"Wait until you're well enough, and we'll send her after you," said Dr.
O'Sullivan.
So the end of it all was that inside a week I was on my way to Ellan,
not only with Martin, but also with Mildred, who, being a little out of
health herself, had been permitted to take me home.
Shall I ever forget our arrival at Blackwater! The steamer we sailed in
was streaming with flags from stem to stern, and as she slid up the
harbour the dense crowds that packed the pier from end to end seemed
frantic with excitement. Such shouting and cheering! Such waving of hats
and handkerchiefs!
There was a sensible pause, I thought, a sort of hush, when the gangway
being run down, Martin was seen to give his arm to me, and I was
recognised as the lost and dishonoured one.
But even that only lasted for a moment, it was almost as if the people
felt that this act of Martin's was of a piece with the sacred courage
that had carried him down near to the Pole, for hardly had he brought me
ashore, and put me into the automobile waiting to take us away, when the
cheering broke out into almost delirious tumult.
I knew it was all for Martin, but not even the humility of my position,
and the sense of my being an added cause of my darling's glory, could
make me otherwise than proud and happy.
We drove home, with the sunset in our faces, over the mountain road
which I had crossed with my husband on the day of my marriage; and when
we came to our own village I could not help seeing that a little--just a
little--of the welcome waiting for us was meant for me.
Father Dan was there. He got into the car and sat by my side; and then
some of the village women, who had smartened themselves up in their
Sunday clothes, reached over and shook hands with me, speaking about
things I had said and done as a child and had long forgotten.
We had to go at a walking pace the rest of the way, and while Martin
saluted old friends (he remembered everybody by name) Father Dan talked
in my ear about the "domestic earthquake" that had been going on at
Sunny Lodge, everything topsy-turvy until to-day, the little room being
made ready for me, and the best bedroom (the doctor's and Christian
Ann's) for Martin, and the "loft" over the dairy for the old people
themselves--as if their beloved son had been good in not forgetting
them, and had condescended in coming home.
"Is it true?" they had asked each other. "Is he really, really coming?"
"What does he like to eat, mother?" "What does he drink?" "What does he
smoke?"
I had to close my eyes as I came near the gate of my father's house,
and, except for the rumbling of the river under the bridge and the
cawing of the rooks in the elms, I should not have known when we were
there.
The old doctor (his face overflowing with happiness, and his
close-cropped white head bare, as if he had torn out of the house at the
toot of our horn) met us as we turned into the lane, and for the little
that was left of our journey he walked blithely as a boy by the car, at
the side on which Martin sat.
I reached forward to catch the first sight of Sunny Lodge, and there it
was behind its fuchsia hedge, which was just breaking into bloom.
There was Christian Ann, too, at the gate in her sunbonnet; and before
the automobile had come to a stand Martin was out of it and had her in
his arms.
I knew what that meant to the dear sweet woman, and for a moment my
spirits failed me, because it flashed upon my mind that perhaps her
heart had only warmed to me for the sake of her son.
But just as I was stepping out of the car, feeling physically weak and
slipping a little, though Father Dan and Sister Mildred were helping me
to alight, my Martin's mother rushed at me and gathered me in her arms,
crying:
"Goodness gracious me, doctor--if it isn't little Mary O'Neill, God
bless her!"--just as she did in the old, old days when I came as a child
"singing carvals to her door."