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."