Complete Works of Bram Stoker (43 page)

At last, however, we passed the corner where was the path down to the Cliff Fields, and turned eastward up the Hill. Then in a little while we got well above the ravine, which here grew shallower, and could walk on more level ground. Here we saw that the ravine ended in a deep cleft, whence issued a stream of water. And then we saw hurrying up over the top of the cleft Joyce and Dick.

Up to now Norah and I had hardly spoken a word. Our hearts were too full for speech; and, indeed, we understood each other, and could interpret our thoughts by a subtler language than that formulated by man.

In another minute Norah was clasped in herfather’s arms. He held her close, and kissed her, and cried over her; while Dick wrung my hand hard. Then Joyce left his daughter, and came and flung his arms round me, and thanked God that I had escaped; while Norah went up to Dick, and put her arms round him, and kissed him as a sister might.

We all went back together as fast as we could; and the sun that rose that morning rose on no happier group, despite the terror and the trouble of the night. Norah walked between herfather and me, holding us both tightly, and Dick walked on my other side with his arm in mine. As we came within sight of the house, we met Miss Joyce, her face gray with anxiety. She rushed towards us, and flung her arms round Norah, and the two women rocked each other in their arms; and then we all kissed her  —  even Dick, to her surprise. His kiss was the last, and it seemed to pull her together; for she perked up, and put her cap straight  —  a thing which she had not done for the rest of us. Then she walked beside us, holding her brother’s hand.

We all talked at once, and told the story over and over again of the deadly peril I had been in, and how Norah had saved my life; and here the brave girl’s fortitude gave way. She seemed to realise all at once the terror and the danger of the long night, and suddenly her lips grew white, and she would have sunk down to the ground, only that I had seen her faint coming and had caught her and held her tight. Her dear head fell over on my shoulder, but her hands never lost their grasp of my arm.

We carried her down towards the house as quickly as we could; but before we had got to the door she had recovered from her swoon, and her first look when her eyes opened was for me, and the first word she said was: “Arthur! Is he safe?”

And then I laid her in the old arm-chair by the hearth- place, and took her cold hands in mine, and kissed them and cried overthem  —  which I hoped vainly that no one saw. Then Miss Joyce, like a true housekeeper, stirred herself, and the flames roared up the chimney, and the slumbering kettle on the chain over the fire woke and sang again; and it seemed like magic, for all at once we were all sipping hot whiskey punch, and beginning to feel the good effects of it.

Then Miss Joyce hurried away Norah to change her clothes, and Dick and I went with Joyce, and we all rigged ourselves out with whatever came to hand; and then we came back to the kitchen and laughed at each other’s appearance. We found Miss Joyce already making preparations for breakfast, and succeeding pretty well, too.

And then Norah joined us, but she was not the least grotesque; she seemed as though she had just stepped out ofa bandbox  —  she seemed so trim and neat, with her gray jacket and her Sunday red petticoat. Her black hair was coiled in one glorious roll round her noble head, and there was but one thing which I did not like, and which sent a pang through my heart  —  a blue and swollen bruise on her ivory forehead where Murdock had struck her that dastard blow! She saw my look and her eyes fell, and when I went to her and kissed the wound and whispered to her how it pained me, she looked up at me and whispered so that none of the others could hear: “Hush! hush! Poor soul, he has paid a terrible penalty; let us forget as we forgive.” And then I took her hands in mine and stooped to kiss them, while the others all smiled happily as they looked on; but she tried to draw them away, and a bright blush dyed her cheeks as she murmured to me:

“No, no, Arthur! Arthur dear, not now! I only did what any one would do for you!” and the tears rushed to her eyes.

“I must, Norah,” said I, “I must, for I owe these brave hands my life!” and I kissed them and she made no more resistance. Her father’s voice and words sounded very true as he said:

“Nay, daughter, it is right that he should kiss those hands this blessed mornin’, forthey took a true manoutof the darkness of the grave!”

And then my noble old Dick came over too, and he raised those dear hands reverently to his lips, and said, very softly: “For he is dear to us all!”

By this time Miss Joyce had breakfast well underway, and one and all we thought that it was time we should let the brightness of the day and the lightness of our hearts have a turn; and Joyce said heartily:

“Come now! Come now! Let us sit down to breakfast; but first let us give thanks to Almighty God that has been so good to us, and let us forgive that poor wretch that met such a horrible death. Rest to his soul!” We were all silent for a little bit, for the great gladness of our hearts, that came through the terrible remembrance thus brought home to us, was too deep for words. Norah and I sat hand in hand, and between us was but one heart and one soul and one thought  —  and all were filled with gratitude.

When once we had begun breakfast in earnest a miniature babel broke out. We had each something to tell and much to hear; and for the latter reason we tacitly arranged, after the first outbreak, that each should speak in turn.

Miss Joyce told us of the terrible anxiety she had been in ever since she had seen us depart, and how every sound, great or small  —  even the gusts of wind that howled down the chimney and made the casements rattle  —  had made her heart jump into her mouth, and brought her out to the door to see if we or any of us were coming. Then Dick told us how, on proceeding down the eastern side of the bog, he had diverged so as to look in at Murdock’s house to see if he were there, but had found only old Moynahan lying on the floor in a state of speechless drunkenness, and so wet that the water running from his clothes had formed a pool of water on the floor. He had evidently only lately returned from wandering on the hill-side. Then as he was about to go on his way, he had heard, as he thought, a noise lower down the Hill, and on going towards it had met Joyce carrying a sheep which had its leg broken, and which he told him had been blown off a steep rock on the south side of the Hill. Then they two had kept together, after Dick had told him of our search for Norah, until we had seen them in the coming gray of the dawn.

Next Joyce took up the running, and told us how he had been working on the top of the mountain when he saw the signs of the storm coming so fast that he thought it would be well to look after the sheep and cattle, and see them in some kind of shelter before the morning. He had driven all the cattle which were up high on the hill into the shelter where I had found them, and then had gone down the southern shoulder of the hill, placing all the sheep and cattle in places of shelter as well as he could, until he had come across the wounded one, which he took on his shoulders to bring it home, but which had since been carried away in the bursting of the bog. He finished by reminding me jocularly that I owed him something for his night’s work, for the stock was now all mine. “No,” said I, “not for another day. My purchase of your ground and stock was only to take effect from after noon of the 28th, and we are nowonlyat the early morning of that day; but at any rate I must thank you for the others,” for I had a number of sheep and cattle which Dick had taken over from the other farmers whose land I had bought.

Then I told over again all that had happened to me. I had to touch on the blow which Norah had received, but I did so as lightly as I could; and when I said “God forgive him!” they all added softly, “Amen!” Then Dick put in a word about poor old Moynahan: “Poor old fellow, he is gone also. He was a drunkard, but he wasn’t all bad. Perhaps he saved Norah last night from a terrible danger. His life, mayhap, may leaven the whole lump of filth and wickedness that went through the Shleenanaher into the sea last night!” We all said “Amen” again, and I have no doubt that we all meant it with all our hearts.

Then I told again of Norah’s brave struggle, and how, by her courage and her strength, she took me out of the very jaws of a terrible death. She put one hand before her eyes  —  for I held the other close in mine  —  and through her fingers dropped her welling tears.

We sat silent for a while, and we felt that it was only right and fitting when Joyce came round to her and laid his hand on her head and stroked her hair as he said: “Ye have done well, daughter  —  ye have done well!”

CHAPTER XVIII

When breakfast was finished, Dick proposed that we should go now and look in the full daylight at the effect of the shifting of the bog. I suggested to Norah that perhaps she had better not come as the sight might harrow her feelings, and, besides, that she would want some rest and sleep after her long night of terror and effort. She point-blank refused to stay behind, and accordingly we all set out, having now had our clothes dried and changed, leaving only Miss Joyce to take care of the house. The morning was beautiful and fresh after the storm. The deluge of rain had washed everything so clean that already the ground was beginning to dry, and as the morning sun shone hotly there was in the air that murmurous hum that follows rain when the air is still. And the airwas now still  —  the storm seemed to have spent itself, and away to the west there was no sign of its track, except that the great Atlantic rollers were heavier and the surf on the rocks rose higher than usual. We took our way first down the Hill, and then westward to the Shleenanaher, for we intended, under Dick’s advice, to follow, if possible, up to its source the ravine made by the bog. When we got to the entrance of the Pass we were struck with the vast height to which the bog had risen when its mass first struck the portals. A hundred feet overhead there was the great brown mark, and on the sides of the Pass the same mark was visible, declining quickly as it got seaward and the Pass widened, showing the track of its passage to the sea.

We climbed the rocks and looked over. Norah clung close to me, and my arm went round her and held her tight as we peered over and saw where the great waves of the Atlantic struck the rocks three hundred feet below us, and were fora quarter of a mile away still tinged with the brown slime of the bog. We then crossed over the ravine, for the rocky bottom was here laid bare, and so we had no reason to fear water- holes or pitfalls. A small stream still ran down the ravine and, shallowing out over the shelf of rock, spread all across the bottom of the Pass, and fell into the sea  —  something like a miniature of the Staubach Fall, as the water whitened in the falling.

We then passed up on the west side of the ravine, and saw that the stream which ran down the centre was perpetual  —  a live stream, and not merely the drainage of the ground where the bog had saturated the earth. As we passed up the Hill we saw where the side of the slope had been torn bodily away, and the great chasm where once the house had been which Murdock took from Joyce, and so met his doom. Here there was a great pool of water  —  and, indeed, all throughout the ravine were places where the stream broadened into deep pools, and again into shallow pools where it ran over the solid bed of rock. As we passed up Dick hazarded an explanation or a theory: “Do you know it seems to me that this ravine or valley was once before just as it is now? The stream ran down it and out at the Shleenanaher just as it does now. Then by some landslips, ora series of them, or by a falling tree, the passage became blocked, and the hollow became a lake, and its edges grew rank with boggy growth; and then, from one cause and another  —  the falling in of the sides, orthe rush of rain-storms carrying down the detritus of the mountain and perpetually washing down particles of clay from the higher levels  —  the lake became choked up; and then the lighter matter floated to the top, and by time and vegetable growth became combined. And so the whole mass grew cohesive and floated on the water and slime below. This may have occurred more than once. Nay, moreover, sections of the bog may have become segregated or separated by some similarity of condition affecting its parts, or by some formation of the ground, as bythe valley narrowing in parts between walls of rock so that the passage could be easily choked. And so solid earth formed to be again softened and demoralised bythe latter mingling with the less solid mass above it. It is possible, if not probable, that more than once, in the countless ages that have passed, this ravine has been as we see it, and again as it was but a few hours ago.” No one had anything to urge against this theory, and we all proceeded on our way. When we came to the place where Norah had rescued me, we examined the spot most carefully, and again went over the scene and the exploit. It was almost impossible to realise that this great rock, towering straight up from the bottom of the ravine, had, at the fatal hour, seemed only like a tussock rising from the bog. When I had climbed to the top I took my knife and cut a cross on the rock, where my brave girl’s feet had rested, to mark the spot. Then we went on again. Higher up the Hill we came to a place where, on each side, a rocky promontory with straight, deep walls, jutted into the ravine, making a sort of narrow gateway or gorge in the valley. Dick pointed it out.

“See, here is one of the very things I spoke of that made the bog into sections, or chambers, or tanks, or whatever we should call them. More than that, here is an instance of the very thing I hinted at before  —  that the peculiar formation of the Snake’s Pass runs right through the Hill. If this be so  —  but we shall see later on.” On the other side was, we agreed, the place where old Moynahan had said the Frenchmen had last been seen. Dick and I were both curious about the matter, and we agreed to cross the ravine and make certain, for if it were the spot, Dick’s mark of the stones in the Yshape would be a proof. Joyce and Norah both refused to let us go alone, so we all went up a little farther, where the sides of the rock sloped on each side, and where we could pass safely, as the bed was rock and quite smooth, with the stream flowing over it in a thin sheet.