Page:The Snake's Pass (Stoker).djvu/354

 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 now only at 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