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."