meet them, and there were questions and
+answers and explanations on both sides.
+
+Roderick and Anstace had been late leaving Ballyfin, it seemed, and
+half-way home the horse had cast a shoe.  The nearest smithy was two
+miles distant, and they had had to proceed thither at a walk, Connor
+leading the horse.  When the forge was reached there was further
+delay, for the smith had not expected any customers at that late hour
+and had let his fire out, and they had to wait till it was rekindled,
+so that nearly a couple of hours had elapsed before they were able to
+resume their journey.
+
+Then Manus, with a modest air of self-consciousness, told of their
+afternoon's exploit and of the killing of the seal in Ballintaggart
+Cave.  Roderick looked rather grave at first on hearing of Manus
+having set off on such an expedition without leave and with no other
+companion than Lanty, and still graver on learning that Norah had
+been of the party.  However, his displeasure was not of long
+duration, and though he gave Manus an admonition against the
+repetition of any such rash feats, he promised to accompany him in
+the morning to inspect the trophy in Portkerin, and, to Manus's great
+satisfaction, he asked no awkward questions as to the hour or manner
+of their return, taking it for granted that they had all landed at
+the same place where they had embarked.  Norah's pale face did not
+escape Anstace's solicitous gaze, but she supposed it to be the
+result of excitement and over-fatigue, and ordered her to bed without
+delay, to which refuge indeed Norah was not sorry to betake herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CAPTAIN LESTER, R.M.
+
+"Did you hear what happened last night?" said Anstace when she came
+into the breakfast-room next morning.  "The whole neighbourhood is in
+excitement, and Biddy has been up in the kitchen to tell me about it.
+A table-cloth which had been left hanging up on one of the trees in
+the Monk's Walk had a charge of shot fired through it, and it is all
+riddled with holes."
+
+"And what is the object of that piece of marksmanship supposed to
+be?" enquired Roderick as he took his seat at the table.
+
+"Well, no one seems exactly to know; but the general impression is
+that it is a sort of warning to Uncle Nicholas, in place of the usual
+threatening letter with a skull and cross-bones on it--an intimation
+that something worse may happen if he does not dismiss M'Bain and
+give way to the men's demands."
+
+"It looks as if a bad spirit was getting up in the country," observed
+Roderick thoughtfully.
+
+"I am afraid it does; and I could see that Biddy was secretly
+delighted, though she did not want to betray it to me.  'Maybe the
+boys wud sarve th' ould masther a worse turn yet if he doesn't mind
+himself,' she said.  Uncle Nicholas was out last night, it seems,
+when the outrage occurred, there were only Ella and Miss Browne at
+home; but he is furious about it, and says that if the people think
+he is to be frightened by tricks of that sort they are very much
+mistaken, and that if the offenders can be discovered he will show
+them no mercy."
+
+Manus and Norah had not ventured to lift their eyes from their plates
+during this conversation.  Fortunately for them neither Roderick nor
+Anstace noticed this very unusual silence on their part, as in
+general they were by no means backward in giving their opinion on any
+topic that might be under discussion.
+
+Norah had come down to breakfast listless and heavy-eyed, and evinced
+a nervous tendency to start at the least noise.  Anstace, too,
+testified that she had been awakened in the night by unaccountable
+sounds proceeding from the little room of which Norah had lately, at
+her own earnest request, been put in possession, and going in to see
+what was the matter, had found her little sister crying out and
+struggling under the bed-clothes in the throes of some unpleasantly
+vivid dream.  Roderick declared curtly that it was clear seal-hunting
+did not suit Norah, and issued an absolute prohibition against her
+accompanying Manus and Lanty upon any other expedition unless he
+himself were of the party.  Poor Norah, who knew that her troubled
+night was in no way owing to the seal-hunt but to the fright of
+encountering the supposed ghost, had perforce to submit to the
+mandate.
+
+"If you will be a goose what else can you expect?" was all the
+consolation Manus had to give her when she lamented herself to him
+after breakfast.
+
+Norah brisked up, however, considerably under the effects of the
+bright sunshine and the strong sea-wind, as a little later they all
+four walked across the fields to Portkerin to inspect the seal.
+Manus looked eagerly this way and that to descry the body of his late
+adversary as they came down the narrow track into the little
+horse-shoe-shaped bay.
+
+"Hallo, old chap, don't you know where you left him last night?" was
+Roderick's enquiry.
+
+"Oh yes, but Lanty thought he'd have to haul him over somewhere
+else--somewhere better suited for cutting him up, you know," Manus
+muttered confusedly, carefully avoiding meeting Norah's eye.
+
+It was Anstace who caught sight of the seal at last, lying on a large
+flat rock in the shadow of the cliff.  He was indubitably a monster
+of his kind, and his proportions could be better seen now than when
+he had been lying in the bottom of the coracle.  Roderick paced the
+rock beside him carefully, and pronounced him to be full five feet in
+length.  Manus's only and most poignant regret was that he could not
+be stuffed whole as he was.  He consoled himself, however, with the
+reflection that, even if this could have been done, it would have
+been quite impossible for him to carry the stuffed monster back
+amongst his baggage to exhibit to the boys at school.
+
+Lanty came down the path at that moment carrying a huge three-legged
+iron pot, a formidable looking knife, and all the other implements
+necessary for flaying the seal and depriving the carcass of the thick
+coating of blubber which intervenes between the skin and the flesh,
+and contains the valuable seal-oil.  Lanty's eyes were bloodshot, and
+he looked pallid and dishevelled, as if his night upon Drinane Head
+had not been beneficial to him.
+
+Anstace and Norah, who had no desire to witness the skinning and
+boiling-down process, took their leave, and Roderick, too, had soon
+had enough of the operation.  Manus, however, remained to the last,
+and was able to report, when he came home to dinner, that the yield
+of oil had been highly satisfactory.  He had brought the seal's head
+with him, tied up in Lanty's red pocket-handkerchief, and in answer
+to Anstace's enquiries as to what he intended to do with it,
+explained that he was going to preserve the skull by a method, much
+in vogue amongst the boys at his school, for obtaining skeletons of
+bats, field-mice, and other small animals, namely, by placing it in a
+vessel of water and leaving it to macerate there till the flesh
+dropped off the bones.
+
+As the process was not likely to be a very agreeable one, Anstace
+begged that the vessel with the seal's head might be placed at a
+considerable distance from the house, but to this Manus objected that
+wandering cats or dogs might find his treasure and carry it off to
+devour it.  Finally, on Roderick's suggestion that the roof of the
+house offered a secure and yet sufficiently remote repository, the
+head was carried up thither, and left between the chimney-stacks for
+the sun and winds to bleach it.
+
+The affair of the table-cloth made a considerable stir in the
+country, and an investigation was made upon the spot in the hope of
+discovering some clue to the perpetrators of the outrage.  A force of
+police were occupied for a day or two in beating the underwood and
+examining every square inch of ground near the Monk's Walk.  They
+found nothing to reward them for their labours, however, and little
+by little interest in the matter died away.  Most people thought with
+Anstace that the outrage was a consequence of the dispute between Mr.
+O'Brien and the miners, and probably an attempt to intimidate him
+into dismissing the unpopular Scotch manager.  There could be no
+doubt, however, that it had failed of its effect.  Age might have
+enfeebled Mr. O'Brien's bodily powers, but it had failed to rob him
+of his energy and determination.  To sullen threats that if the men
+were not suffered to work in the old, easy-going fashion to which
+they had been used they would not work at all, he responded by
+closing down the mine and summarily dismissing all hands.
+
+"If they don't know who is master of the Moyross mine they had better
+learn," he was reported to have said grimly.
+
+M'Bain, not less resolute, had hinted that, if a few weeks' idling
+did not bring the miners to their senses, there would be no
+difficulty in finding others to take their places.  Mr. Lynch shook
+his head over it all in the drawing-room at Kilshane.
+
+"We've a bad winter before us, I fear," he said, gloomily.
+
+Meanwhile, what remained of the summer was passing over, and August
+was nearing its end.  Dr. Ford, the principal of Manus's school,
+wrote to Roderick that all needful repairs and alterations having
+been carried out to the satisfaction of a high sanitary authority, he
+hoped to see his pupils reassemble early in September.  Manus groaned
+at the thought of his glorious holiday-time being so near its close,
+and of the boating and fishing and other outdoor enjoyments having to
+be exchanged for Latin and algebra, and the routine of school life.
+Lanty had been much less about Kilshane of late, but Manus seemed to
+understand his comings and goings very well, and evinced no surprise
+thereat.
+
+Manus's return to school was only a week off when Lady Louisa Butler,
+who on a former occasion had driven over to make the O'Briens'
+acquaintance, sent a friendly invitation to Roderick and Anstace to
+dine and sleep at her house upon a certain evening when she hoped to
+have a few friends to meet them.
+
+"My dear, you must on no account refuse," said kindly Mrs. Lynch,
+whom Anstace had consulted; "Lady Louisa's little parties are always
+delightful, and she is sure to have people whom you would like to
+know, and who will be interested in you for your father's sake."
+
+So a note of acceptance was written, and then the question of ways
+and means had to be considered, as Dromore, Lady Louisa's place, was
+fourteen Irish miles distant.  Biddy, though dismissed from active
+service with the O'Briens, kept herself posted up in all the family
+affairs by frequent visits to the kitchen, and was always ready to
+tender advice on knotty points.  She was urgent that the old chariot
+in the coach-house, in which Miss Ansey had been wont to take her
+drives in state, should be brought out from its retirement for the
+occasion.
+
+"An' what wud the O'Briens be dhrivin' in, to mate all the quality o'
+the county, if 'twasn't their own ekeepage?" she demanded
+indignantly.  "Shure it's not on a common jauntin' car, that any
+shoneen wid a shillin' in his pocket could pay for as well as
+yerself, that ye'd have Miss Anstace sottin', Masther Roderick?"
+
+"I've no doubt that Miss Anstace and I would create a sensation
+amongst the quality if we arrived in the family equipage, Biddy,"
+Roderick answered with much gravity, though there was a twinkle in
+his eyes, as he surveyed the crazy, antiquated chariot which had been
+drawn out into the grass-grown yard for inspection.
+
+Cobwebs festooned it inside and out, the iron-work was red with rust,
+and the lining of the interior mouldy with damp, and perforated by
+moths.  It was hung so high from the ground that it had to be entered
+by a flight of steps, let down and fastened up from the outside.
+Roderick shook his head as he turned away with a laugh.
+
+"No, Biddy; I'm afraid that however humiliating it may be to Miss
+Anstace and me, there is nothing for it but for us to make our first
+appearance amongst the aristocracy of Clare upon a hack car."
+
+A ragged, shoeless boy came running into the yard at that moment and
+thrust a note into Roderick's hand.
+
+"Captin Lester's complimints, yer honour, an' I was to give that to
+you at wanst."
+
+Roderick opened the note and then called to Anstace, who, the
+carriage-parade being at an end, was going back into the house.
+
+"Hullo, Anstace; what do you say to entertaining a guest?  Are your
+household resources up to the mark?"
+
+"A guest!  Roderick! who?"
+
+"Lester, the resident magistrate.  You haven't met him, but he's a
+capital fellow; you're sure to like him.  Here's what he says--I
+suppose it's no harm for the children to hear it."
+
+For Norah and Manus, with eyes brimming with curiosity, had drawn
+near to listen, leaving it to Biddy and Bride, with the assistance of
+Captain Lester's messenger, to push the ancestral chariot back to
+slumber once more within the dilapidated coach-house.
+
+
+_Dear O'Brien_,--the note ran,--_Should I be taking a great liberty
+if I asked you and Miss O'Brien to give me a shake-down at Kilshane
+to-morrow night?  There is to be a seizure effected in your
+neighbourhood the following day, and in the present state of the
+country it would be idle to attempt it except immediately after
+daybreak.  I should, therefore, be saved a long night-drive by
+sleeping at your house, and this must be my excuse for troubling you._
+
+  _Yours, &c.
+      CHARLES LESTER._
+
+_P.S. I know I can trust you to keep the object of my visit secret,
+otherwise its purpose would be rendered nugatory._
+
+
+"Well, Anstace, what do you say?" looking at her with the open note
+still in his hand.
+
+"I don't really know," Anstace returned dubiously.  "Bride is a good
+little girl, but she has not got many ideas yet about cooking or
+attending at table, or anything of that sort, and a man like Captain
+Lester is accustomed to having everything comfortable and well done."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!  Lester's not that sort of fellow at all.  Give him a
+good plain dinner and he'll be quite satisfied.  I should think a man
+would prefer any sort of dinner at all to having to drive over from
+Ballyfin at one o'clock in the morning You can get Biddy in to help,
+you know, if necessary."
+
+Anstace smiled a little at the latter suggestion, but she saw that
+Roderick was anxious for the invitation to be given, and if Roderick
+wished for anything it was certain that Anstace would gratify him if
+it was within her power to do so.
+
+"Oh yes, ask him by all means," she said pleasantly, "and we'll do
+the best we can for him.  He knows we're not millionaires, so he
+won't expect too much."
+
+"It fits in first-rate, too," said Roderick, reading the letter over
+again.  "If he'd wanted to come the next night we couldn't have had
+him, as that's the evening we're going to Lady Louisa's.  Now
+remember, you two," to Norah and Manus, "not a word of this to
+anyone."  And he walked off into the house to write his answer to the
+note.
+
+Manus and Norah were in quite a tumult of expectation next evening.
+Captain Lester was the first visitor who had passed a night under the
+roof at Kilshane, and to their minds a resident magistrate, to whom
+the peace of the district was committed, and who could incarcerate
+offenders and order the constabulary hither and thither, was a very
+tremendous personage to be brought in contact with.  Captain Lester,
+on his arrival, did not appear the least awe-inspiring however; he
+was a big, sandy-haired, good-humoured looking man, with a loud voice
+and cheery manner, and Anstace owned to herself, with a sigh of
+relief, that she would not mind so very much if Bride did commit a
+few blunders during the course of the dinner.
+
+This was just as well, since Bride, although Anstace had spent a good
+part of the day in drilling her and rehearsing to her what she would
+have to do, evinced a capacity for making mistakes which was
+absolutely marvellous.  Manus and Norah were partaking of late dinner
+for the first time in their lives, and Manus grew purple in the face
+in his efforts to choke down his laughter, as poor Bride, blushing to
+the roots of her hair in her bashfulness, went floundering round the
+table, setting down plates where dishes should have been, and
+knocking over glasses.  It was only by an agonized frown, which Bride
+fortunately caught just in time, that Anstace brought to her mind
+that it was the mustard and not the powdered sugar which was to be
+handed round with the roast-beef.  All her signals, however, failed
+to prevent the cauliflower from being presented to the guests as a
+course all by itself, while the dish of _croquettes_, which Anstace
+had prepared herself, with the expenditure of much time and trouble,
+as an entrée, appeared later on in the company of the potatoes.
+Besides which, Bride persistently left the door open whenever she
+went out to the kitchen, where Biddy was assisting to the best of her
+ability, so that scraps of conversation, not intended to be heard in
+the dining-room, were only too audible to the party seated at table.
+
+"Bride, will I pull the tart out o' the oven yit, 'tis the
+beautifullest brown that iver ye see?  Gorra, but it's hot; it has
+the fingers burnt off of me!--Och, but the captin's the fine lump of
+a man, an' I'll be bound he's not takin' his two oyes out o' Miss
+Anstace this minit.  I'll jist shlip to the doore an' have a look at
+her, the darlin', sottin' at the head of her table, as swate as a
+flower, an' as shtately as a queen."
+
+This was too much for Manus, who from his seat opposite the door had
+a full sight of Biddy trying to post herself where she could command
+the best view of the room, and he winked knowingly at her.  Biddy,
+much discomfited at being detected, retreated backwards on some
+crockery which Bride, notwithstanding all Anstace's injunctions to
+the contrary, had set down in her hurry on the floor of the hall, and
+there arose a terrible outcry.
+
+"The saints 'twixt us an' harm!  Bride, joo'l of me sowl, if 'tisn't
+the mashed pitaties I've sot me fut in, an' the dish gone clane in
+two undher me!"
+
+Everyone laughed; even Anstace could not prevent herself from joining
+in the general merriment, though for an instant she had flushed red
+with mortification.  Captain Lester, however, enjoyed the joke so
+thoroughly, and told so many ludicrous stories of what his own
+experiences had been when he had first set up house in the west of
+Ireland, that Anstace speedily forgot her annoyance.
+
+Manus elected to remain with the gentlemen when Anstace and Norah
+withdrew after dinner.  Roderick and Captain Lester must have found
+something very interesting to talk about, they made such a prolonged
+stay in the dining-room, and Norah, who had only been granted a
+scanty half-hour beyond her usual bed-time, and who had looked
+forward to hearing some more of Captain Lester's stories, grudgingly
+watched the clock upon the chimney-piece as it ticked on towards the
+fateful half-past nine.
+
+"What an age they are in there, Anstace," she grumbled, "why can't
+they come in and talk here?  I did want to ask Captain Lester to tell
+us the end of that story about the old woman and her goose.  Don't
+you remember he was in the middle of it when Biddy stood in the
+potato dish?  It's twenty-five minutes past nine, so I have only five
+minutes more.  Oh, they're coming at last!" as the dining-room door
+was heard to open.
+
+The trio made their appearance.  Captain Lester first, with his broad
+expanse of shirt-front and jolly red face; Roderick, taller and
+slighter, followed, and Manus brought up the rear.  To Norah's
+thinking the last-named had become strangely quiet and dispirited.
+He ensconced himself in a corner, and hardly even laughed at the
+conclusion of the goose story, which, lest Norah should be
+disappointed, Anstace begged Captain Lester for.  Immediately
+afterwards, however, she contrived to make a sign to her little
+sister to come to her where she sat at a small table pouring out the
+coffee, and whispered to her that it was a quarter to ten, and quite
+time for her to go to bed.
+
+"You need not mind bidding good-night.  Just slip quietly out of the
+room and run upstairs.  I'll send Manus up after you, as soon as I
+get a chance of speaking to him.  He seems half-asleep as it is,
+sitting over there in the corner."
+
+Norah stole off as she was bidden, the last thing she heard was
+Captain Lester saying to Anstace, as he took his cup of coffee from
+her: "I am going to show your brother a little real Irish life, Miss
+O'Brien.  He is going to accompany me on the raid I am making on some
+gentry who are distilling illicit whisky near this.  We shall have to
+be off before five in the morning--"
+
+More Norah did not hear, as she was obliged regretfully to close the
+door.  It would be nice to be grown-up, she reflected, as she went
+upstairs, and to sit up just as long as one liked without an elder
+sister to order one off to bed.
+
+Norah had been in that safe refuge for some time, lying wide awake,
+with the door open so that she could hear the murmur of voices
+downstairs, and Captain Lester's loud, hilarious laugh ringing out
+every now and again, when a light pattering footfall came along the
+passage, and Manus appeared in the doorway.  A quaint figure he was,
+as seen by the light of the lamp on the stairs, for he was
+barefooted, and only attired in his nightshirt with his flannel
+cricketing-jacket drawn over it.
+
+He came over towards the bed, groping his way in the dark.
+
+"Norah!" he whispered, "I say, Norah, are you awake?"
+
+"Yes, as wide as anything.  What's the matter?"
+
+"There's the most awful thing going to happen, and I'm sure I don't
+know what's to be done.  I've been lying awake, thinking and thinking
+till my head feels like splitting, and I thought at last I'd come and
+tell you."
+
+"Gracious, Manus!" starting up in bed as she spoke; "what on earth is
+it?"
+
+"Hush, don't speak so loud!" in an apprehensive whisper.  "That still
+which you heard the captain speak about, that they're going to seize
+to-morrow morning--well, it's Lanty's!"
+
+Manus paused to see what effect this tremendous communication would
+produce, but as Norah had never heard of a still before, and had not
+the least idea what it was, she was not as much dismayed as Manus had
+expected.
+
+"But if it's Lanty's," she said stupidly, "how can anyone take it
+from him?"
+
+"You don't understand one little bit," Manus returned impatiently.
+"A still is for making whisky with--potheen,[1] Lanty calls it--and
+all whisky has got to pay tax to the government, why, I'm sure I
+don't know.  But Lanty says he's not going to pay taxes to the
+English government any way, so he and the fellows who work with him
+have their place hidden away on Drinane Head, where they thought no
+one was likely to find it."
+
+
+[1] Pronounced putcheen.
+
+
+"Oh, and it was up there Lanty was going the night that he left us to
+come home by the Monk's Walk?" exclaimed Norah, a sudden light
+breaking in upon her.
+
+Manus, who had by this time established himself on the side of her
+bed, nodded, forgetful that that manner of signifying assent is not
+of much use in the dark.
+
+"You remember that boat with a lot of men in it which pulled out to
+us, just under the Head?  Those were the other fellows who help in
+the business, and they wanted him up there for something special that
+night.  They have meetings up in that place of theirs, and talk over
+all sorts of things, as well as making the potheen.  Lanty didn't
+like leaving us, but they made him; he told me about it while I was
+helping him to drag the seal up over the rocks.  Lanty knew I was
+safe to trust, only of course I said nothing to you, as it was such a
+tremendous secret."
+
+And Manus assumed an air of conscious rectitude which was
+unfortunately also lost in the darkness.
+
+"And have you ever been up where they make the--whatever the stuff is
+called?"
+
+"No; Lanty's promised to take me up there ever so often, and let me
+see it all, but we've never been able to manage it somehow.  But,
+Norah, the question is, what's to be done?  Captain Lester has got
+wind of it somehow; he told Roderick after dinner, when you and
+Anstace had gone, that he had known there was this still working
+somewhere hereabouts, and he had been trying to hunt it out for ever
+so long, but now he had got certain information of it's being up on
+Drinane Head, and right enough he is, for he described it all to
+Roderick, just as Lanty did to me.  There's a tarn--that's a sort of
+lake, you know--on the very top of Drinane Head, and a little stream
+flows out of it and falls right over the cliffs; that's the water
+they make the potheen with--real mountain-dew, Lanty calls it.
+They've built some kind of a hovel there, up against a rock, and they
+work days and nights together sometimes when there's a brewing going
+on."
+
+"Hew did Captain Lester find out about it?  Did he go up there to
+see?"
+
+"I'm sure he did not; they'd have smelt a rat fast enough if he'd
+been poking about anywhere within miles of them.  But he has found it
+out somehow or other, and he's going to pounce down on them at
+sunrise and capture the whole gang--that's what he called them--a
+gang!" said Manus in high indignation.  "He has it all laid off pat,
+how he's going to surround the place and all, and he's so afraid of
+its leaking out that he hasn't told a single soul what's brought him
+here,--even the police who are coming won't know what they're wanted
+for till he meets them at the cross-roads at five to-morrow morning.
+Of course he knew he was all safe in telling Roderick, and he didn't
+think I was of any account at all.  I went on eating the dessert
+things and didn't pretend to be listening much.  And now, Norah,
+we've got to get Lanty out of the mess somehow or other."
+
+"Perhaps he's not there at all; perhaps he's at home," suggested
+Norah hopefully.
+
+"Oh yes, he is though, he's been up there for days past," said Manus,
+who seemed extremely well informed of his ally's movements.  "He
+hasn't been out fishing or boating with me once the whole of this
+week."
+
+To both Manus and Norah it seemed that if Lanty were only safe the
+capture of his confederates, of the wild-looking crew whom they had
+seen under Drinane Head, was of comparatively little importance.
+
+Norah sat silent and reflected--in former childish days it had always
+been her little brain which had done the contriving necessary to get
+them out of any scrape in which they happened to find themselves.
+Manus of late had got into the way of speaking of girls as of an
+inferior race of beings, but now that he was in trouble he came to
+her as of old for help and advice.
+
+"I wonder if Biddy has gone home yet," she said at last.  "I could
+slip down to the kitchen and tell her, and she would tell Tom.  He
+could go up to Drinane Head and let Lanty know that Captain Lester
+was coming."
+
+"No, that wouldn't do at all," said Manus.  "You see they none of
+them know anything about it--about Lanty's being in with all those
+other fellows, and making potheen and all that--and Lanty doesn't
+want them to find out.  He says his father's 'raal ragin' mad' as it
+is, about his 'goings-on', as he calls them."
+
+"O--oh!"  This was a new light on the matter to Norah, whose code of
+right and wrong was a very simple one.  Breaking the law was a thing
+quite outside any experience of hers, and which she understood
+nothing about.  There seemed something absolutely heroic in Lanty's
+manufacturing his whisky on the solitude of Drinane Head that he
+might defy Captain Lester and the police in their efforts to make him
+pay taxes to the English government.  But that he should be doing
+something which his father and Biddy did not know of, and which, if
+they did know, they would not approve--that was another matter
+altogether in Norah's eyes.
+
+"Making potheen must be wrong, Manus," she said gravely, "if Lanty
+doesn't want anyone to find out about it."
+
+"Well, if you come to that, I suppose it is," Manus admitted.  "But
+if Lanty and the rest of them are caught to-morrow, they'll all be
+marched off to Ennis jail--handcuffed, mind you--and locked up there
+for months perhaps.  Just think of Lanty handcuffed and shut up in
+jail!  I declare I've half a mind to try and get up on Drinane Head
+now and give them warning to clear out, but it's as black as pitch,
+not a gleam of light in the sky; and I don't believe I'd find the
+way."
+
+Then it was that Norah had a brilliant inspiration.
+
+"I'll tell you what, Manus," she cried; "Captain Lester and Roderick
+won't start till five.  I heard Captain Lester tell Anstace so, and
+it's light--a sort of light--hours before that.  I know, because when
+I was bad with toothache last week and couldn't sleep, I saw
+everything in the room quite plain before the clock struck three.  If
+you stole out then no one would hear you, they'd all be sound asleep,
+and you could go to Drinane Head and tell Lanty the police were
+coming."
+
+"Oh, but I say, Norah, if I go you'll have to come too!" said Manus.
+
+"I'll come of course if you want me," Norah rejoined promptly, trying
+not to let her voice betray her satisfaction at Manus's sudden desire
+for the feminine companionship at which he was generally wont to
+rail.  "I only hope we'll manage to awake in proper time."
+
+"Oh, I'll wake, no fear!  I've never any difficulty in waking up any
+time that I want to, and I'll come and call you," Manus said
+valiantly.  "I don't feel as if I could sleep a wink to-night,
+thinking of it all; but I'd better be off, lest the others should
+come up and catch me--they won't sit up late, as Captain Lester and
+Roderick have to turn out so early.  Oh, I say! won't it be fun,
+their going off solemnly all that way and drawing a cordon round the
+place and all the rest of it, when we've been there before them and
+given the fellows warning.  Be sure and jump up at once, Norah, when
+I come to call you.  I won't be able to make a noise for fear of
+someone hearing me."
+
+And with this parting injunction Manus withdrew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ON DRINANE HEAD
+
+Notwithstanding Manus's valorous undertaking to come and call her in
+the morning, Norah took the precaution of getting up after he had
+gone and drawing back the curtains and pulling up the blind, so that
+the first gleam of the gray dawn might fall into her room and wake
+her.  She had but just huddled back into bed again when she heard the
+drawing-room door open and good-nights being exchanged.  A minute
+later the handle of her own door was softly turned and Anstace came
+in, carefully shading her candle with her hand to keep its light from
+falling on her little sister's face.  Norah closed her eyes tight and
+feigned to be asleep.  She was afraid of Anstace questioning her
+about her unusual wakefulness, but it gave her an uncomfortable sense
+of deceit to feel Anstace with cautious touch drawing the tumbled
+bed-clothes straight, and tucking them in comfortably about her.
+Then she went away as softly as she had come, and Norah fell asleep
+and started up, as it seemed to herself, but a few minutes
+afterwards, to find the window opposite her bed a square of
+pale-grayish light, and the different objects in the room becoming
+dimly visible.
+
+It was only after a minute or two's partial bewilderment that she
+could remember what it was which impended that morning, and why she
+ought to be awake.  In a moment, however, it all came back to her
+mind, and she slipped hastily out upon the floor.  Manus had not come
+to call her as yet, but it would be well, all the same, to know
+whether it were already three o'clock or not.  A strange, ghostly
+little figure Norah looked as she stole along the passage and down
+the stairs in her night-gown and bare feet to where the tall old
+clock in the hall ticked solemnly on, its ticking sounding ever so
+much louder now in the silence of the house than it did ordinarily
+during the day-time.
+
+Norah had to mount on a chair so as to bring her face upon a level
+with that of the clock before she could make out the position of the
+two hands, and ascertain that it was as yet but half-past two.  Back
+to bed, therefore, she had to journey; but she did not venture to lie
+down, lest sleep should steal upon her unawares.  She sat up straight
+instead, with her knees drawn up to her chin and the blankets pulled
+round her shoulders, waiting till, after what seemed to her an
+interminable time, the clock downstairs told out the hour with three
+ringing metallic strokes.
+
+There was still no stir from Manus's side of the house, and so she
+started off on her peregrinations once more.  She crept past the door
+of Roderick's room, which was next to that of Manus, with bated
+breath.  The handle of the door made what seemed an appallingly loud
+noise as she turned it.  Within all was darkness, and the deep,
+regular breathing, which was the only sound to be heard, betokened
+that Lanty's peril had not interfered with Manus's slumbers as much
+as he himself had expected.
+
+"Manus, it has struck three!" whispered Norah from the door.
+
+There was no answer.  The breathing continued as regularly as before,
+and Norah had to make her way across the room in dread of tumbling
+over some of the furniture and making a clatter, which would arouse
+half the household.
+
+"Manus, wake up!" she whispered again as she reached the bed.  "It's
+time to dress."
+
+"Eh--ah--hi--what's the matter?" came in indistinct gurglings from
+amongst the bed-clothes.
+
+"It's three o'clock, Manus--past it.  And we're to go up to warn
+Lanty; don't you remember?"
+
+"Lanty!" in very sleepy accents.  "Oh, bother, Norah, we'll leave
+Lanty alone!"
+
+It was quite evident that the enterprise bore a very different aspect
+to Manus now, just roused out of his warm sleep, from what it had
+done a few hours before.
+
+"But the police and Captain Lester are going up to look for him, and
+they'll take his still away, and carry him and his friends off to
+prison."
+
+"Nonsense!  Not they!  Trust old Lanty to look after himself.  He'll
+show them a trick or two if they come making trouble up there.  I
+don't believe they'll find the way, and very likely we shouldn't
+either."
+
+"But we ought to try," urged Norah, not a little taken aback at this
+unexpected change of front on Manus's part.
+
+"Oh, it's too great a fag, and I'm tired.  Go back to bed, Norah,
+it'll be all right, you'll see."
+
+And a rustling of the bed-clothes betokened that Manus, after giving
+this comfortable assurance, had turned over and disposed himself to
+sleep once more.
+
+Norah retired baffled from the room.  It was full daylight by this
+time, the cold, cheerless light of dawn, and she stood in the lobby
+window, looking at the gray world outside, and debating with herself
+what she should do.  Perhaps, as Manus had said, it would be all
+right, and Lanty's hiding-place would remain undiscovered, but on the
+other hand Captain Lester, for all his jollity and good-humour, did
+not look like a man who would follow a wild-goose chase, and probably
+he had made himself well acquainted with the whereabouts of the still
+before starting on his present enterprise.  Norah thought of Lanty's
+ugly, good-natured face, and of his kindness to her the day of the
+seal-hunt.  She was a little girl who did not forget kindness very
+readily; and then there were Biddy and Tom and Bride to be thought
+of.  What a disgrace and a sorrow it would be to all of them if Lanty
+should be marched along the road handcuffed on his way to Ennis jail,
+as Manus had said he would be!  No, the police should not take Lanty
+if she could help it--that was a determination to which Norah very
+quickly came, and since Manus would not go with her she would go
+alone out on Drinane Head, and warn him of his danger.  She thought
+that from Manus's description of the place upon the previous night
+she could hardly fail to find it.
+
+It must be confessed that it required all Norah's self-command, when
+she went back to her own little room, to keep her from plunging into
+bed again, it looked so invitingly warm, and the raw chill of the
+early morning had penetrated to her very bones.  She withstood the
+temptation bravely, however, and by the time that she had deluged her
+face abundantly with cold water, and scrubbed it into a glow with a
+rough towel, and had huddled in all haste into her clothes, the last
+remnant of sleepiness had disappeared.
+
+It was a strange sensation to step out-of-doors into the freshness of
+the day which had but just begun.  The birds were awake, and
+twittered loudly in the trees as Norah walked down the avenue, but
+they and she seemed the only things that were astir as yet.  The
+cattle were still lying down in the fields, as they had lain during
+the night, and the doors of the few cabins which she passed upon the
+road were shut, and not even a curl of smoke rose upwards from the
+chimneys.  It was a longer walk than Norah had expected, but she kept
+the lofty frowning headland for which she was bound well in view, and
+trudged steadily on.  The road grew rougher and steeper as she went,
+and dwindled down at last into a mere cattle-track which led out upon
+the open moorland and left her free to make her way in what direction
+she pleased.
+
+Norah had never been so far from home by herself before, but that did
+not trouble her much, any more than did the heathery solitude on
+which she found herself.  She had grown used to lonely rambles since
+they had come to live at Kilshane, and her only fear was that she
+might miss the snug retreat in which Lanty and his confederates
+carried on their illegal practices, or that she might not reach it in
+time to enable them to escape.  She found that walking through the
+deep heather, which reached almost to her waist, was very hard and
+tiring work, and here and there she came upon soft, swampy places
+into which her feet sunk with, a squelching sound, and threatened
+more than once to stick fast altogether.  All the same she struggled
+onwards and upwards valiantly, sometimes helped on her way by a bare
+slope of limestone which cropped out above the heather, and sometimes
+having to make a long step to cross a rift or crevice, which seemed
+to go down into unknown depths, but which was filled almost to the
+brim with little green ferns and mosses, and trailing brambles, which
+had established themselves in there out of reach of cutting blasts.
+
+A yellow glow had been spreading gradually higher into the sky, and
+the tops of the great mountains to her left were bathed in sunlight.
+Suddenly, as Norah walked along, she saw her own shadow thrown before
+her on the rocks--the sun, a red, rayless disc, had risen up over the
+mountains, and in a moment the dull monotony of the landscape broke
+into sudden life and colour.  It was the first sunrise which Norah
+had ever been out-of-doors to witness, but its beauty awoke little
+response in her, her only thought being that if the sun had risen it
+must be getting late--late, that is, for what she had to do, and that
+it behoved her to hurry on if her expedition was not to fail of its
+purpose.  Panting, she struggled on up the steep heathery incline,
+till she stopped all at once with a little gasp of wonder and
+relief--she had reached the end of the long ascent, and almost at her
+very feet the great cliff sank sheer to the sea, five hundred feet
+below.
+
+For a brief moment the little girl stood still to recover her breath,
+whilst the keen salt wind blew her hair and her short skirts about.
+A sea-gull circled close above her uttering its short, plaintive cry,
+then with extended wings glided far out over the abyss.  No other
+living thing was in view on all the wide waste of heather and sea, in
+the midst of which she stood, a little solitary speck.
+
+She could walk faster now, for here, on the edge of the cliffs,
+exposed to the fierce western gales, not even the heather could grow;
+there were only a few inches of black peaty soil covering the rocks.
+The long, level rays of the early sun shone upon her as she hurried
+along, and far beneath her the great Atlantic surges broke in foam
+upon the rocks.  She had to make more than one detour to avoid
+yawning clefts that ran far inland, another rise had to be struggled
+up, and she stood at last on the very summit of Drinane Head.
+
+Immediately below her was a hollow, a little green oasis which seemed
+scooped out from the surrounding wilderness, and with a great throb
+of joy Norah recognized the description which Manus had given her,
+and knew she had arrived at the secluded retreat in which Lanty had
+deemed that he might securely carry on his lawless trade.  The little
+mountain tarn lay in the centre of the circle of green, its black
+sullen waters not brightened even by the morning sunshine; a tiny
+stream flowed out of it and fell over the edge of the cliffs, to be
+blown away in mist and spray long before the sea was reached.  Facing
+her, midway between the lake and the cliffs, was the thatched hovel
+of which Manus had spoken, built against a rock, so that the wreaths
+of blue peat-smoke which curled up from its roof seemed to rise out
+of the very ground.
+
+No one, police-constable or anyone else, was in sight, and by all
+appearances she was still in time to accomplish her errand.
+Slipping, scrambling, jumping from ledge to ledge of the rocks, Norah
+descended from the height on which she stood into the little dell
+below.  She had to cross the streamlet which purled and gurgled
+between banks of close mountain turf in its short course to the sea.
+A large stone, however, had been placed in its bed to facilitate such
+crossings, and a moment later Norah was knocking boldly at the door
+of the hovel.
+
+A shuffling of feet was heard within, a subdued muttering of voices,
+then the door was cautiously opened a little way, and a
+fierce-looking man with unkempt red hair and beard appeared.  Norah
+recognized him at once as the steersman of the boat which they had
+encountered down below on their return from Ballintaggart Cave.
+
+"Is Lanty Hogan here, please?" she enquired, whilst he stared in
+speechless amazement at his unlooked-for visitor.
+
+"An' what wud Lanty be doin' up here on the bare mountain, an' him
+wid his father's good house to shtop in?" the man returned in true
+Irish fashion, answering one question by asking another.
+
+"But Lanty has been here, I know," Norah said earnestly, "and if he's
+here still will you tell him, please, that Norah O'Brien is here and
+wants to see him about something very important?"
+
+"An' what ailed ye, Miss Norah, to be runnin' up here afther me an'
+it scarce cockshout yit?  Shure there's nothin' gone amiss down in
+Kilshane?"
+
+And there was genuine anxiety in Lanty's face as he unceremoniously
+thrust the first speaker to one side and appeared in the doorway
+himself.  He was only in his shirt and trousers, and his face had a
+sodden, smoke-bleared look.
+
+"There is nothing wrong at Kilshane, thank you, Lanty," Norah began
+rather nervously, for two or three other men in similar attire had
+clustered at the door, all gazing at her and evidently curious to
+learn her errand.  "Captain Lester, the resident magistrate, stayed
+at our house last night, and he and Mr. Roderick are coming up here
+this morning with a lot of policemen to search for your still.
+Master Manus heard them talking about it after dinner last night, so
+I came up to tell you."
+
+"Tare an' ages!"
+
+Lanty almost knocked Norah over as he dashed out of the house, and in
+another minute was bounding like a cat up the rocky knoll from which
+she had just descended.  Screening himself behind a block of
+limestone which topped the summit, he crouched for a moment, gazing
+about him, his eyes shaded from the sun, then came springing down
+again as actively as he had gone up.
+
+"The child's i' the right!" he ejaculated breathlessly, as he got
+back, "an' sorra moment to lose!  The peelers is movin' up to take us
+back-ways an' front-ways an' all sides at wanst, but wid the help o'
+goodness we'll sarcumvint thim theer boys yit."
+
+The men drew away from the door into the centre of the floor,
+speaking in hoarse, excited murmurs; and Norah, impelled by
+curiosity, stepped inside, where she could see the interior of the
+hovel and what was going on there.
+
+A roaring turf-fire burnt at the farther end, making the heat of the
+room almost unendurable, and a skinny, wrinkled old woman, with locks
+of grizzled hair escaping from under the red handkerchief round her
+head, was engaged in tending it.  On a tripod above the fire stood a
+tall, strangely-shaped vessel, closed at the top save for a pipe that
+issued from it and wound in many spiral coils round the inside of a
+large tub filled with cold water and placed upon the hearth.  The
+pipe passed out again at the bottom of the tub, discharging the
+freshly-distilled spirits which had been condensed within it in its
+passage through the cold water into a large earthenware pan which
+acted as receiver.  Norah had hardly had time, however, to
+contemplate this strange and rude apparatus when, at an order given
+in Irish by the red-bearded man who had opened the door to her, two
+of the other men lifted the still off the fire, and carrying it
+outside the door, poured the boiling liquor within it into the little
+stream; another caught up the earthenware pan and emptied it in
+similar fashion.
+
+"A sin an' shame to be sendin' the good potheen over the racks to the
+fishes," muttered the red-bearded man, whom the others called
+Malachy, and who seemed to exercise some sort of authority over the
+lawless crew.  "Stir yerselves, boys," he went on louder, "or they'll
+be on ye afore all's done."
+
+The still itself, and the tripod on which it had stood, the tub with
+the "worm" still coiled within it, and all the other portions of the
+apparatus were carried up to the tarn and sunk in its dark,
+peat-stained water, so also were two kegs of whisky which were
+brought out from the inner room of the hovel.  Malachy himself seized
+a broken spade, which formed part of an accumulation of rubbish in
+one corner, and carried spadeful after spadeful of blazing peats out
+of the house, flinging them, hissing and spluttering, into the
+stream, till the furnace on the hearth had been reduced to the limits
+of an ordinary domestic fire.  A big black pot was suspended over it,
+in the place where the still had been; water and meal were hastily
+poured in, and the old woman took her stand before it, an iron spoon
+in her hand, stirring as composedly as if she had never assisted in
+any more dubious enterprise than preparing stirabout for the
+breakfast of her son and his friends.
+
+"Now, thim theer boys may come as soon as plazes thim, an' we'll be
+ready to bid thim the top o' the marnin'," chuckled Malachy, when the
+preparations indoors were completed and the men who had gone to sink
+the still and the other appliances in the tarn had straggled back to
+the hovel again.  Then, as his eye fell on Norah, whom in the bustle
+everyone had forgotten, but who had remained standing just within the
+door watching all these proceedings with the keenest interest, he
+exclaimed, "Murdher alive, what'll we do wid the child at all, at
+all?"
+
+Strangely enough, this question had not occurred to any of the band
+before, and at that moment four black dots came into view upon the
+heathery skyline above the little lake.  They were the heads of men
+moving steadily down upon the cabin.  A minute or two later two more
+dark figures appeared high up on the rocky crest which Lanty had
+scaled to get a view.  Clearly the house was surrounded and escape
+from it cut off.
+
+"Hoide her in theer, quick!" suggested one of the men, pointing
+towards the inner room.
+
+"An' if it's minded to sarch the house they'd be," retorted Malachy
+contemptuously, "sure the little darlin' wud be desthroyed for comin'
+to bring us warnin', an' us desthroyed along of her."
+
+"'Tis the born gomeral that y'are!" exclaimed the old woman, who had
+hitherto continued to stir the black pot assiduously, but who seemed
+now to wake up suddenly to the emergency of the situation.  Still
+grasping the iron spoon in one hand, she caught the terrified Norah
+by the other, and dragged her unceremoniously towards the fire.
+
+"Tak' the cheer an' sit down," she said authoritatively.
+
+Malachy obeyed his mother, as Norah took her to be, by bringing
+forward the solitary wooden chair of which the establishment boasted,
+and seating himself upon it by the fire.  With a sudden grab the old
+woman pulled Norah's hat off and flung it amongst the lumber in the
+corner, then snatching up an old tartan shawl which lay on the
+window-ledge, she put it over the little girl's head and wrapped it
+hastily about her.
+
+"Stand her beside ye an' she'll pass for wan o' yer own," she said,
+giving Norah a push towards her son as she spoke.
+
+"Niver fear, 'cushla, nayther hurt nor harm shall come to ye,"
+whispered Malachy encouragingly, as he drew her to stand at his knee.
+"Stand still an' kape yer mouth shut, that's all that's for you to
+do."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+DISCOMFITED
+
+A couple of minutes of breathless silence followed.  Norah stood
+motionless, with Malachy's arm round her, his bristling red beard
+close beside her face, and the heavy shawl, saturated with the reek
+of peat smoke, weighing her down and dragging backwards off her head.
+Lanty and the other men were endeavouring to stare out over each
+other's shoulders through the square foot of greenish glass which
+served as a window.  The brush of feet on the short grass outside
+became audible, someone's iron-shod boot-heel struck with a metallic
+click upon a stone, and the next moment there came a loud, imperative
+knock against the half-closed door.
+
+It was opened wide instantly.  Captain Lester stood outside, with
+Roderick beside him, and four policemen closing in behind.  The hot,
+red blood mounted up into Norah's face as Roderick, stooping his tall
+head to look under the low doorway, gazed straight at her.  It seemed
+impossible that he should not recognize her, but she had forgotten
+that to him, standing outside in the bright morning sunshine, the
+interior of the cabin appeared to be in almost total darkness, and if
+he was able to distinguish her at all, it was only as a little
+country girl, frightened by the sudden appearance of the police, and
+keeping close to her father's side.
+
+"Malachy Flanagan," said Captain Lester, "I have come up here with a
+search-warrant, having received information that you are in the habit
+of carrying on illicit distillation in these premises."
+
+"Innicint dissitation!" returned Malachy, scratching his head in much
+apparent perplexity.  "An' what wud yer honour be manin' by that?"
+
+"Nonsense, my man!" Captain Lester answered sharply.  "You know what
+I mean well enough; there is no use in pretending ignorance.  You are
+suspected of manufacturing whisky up here, or potheen if you prefer
+to call it so."
+
+"Arrah, Mither, did iver ye hear the likes o' that?" said Malachy,
+turning in well-feigned astonishment to the old woman.
+"Mannifacterin' potheen, an' up here on Drinane Head, av all places
+on this mortial airth!  But shtep in, yer honour, an' mak' yer
+resarches."
+
+This last with a lofty air and a sweep of his arm, which implied that
+there was nothing within the four corners of his cabin which the
+forces of the law were not entirely welcome to inspect.
+
+Captain Lester did not hesitate to avail himself of the permission so
+magnificently given--at least he stood without at the door with
+Roderick whilst two of the policemen went in and ransacked the house,
+searching everywhere, in the heap of rags which was the nearest
+approach to a bed, amongst the litter heaped up in the corner, even
+in the thatch of the roof, but naturally without finding anything to
+reward them for their labours.  Norah had another pang of
+apprehension when her hat was tossed out with the rest of the lumber,
+and rolled right across the floor almost to Roderick's feet.  She
+thought he could not fail to know it again, but, fortunately for her
+and for those she had come to warn, Roderick had the common masculine
+lack of observation where articles of female apparel were concerned.
+Often as he had seen that hat with its bow of discoloured ribbon,
+which bore witness to much battling with wind and weather, upon his
+little sister's head, it woke no recollection in his mind.  Malachy
+had lighted his pipe, and was puffing away with ostentatious
+indifference as he watched the efforts of the search-party; the other
+men looked on either with a malicious grin, or with an expression of
+sullen ill-will.
+
+"Wudn't yez tak' a look into the pot theer?" enquired Malachy, with
+feigned politeness, as the constables emerged baffled from the inner
+room of the hovel, their investigations there having been productive
+of no better result than in the outer apartment.  "Maybe 'tis potheen
+herself is stirrin' to give us for our breakfast."
+
+Amidst the shout of laughter which this sally evoked from the other
+occupants, the baffled members of the constabulary made haste to
+withdraw from the scene.  Captain Lester, however, lingered at the
+door before following his retreating forces.
+
+"Listen to me, boys, and let me give you a word of good advice before
+I go," he said gravely.  "You have been too many for me this time, I
+admit freely, whether it was through getting warning of my coming or
+not.  But I know well enough that half a dozen able-bodied fellows
+like yourselves are not up on this desolate spot, where there is no
+work or lawful trade of any sort, for nothing.  And I warn you that
+the way you are in is not a good way, that whether you succeed in
+evading the law in future or not, your present courses are certain to
+bring ruin on yourselves and on everyone belonging to you.  Therefore
+my advice to you is to abandon your way of life without delay and
+take to some honest calling."
+
+"Sure, 'tis the great counsellor yer honour wud make intirely," said
+one of the men; "and it's much beholden we shud be for such gran'
+advice, an' free an' for nothin', mirover."
+
+Captain Lester took no notice of the sneer, but turned to Roderick.
+
+"Come along," he said, "we'd better follow those fellows of mine."
+
+Norah watched them through the open door as they went up over the
+short grass towards the lake and disappeared round one of the folds
+of the moorland.  Ugly scowls and fierce execrations followed them,
+clenched fists were shaken at their retreating figures; and when they
+had passed out of sight, Norah realized the strangeness of her own
+position for the first time, and felt just a little frightened as she
+remembered that she was alone with that wild-looking crew of men in
+the low, smoke-darkened hut, the sheer black cliffs on one side of
+her, the dark mountain tarn on the other, and that she had their
+secret in her keeping.  Lanty's presence, however, was an assurance
+that not much harm could befall her, and divesting herself of the
+shawl which had served as disguise, she said politely:
+
+"I think, if you please, if I may have my hat, I will go home now, or
+I shall be late for breakfast."
+
+"Thin, begor, alanna, ye'll not set fut to the ground while meself's
+in it to carry ye!" Malachy exclaimed, and before Norah well
+understood what he was about to do, he had wrapped the shawl round
+her once more and lifted her on to his back, knotting the ends of the
+shawl round his waist, so as to form a sort of hammock for her to sit
+in, with her hands resting on his shoulders.  "Sit ye still, darlint,
+an' hould yer hoult, an' ye'll have as iligant a roide home as if
+'twas yer own carriage ye was sottin' in."
+
+The other men crowded to the door and raised a sort of cheer as Norah
+departed on her novel charger.  "Blessin's on the little lady that
+give us the warnin', an' on the ould shtock she comes of!"
+
+Malachy did not take the roundabout course by the cliffs by which
+Norah had come, nor follow the search-party, who were making their
+way towards the nearest point of the road, where their conveyances
+waited for them.  Instead, he struck straight across the moorland,
+following a track which was evidently well known to him.  Swamps had
+to be crossed here and there by the aid of stepping-stones, and in
+one or two places white stones had been bedded in the heather to
+serve as guiding marks for those who might have to traverse Drinane
+Head at night.  Malachy travelled sometimes at a jog-trot and
+sometimes at a long, swinging walk, which covered the ground almost
+as rapidly, the burden on his back scarcely seeming to incommode him
+at all.  Not a single word did he utter till the verge of the
+moorland had been reached, where he set Norah down, and pointed out
+the way to her by which she was to reach Kilshane.
+
+"'Tis meself wud carry ye to the very doore, an' proud to do it, but
+for the fear o' meetin' some wan on the road that wud be axin'
+questions an' passin' their remarks.  But ye'll be home, mavourneen,
+soon a'most as thim that's had their horses an' ekeepages to dhraw
+them--bad cess to them for the dirty work they wor afther!"
+
+He lifted his ragged old hat with the air of a courtier, and turned
+to retrace his steps; then, rushing back suddenly, he caught her
+small sunburnt hand in his rough grasp and covered it with passionate
+kisses.
+
+"God's blessin' an' the blessin' of His saints be on ye for what
+ye've done this day!  It's wan of the raal ould O'Briens ye've shown
+yerself, that always had a heart for the poor.  There's thim that'll
+not forgit it to ye, an'll maybe do a good turn to you and yours
+afore all's done.  It's more nor mannifacterin' potheen the boys
+talks of betimes!  Whisht, thin, what am I sayin'?  But you're wan as
+can kape saycrits for as young as y'are, so niver let on what I've
+said to ye, nor don't ye be feared for nothin' that happens.  Nayther
+hurt nor harm will come next or nigh you, an' them that's belongin'
+to you, while Malachy Flanagan's to the fore!"
+
+Norah was rather frightened by the vehemence of this address, of
+which, to say the truth, she understood very little.  She only said,
+however:
+
+"Oh, I shall not tell anyone, Malachy! you may be quite sure of that,
+except Manus, my brother.  He knows all about your place on Drinane
+Head already, but he's quite as good at keeping secrets as I am."
+
+Following the line which Malachy had pointed out to her, Norah made
+her way across the fields and struck the road not far from the gate
+of Kilshane.  She had just scrambled over the loose-built stone wall
+which skirted the roadside, when she heard the clatter of the whole
+cavalcade of horses and cars coming down the road behind her.  She
+shrank back behind a bramble bush in the vain hope of escaping being
+seen, and the next instant they swept past her.  First came Roderick
+and Captain Lester in a dog-cart, and the police followed on two
+cars.  They had hoped to cover themselves with glory by capturing the
+still and the whole gang, who had succeeded hitherto in carrying on
+their contraband trade in defiance of the law; but instead, they were
+returning baffled and somewhat crestfallen from their raid.
+
+Roderick looked rather surprised as he caught sight of his little
+sister screening herself behind the briar, but he smiled and nodded
+to her, as they tore past at the full speed of Captain Lester's
+fast-trotting mare.
+
+Norah had hoped to slip into the house without being perceived, but
+when she came down the avenue a few minutes later, she found Roderick
+and Captain Lester standing outside the door enjoying the fresh
+sea-breeze.  Roderick caught hold of her as she tried to pass him by
+and pulled her to him.
+
+"Hullo, little woman!" he said pleasantly.  "Come here and tell me
+what mischief you've been up to, careering over the country at this
+hour of the morning."
+
+For the first time in her life Norah could not meet the gaze of those
+kindly dark eyes that were looking down at her.  She hung her head
+awkwardly, and drew patterns on the gravel with the toe of her boot.
+
+"It was such a fine morning," she began confusedly, "and so--I
+thought I might as well--that is, I wanted to go out."
+
+Anstace's voice interrupted her, speaking through the open window of
+the dining-room close at hand.
+
+"Oh, Norah, dear! you have come back.  I could not think what had
+become of you.  I suppose you went up to old Mrs. Connor's about
+those fresh eggs I wanted.  Can she let me have them?"
+
+"Yes--that is, I think so--I'm not quite sure," stammered Norah.
+
+"Well, you might have made certain when you set off at such an
+unearthly hour, There was not such a tremendous hurry; it would have
+done quite well later in the day.  And, my dear child," with just a
+shade of annoyance in her tone, "what a state you are in!  Really,
+one would think your clothes had been put on you with a pitchfork.
+And look at your shoes and stockings!  I don't know how you found so
+much mud to walk through on this fine dry morning."
+
+Norah glanced down at her footgear, on which the bog mould had dried
+by this time, and could not wonder at Anstace's remark.
+
+"Really, Norah, you are getting old enough to be a little more
+careful," Anstace went on, but in judiciously suppressed tones, so as
+not to put her sister to shame by a scolding administered before
+Captain Lester: "Run upstairs now, and make yourself tidy as fast as
+you can.  Breakfast will be ready directly."
+
+Roderick, who had kept his arm round Norah all this time, let her go.
+He had a suspicion that something was wrong, more than could be
+accounted for by that expedition in quest of fresh eggs.  He
+prudently refrained from asking questions, however, and Norah lost no
+time in disappearing into the house.
+
+When she came downstairs again the rest of the party were already
+assembled at the breakfast-table, and Captain Lester was entertaining
+them with a humorous account of the fruitless descent he and Roderick
+had made upon the potheen-brewers' lair, and of the reception which
+Malachy Flanagan had accorded them.
+
+"I do believe," he said with comic despair, "that not only every man,
+woman, and child in the county are on the side of lawlessness, but
+that in Ireland the very winds of heaven are in league with
+criminals, to carry them intimation of any efforts that may be on
+foot against them.  I declare to you, Miss O'Brien, I did not breathe
+a word of my object in coming here to anyone except your brother and
+yourself; and neither of you, I suppose, betrayed my confidence to
+those gentlemen on Drinane Head.  Yet I am as sure as that I am
+sitting here, receiving this very excellent cup of tea from your
+hands, that they had been engaged in brewing that infernal
+stuff--which is the cause of half the crime in the county--not half
+an hour before we turned up, and that by some means or other, warning
+of our coming had been conveyed to them."
+
+A sudden thought struck Roderick.
+
+"By the way, I am nearly sure that one of the fellows inside that
+cabin was that idle young scamp Lanty.  I could not be absolutely
+certain, as he kept as far back as possible, with his back to me, but
+I think it was he.  You were in the room last night, Manus, when
+Captain Lester was talking of his arrangements for capturing the
+still.  Are you sure that you did not say anything about them to
+Lanty or to the servants?"
+
+"Not a word," Manus was able to assure him with perfect truthfulness
+and a most unembarrassed air.  "I didn't mention it to a soul except
+Norah, after she was in bed last night, and I haven't as much as seen
+Lanty for a week."
+
+He tried to telegraph across the table with his eyes to Norah,
+"There, wasn't that well done?" but failed in the attempt, as Norah
+had her face down over her plate, to conceal the burning crimson
+flush which was surging up to her forehead, and accordingly she did
+not see his signals.
+
+"Those illicit stills are the very curse of the country," Captain
+Lester went on.  "You saw those men up there to-day, O'Brien, fine
+stalwart fellows all of them, and the heavy sodden look they had all
+got?  They've been sitting up night after night in that cabin, in a
+stifling atmosphere, for once the grain is 'wet', as they call it, it
+has to be watched incessantly till the process is finished, and as
+you can imagine, a good deal of drinking goes on during these vigils.
+Then every idle vagabond in the country drops in without being
+invited, to gossip and taste the brew.  And when the stuff is finally
+manufactured, half of it is generally expended in drunken
+hospitality.  I speak strongly, Miss O'Brien, because I've seen so
+much of the ruin that this demoralizing trade brings on everyone who
+embarks in it.  I spoke my mind to these fellows on Drinane Head this
+morning, without getting much thanks for my pains, but the best thing
+that could have happened for themselves, quite as much as for the
+Revenue, would have been if I had succeeded in my raid this morning,
+and had marched the whole lot off to jail.  That would have put an
+end to their distilling once and for all.  There, O'Brien, I'm due at
+the Ballyfin petty sessions, and I've no time to lose.  May I ring to
+have my trap brought round?  Good-bye, Miss O'Brien, many thanks for
+your hospitality."
+
+And the good-humoured, chatty resident magistrate took himself off.
+
+"You see it was a precious good thing you didn't get me to go off on
+a wild-goose chase to Drinane Head in the middle of the night,"
+observed Manus, when Norah and he found themselves alone in the
+dining-room, Roderick having gone to see Captain Lester off, and
+Anstace having departed to her household duties.  "I told you Lanty
+and the boys up there knew how to take care of themselves, and that
+they could show Captain Lester a trick or two.  And a pretty gaby you
+were at breakfast, turning the colour of a boiled beet-root when they
+talked of someone having warned those fellows.  Why, if anyone had
+happened to look at you, they'd have twigged at once that you knew
+something or other about it!"
+
+"I couldn't help it, Manus," pleaded Norah, humbly.  "I tried to stop
+getting red, but I couldn't, and I was so frightened when you said
+you had told no one but me.  Because, you see, Roderick and Captain
+Lester passed me on the road coming back, and I thought they must
+guess."
+
+"Passed you on the road?  Why, you don't mean to say it was you who
+warned the fellows?"
+
+"Oh yes it was.  I was awake and up, you know, so I thought I might
+as well go; and it was awfully lucky I did, for they'd only just had
+time to hide their things away when Captain Lester and the police
+came.  I was inside the house the whole time they were there, and I
+thought Roderick would be sure to know me, for he stood just at the
+door, staring straight in at me; but they'd put a shawl over my head,
+and I stood beside Malachy Flanagan, and pretended to be his little
+girl, and no one had the least notion who I was."
+
+Manus looked put out and rather ashamed.
+
+"I say, Norah, you've no business to go skying all over the country
+by yourself like a wild thing.  I wonder what all those men thought
+of your coming up there alone.  You ought to have kept pegging on at
+me until I was really awake, I'd have gone like a shot then.  When a
+fellow's half asleep, as I was, he doesn't know what he's saying, and
+you oughtn't to have gone without me."
+
+Considering the reception which Manus had given her when she went to
+wake him, Norah thought that this was hardly fair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MALACHY'S ORATION
+
+Norah was very silent and thoughtful all the rest of that day; so
+much so, indeed, that her preoccupation could hardly have escaped
+Anstace's notice if she had not been more than usually busy, making
+all the needful arrangements for her brief absence from home.  In the
+afternoon she and Roderick set out upon Connor's car for their long
+drive to Dromore, Lady Louisa Butler's place, where, according to
+invitation, they were to dine and sleep.
+
+"Do be good children, and don't get into any mischief while we are
+away," was Anstace's parting exhortation to Norah and Manus, as the
+car drew off.
+
+They turned back into the house with the comfortable knowledge that
+they had a whole long evening before them, in which to do exactly as
+they pleased, and that even its termination, bed-time, was a very
+indeterminate epoch, since there was nothing but their own
+inclination to decide when it should be.
+
+They tried and grew weary of various amusements and occupations, till
+at last Manus, throwing down the chisel with which he had been
+shaping the keel of a toy boat, exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, I say, Norah, wouldn't it be fun to pay a visit to the mine,
+Uncle Nicholas's mine, you know?  Roderick never would let me go
+there, because none of the Moyross lot have taken any notice of us
+since we came here; but now that Uncle Nicholas has stopped the work,
+and turned off all the men, there won't be a soul about the place,
+and no one will know of our going there."
+
+"But it's rather late," objected Norah.  "It's six o'clock and past
+it."
+
+"Well, and what does that matter on a lovely night like this?  We'll
+tell Bride to leave our supper ready for us, and then we can poke
+about the place as long as we like.  I'd like awfully to see all the
+machinery, and the shaft, and everything."
+
+Norah offered no further objection; she was always very ready to
+agree to any proposal of Manus, and even more so than usual just now,
+when his return to school loomed large upon the horizon.
+
+It was a lovely evening in late August, the corn was ripening fast in
+the little weedy fields on either side of the road--the same road off
+which Norah had branched that morning on her expedition to Drinane
+Head--and here and there the work of harvesting had already begun.
+They got beyond the verge of cultivation after a while; the small oat
+and potato fields, separated from each other by loose-built,
+lace-work walls, gave place to wild, open pasturage, with gorse and
+bracken growing up through it, and the heathery hillside rising
+above.  The sun was sinking down towards the sea, turning the broad
+plain of the western ocean into a dazzling flood of gold.
+
+"It will be quite dark before we get home," Norah remarked presently.
+
+"What matter if it is?  You're not afraid of meeting another ghost on
+the road, are you?"
+
+Manus could afford to be quite jocular now about the spectre of the
+Monk's Walk, though for days and weeks after that episode he and
+Norah had only ventured to speak to each other of it in
+out-of-the-way corners, and with bated breath, so great had been
+their dread lest their guilt should be discovered, and they would be
+dragged forth publicly as the destroyers of their uncle's
+table-cloth.  Everyone seemed to have forgotten the matter now, and
+they felt themselves secure.
+
+The rough road, which was worn into deep ruts by the passage of heavy
+carts over it, surmounted a slight acclivity, and all at once they
+found themselves close upon the buildings belonging to the mine.
+There they stood, gaunt and ugly, the tall, square chimney, the
+stamping-houses and engine-house, and in their midst the quarried
+opening in the mountain-side, from which the galleries ran in far
+underground to reach the rich metalliferous lodes.  Great heaps of
+slag and refuse lay on one side, and the whole seemed strangely out
+of keeping with the rugged grandeur of the spot, the great headland
+rising on one side, the Atlantic rolling in far below on the other.
+
+The works were all silent and untenanted now, without any of the busy
+life and bustle that generally reigned there, and in the gathering
+twilight there was something weird and solemn about that grim range
+of deserted buildings that stood almost upon the verge of the cliff,
+thrown out sharp and clear against the background of sea.  Even Manus
+and Norah were impressed with a sense of awe, and they hushed their
+steps involuntarily and lowered their voices as they approached.
+
+When they got quite close, however, they became aware of a hoarse,
+suppressed murmur, a sound quite different and distinct from that of
+the sea chafing against the rocks--the sound as of a great crowd
+close pressed together.  The children paused to listen, and then a
+voice became audible, speaking, somewhere behind those very
+buildings, in what seemed a torrent of wrath.
+
+Norah and Manus exchanged questioning glances--no human being was in
+sight, but still that voice went on, growing fiercer and more rapid
+in its utterance as it proceeded.  The children crept onwards
+cautiously, and on tiptoe, till they had reached a large shed, the
+door of which stood open.  Shovels, pickaxes, and upturned
+wheel-barrows lay on the floor within, the implements of the industry
+that was at a stand-still, and in the opposite wall there was a
+window with dirt-encrusted panes through which a view could yet be
+had.
+
+"Keep well back; don't let them see you.  Who knows who they are!"
+whispered Manus as he and Norah stole towards the window.  Tales
+which he had heard of the secret gathering of Ribbonmen and
+Whiteboys, and of the vengeance they had taken on those who had
+surprised them unawares, were floating in his brain.
+
+Standing on one of the overturned barrows, some little distance
+within the shed, they were able to peer out without much risk of
+being seen, and then a strange spectacle presented itself to them.
+
+A great crowd was gathered in an open space at the back of the mine
+buildings--wild, excited-looking men and half-grown lads for the most
+part, though the blue cloaks and red petticoats of a few women
+mingled with the throng.  A warm, orange light which glowed in the
+west shone on the uplifted faces that were all gazing at a man who
+stood on an overturned trolly, one of the little trucks employed for
+bringing the metal out of the depths of the mine.  To Norah's
+amazement it was none other than Malachy Flanagan, her acquaintance
+of that morning, who, with his arms raised above his head, was
+addressing the crowd which pressed round his extemporized platform
+with a vehemence which at times made him almost incoherent.
+
+"I'd ax ye this, boys," cried the orator fiercely and excitedly: "If
+'twas Nich'las O'Brien's money that dug that mine undherground into
+Drinane Head, an' his cliverness an' his ingeenuity that consaved it
+all, an' made the thrack down the racks for the shtuff to thravel to
+the say, an' to the ships, whose toilin' an' moilin' was't that cut
+into thim racks for to bring the good ore out?  Who crushed it, an'
+riddled it, an' sint it down in the thrucks?  Wasn't it you an' me,
+boys, an' our childher, an' our fathers afore us, since first a pick
+was shtruck into the ground, here where we shtand?  Nich'las O'Brien
+says he'll have us larn who's the masther of the Moyross mine, but if
+he's the masther we're the men, an' maybe 'tis ourselves might larn
+him somethin' too.  We've worked the mine an' sarved him well this
+thirty years, an' now he brings in his manager from Scotland wid his
+new fashions, an' his new notions, to dhrive us, an' grind us, an'
+rack us, an' whin we renague an' say we'll work the mine as 'twas
+always worked or we'll not work at all, what's all the talk Misther
+M'Bain has for us?  'I'll bring over Scotchmin,' says he, 'ivery man
+o' whom'll do as much work in a day as a lazy Irish pisant wud do in
+three.'  Aye, boys, that's the word for us--lazy Irish pisants."
+
+A howl of hatred and of fury broke in upon his speech; the faces of
+the men were contorted with rage, and clenched fists were shaken over
+their heads.
+
+"An' what'll yez do now, boys?" Malachy went on in wheedling tones as
+soon as he could make himself heard again.  "Will yez kape tame, an'
+quite, an' saft as silk, an' see the Scotchmin brought in to take the
+wark out o' yer hands an' the bread out of yer childher's mouths, or
+will yez stand up like min an' show the ould masther, an' M'Bain, an'
+the whoule of thim, what thim same lazy Irish pisants is like whin
+the blood is hot widin thim?"
+
+Another roar, wilder and fiercer than the last, answered him.
+
+"Come on thin, come on, ivery mother's son of yez!  Come on till we
+go to Moyross an' spake to the masther, to Nich'las O'Brien his own
+self.  We'll malivogue it into him that we'll sarve no Scotchmin nor
+furriners.  Isn't there thim of the ould shtock, of his own name an'
+his own blood, in the country?  If he's ould an' wakely himself, why
+isn't he for puttin' in his brother's son?  It's young Roderick
+O'Brien we'll have, an' the back of me hand to M'Bain, an' to that
+young spalpeen that's bein' larned in Jarmany for to tyrannize over
+us.  We'll have our rights, boys, an' if the masther's not for givin'
+thim to us, or if he's not willin' to be shpoke to, there's ways an'
+manes of makin' him hear raison.  There's arms in that house, boys,
+an' there's hands here as can use thim--"
+
+His voice was drowned in an uproar of yells and hootings.  A hundred
+throats caught up the cry: "To Moyross, boys!  Come on to Moyross
+till we shpake to the masther!"  One voice, high and strident above
+the others, shouted out: "An' whin we've spoke to Nich'las O'Brien
+we'll have a word for M'Bain that'll maybe not be plisant hearin'."
+
+And the whole crowd swayed forward and made one wild, tumultuous rush
+for the road.
+
+It had grown dark within the work-shed by this time, Norah and Manus
+could just see each other's white faces through the gloom, and Norah,
+without a word, caught her brother's hand, and pulled him away from
+the window, back into the darker recesses of the shed.
+
+"Keep back, they mustn't see us," she whispered imperatively.
+
+Manus had no inclination to disobey, and they remained motionless,
+still holding each other's hands, whilst with oaths and shouts and
+curses the human torrent swept past their hiding-place.  Norah drew a
+long breath of relief when the voices and the trampling of feet had
+died away.
+
+"Come now, quick, quick!" she cried, "we must run as fast as ever we
+can."
+
+"Where to?" Manus asked stupidly.
+
+"To Moyross, of course, to tell Uncle Nicholas and Ella that those
+men are coming."
+
+Manus positively gasped at the suggestion.
+
+"But I say, Norah, we've never been there before; not up to the house
+at least, and Uncle Nicholas hates us all like poison because of the
+family feud, you know.  He may be awfully angry with us for coming,
+and we couldn't get there in time either."
+
+"Oh yes, we can, they've all gone by the road, and we'll run straight
+across the fields.  I should think Uncle Nicholas would be very much
+obliged to us for coming to tell him that his house is going to be
+attacked; if he isn't, we can't help it.  You wouldn't stand here
+doing nothing, would you?"
+
+It was a very unusual tone for Norah to adopt towards the brother
+whom she idolized.  Perhaps her adventure of that morning had
+inclined her to be more independent and self-reliant; at any rate,
+without waiting for further parley, she darted out of the shed and
+dashed away down the hillside.  Manus followed her after a minute's
+hesitation, and overtook her before she had got clear of the rubbish
+heaps and the rough, broken ground.
+
+Two or three old women, whom the crowd in their stampede had left
+behind, came round the corner of the shed just then.
+
+"Musha! saints in glory!  Did iver ye see the likes o' that?" they
+exclaimed to each other, as they caught sight of the two flying
+figures racing down the hill.
+
+The children, however, never paused or turned their heads, on and on
+they ran, as if their lives depended on their speed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MR. O'BRIEN SEES A VISION OF THE PAST
+
+Moyross Abbey bore its wonted peaceful aspect upon that night.  The
+broken arches of the ruin stood out against the pale gray sky, in
+which a star was beginning to twinkle here and there, and the air of
+the summer evening was heavy with the scent of flowers.  The
+dining-room windows were unshuttered, and the light of the candles
+shone on the white table-cloth, and the silver and flowers upon it,
+and on the faces of the trio who sat round.  Mr. O'Brien himself was
+not there.  Wearisome and unending business connected with the
+troubles at the mine, and the proposal to bring in labour from a
+distance, had taken him once more to Dublin, and he was not expected
+home till the following day.  In his place at the head of the table
+sat a handsome curly-haired lad, facing Ella and Miss Browne with a
+look of smiling defiance.  The two latter were pale and tearful, and
+Miss Browne shook her head and sighed to herself with profoundest
+dejection every now and again.
+
+Whilst dinner was proceeding, conversation had been impossible, but
+now that the dessert had been placed on the table, and the servants
+had withdrawn, Ella said apprehensively, as she had already said
+twenty times at least since her scapegrace brother had walked in,
+dusty and toil-worn, a couple of hours before:
+
+"Oh, Harry, Uncle Nicholas will be so dreadfully, dreadfully angry
+when he comes home to-morrow!"
+
+"No doubt, Nelly," said the culprit philosophically.  "There'll be a
+bit of a shine over it, I expect.  It's got to be faced, though, and
+you're not to blame for it, so don't look so doleful, old lady."
+
+"But it's so ungrateful, Harry," sobbed Ella, fairly breaking down,
+"and Uncle Nicholas has done so much for us.  He's let us live here
+all these years since Father and Mother died, and sent you to school,
+and--and--"
+
+"I know all that, Nell," interposed her brother more gravely, "and
+I've tried my best to fall in with Uncle Nicholas's ideas.  Do you
+suppose if it hadn't been for thinking of all we owe him that I'd
+have let myself be banished off to the Carpathian Mountains to live
+among a lot of Polish Jews and learn their gibberish.  But it's no
+good.  The more I've tried grubbing underground the more I hate it,
+so I just showed them a clean pair of heels, and made my way back
+here.  I can't let Uncle Nicholas shape my life for me, for all my
+gratitude to him."
+
+"Oh, my dear boy, don't be hasty, and don't anger your uncle!"
+pleaded Miss Browne in her thin, reedy tones.  "He's not used to be
+thwarted or contradicted, Harry, and more depends on it than you have
+any idea of.  There are harpies here," nodding her head mysteriously,
+"on the watch to seize on any advantage.  We have kept them at a
+distance hitherto--"
+
+Miss Browne's speech was cut short by a violent ring of the
+door-bell, which pealed and clanged far away in the depths of the
+house.
+
+"My dears, what can that be at this hour, and at the front door?" she
+exclaimed apprehensively.  "I am always so nervous in this dreadful
+country, and with your uncle away too."
+
+"We'll hear what they have to say for themselves, whoever it may be,"
+said Harry, getting up and opening the dining-room door a little way,
+so as to be able to hear what passed outside.
+
+"If you please," said a voice, speaking in short gasps, as Norah's
+panting breath enabled her to find utterance.  "We want to see Miss
+Ella at once; it's very important."
+
+The dignified butler viewed the dishevelled pair on the door-step
+with much disfavour.  Evidently he did not think that any
+communication they had to import could be of much consequence.
+
+"Miss Ella is at dinner and can't be disturbed," he said loftily.
+"You'd best give me your message, unless you like to wait till dinner
+is over to see her."
+
+"We can't do anything of the sort," said Manus bluntly.  "We've got
+to see Miss Ella at once, or else Mr. O'Brien himself, and you'll
+please go in and say so."
+
+What the butler would have replied to this bold speech remained
+unknown, for Miss Browne, opening the dining-room door a little
+wider, called out sharply:
+
+"Who's that out there, Cartwright?  Tell them that Mr. O'Brien is not
+at home, and if they want to see Miss Ella they must come at a proper
+hour."
+
+"That's just what I was saying, ma'am," returned the indignant
+butler.  "I think it's young Master and Miss O'Brien from Kilshane,
+and they say they want to see Miss Ella very particular."
+
+"The O'Brien children?  At this hour?  How extremely forward, and at
+the very instant when I was speaking of them."
+
+And Miss Browne did not trouble herself to lower her voice or conceal
+the annoyance of her tones.
+
+Ella, however, had heard too, and she ran out into the hall with a
+little eager cry.
+
+"Oh, Norah, dear, what is the matter?  I hope there is nothing wrong
+with any of you at Kilshane."
+
+As the light of the hall lamp fell on Manus and Norah, it revealed
+very visible traces of their scamper across country.  They were both
+greatly flushed and out of breath, and their faces and hands were
+scratched and bleeding with forcing their way through thickets and
+hedges.  Norah's hat had fallen off and hung behind by its strings,
+and her frock exhibited innumerable rents.
+
+"Oh, please," she began, forgetting in her excitement to answer
+Ella's question, or to go through any usual preliminaries of
+hand-shaking, "we were up at the mine, Manus and I, and there were a
+lot of people there, the miners, and ever so many besides, and a man
+was speaking to them about the work being stopped and Mr. M'Bain
+threatening to bring over Scotchmen!"  Norah's instinctive loyalty
+kept her from betraying who the orator had been.  "They're wild about
+it, and they're all coming here to speak to Uncle Nicholas, and make
+him promise that the mine shall be worked in the old way.  Manus and
+I ran across the fields to tell you, and oh! we were so afraid we
+shouldn't get here in time."
+
+Ella turned to her brother, who stood behind her.
+
+"Oh, Harry, do you hear that, and Uncle Nicholas is away!  Whatever
+are we to do?"
+
+"Give them beans if they come; but I'm afraid they won't give us the
+chance.  It was awfully good of you two to take so much trouble," the
+lad went on, rather patronizingly, to Manus and Norah, "but I expect
+you've had your run for nothing.  Irishmen generally mean about half
+of what they say, and the rest goes off in bluster and shouting.  I
+shouldn't wonder if the whole lot were sitting in the public-house at
+the cross-roads at this moment, airing their eloquence and abusing us
+all very comfortably.  I just wish they would pay us a visit and
+we'll make it hot for them."
+
+"Well, you won't have long to wait," said Manus shortly, "for they're
+on the avenue this minute; I hear them."
+
+And indeed, as all bent forward to listen, there was audible, in the
+stillness of the night, a low ominous roll that came steadily nearer,
+the tramp of many feet, the deep growl of angry voices.  Sharper,
+too, and nearer at hand, though no one at the time paid it any heed,
+sounded a rattle as if a conveyance were being driven in over the
+paving-stones of the yard.  At the same instant a troop of
+terror-stricken maids burst into the hall.
+
+"Oh, lor', ma'am! oh, lor' Master Harry, there's a mob of people
+coming up against us!  Maria was out on the avenue and she saw them
+and ran for her life!  They're screeching and hollering that it would
+lift the hair off your head to hear them.  They'll murder us in cold
+blood!  They'll burn the house down over our heads!  It's us English
+that they're mad against."
+
+Miss Browne, ashy white and trembling like an aspen leaf, was yet
+true to her wonted instincts.  She threw her shaking arms round Ella,
+putting herself in front of her like a shield.
+
+"My darling! my heart!" she cried, "they shall kill me before they
+touch a hair of your head."
+
+Harry Wyndham drew himself erect, the half-unconscious air of bravado
+which he had worn all evening was gone, and instead he was cool,
+prompt, and collected, a typical English lad confronted with danger
+and difficulty.
+
+"Bar every door and close the shutters of all the ground-floor
+windows.  This house is pretty strong, and ought to be able to hold
+out for a bit.  Thanks to you, Brownie, all the indoor servants are
+English, so there's no fear of anyone letting the rabble in at the
+back door."
+
+Meanwhile the roar outside was growing louder and more menacing, and
+now the crowd appeared in view, rolling on up the avenue with shouts
+and groans and discordant yells.  Their numbers had swelled
+considerably since the children had seen them last, as all the
+dwellers along the line of march had joined in as onlookers or
+sympathizers.  Harry turned round angrily to the frightened maids,
+who were huddled in a corner, sending forth scream upon scream.
+
+"What good do you expect to do yourselves by hullabalooing like
+that?" he demanded.  "Go this instant and close all the windows as I
+desired you.  In spite of Uncle Nicholas, it strikes me it was as
+well I happened to turn up to-night.  Where's Cartwright?  You come
+and help me to load the guns.  You can shoot, I suppose?"
+
+"Well, sir, I 'ave fired a gun," said that functionary modestly.
+
+Ella sprang forward, her face almost as white as her evening dress.
+
+"Oh, Harry, you won't shoot the people?" she gasped.
+
+"Not if I can help it, but they won't come into this house while I
+can keep them out," her brother answered determinedly.
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75934 ***