A to Z Classics - Bram Stoker - The Complete Novels

When I got to the top the chapel bells were ringing in all the parishes below me to the west, and very sweetly and peacefully the sounds came through the bright crisp September air. And in some degree the sound brought peace to my soul, for there is so large a power in even the aspirations and the efforts of men towards good, that it radiates to immeasurable distance. The wave theory that rules our knowledge of the distribution of light and sound may well be taken to typify, if it does not control, the light of divine love and the beating in unison of human hearts.

I think that during these days I must have looked, as well as felt, miserable; for even Andy did not make any effort to either irritate or draw me. On the Sunday evening, when I was on the strand behind the hotel, he lounged along, in his own mysterious fashion, and after looking at me keenly for a few moments, came up close, and said to me in a grave, pitying half-whisper:

“Don’t be afther breakin’ yer harrt, yer ‘an’r. Divil mend the fairy girrul! Shure, isn’t she vanished intirely? Mark me now, there’s no sahtisfaction at all, at all, in them fairy girruls. Faix, but I wouldn’t like to see a fine young gintleman like yer ‘an’r, become like Yeoha, the Sigher, as they called him in the ould times.”

“And who might that gentleman be, Andy?” I asked, with what appearance of cheerful interest I could muster up.

“Begor, it’s a prince he was that married onto a fairy girrul, what wint an’ was tuk off be a fairy man what lived in the same mountain as she done herself. Shure, thim fairy girruls has mostly a fairy man iv their own somewheres, that they love betther nor they does mortials. Jist you take me advice, Master Art, fur ye might do worser: go an’ take a luk at Miss Norah, an’ ye’ll soon forgit the fairies. There’s a rale girrul av ye like!”

I was too sad to make any angry reply, and before I could think of any other kind, Andy lounged away whistling softly — for he had, like many of his class, a very sweet whistle — the air of “Savourneen Deelish.”

The following day Mr. Caicy turned up at the hotel according to his promise. He openly told Mrs. Keating, of whom he had often before been a customer, that he had business with Mr. Murdock. He was, as usual with him, affable to all, “passing the time of day” with the various inhabitants of all degrees, and, as if a stranger, entering into conversation with me as we sat at lunch in the coffee-room. When we were alone he whispered to me that all was ready; that he had made an examination of the title, for which Murdock had sent him all the necessary papers, and that the deed was complete and ready to be signed. He told me he was going over that day to Knockcalltecrore, and would arrange that he would be there the next day, and that he would take care to have some one to witness the signatures.

On the following morning, when Dick went off with Andy to Knocknacar, and Mr. Caicy drove over to Knockcalltecrore, where I also shortly took my way on another car.

We met at Murdock’s house. The deed was duly completed, and Mr. Caicy handed over to Murdock the letter from the bank where the lodgment had been made.

The land was now mine; and I was to have possession on the 27th of October. Mr. Caicy took the deed with him, and with it took also instructions to draw out a deed making the property over to Richard Sutherland. He went straight away to Galway; while I, in listless despair, wandered out on the hill-side to look at the view.

I went along the mountain-side until I came to the great ridge of rocks which, as Dick had explained to me, protected the lower end of Murdock’s farm from the westerly wind. I climbed to the top to get a view, and then found that the ridge was continuous, running as far as the Snake’s Pass where I had first mounted it. Here, however, I was not, as then, above the sea, for I was opposite what they had called the Cliff Fields, and a very strange and beautiful sight it was.

Some hundred and fifty feet below me was a plateau of seven or eight acres in extent, and some two hundred and fifty feet above the sea. It was sheltered on the north by a high wall of rock like that I stood on, serrated in the same way, as the strata ran in similar layers. In the centre there rose a great rock, with a flat top some quarter of an acre in extent. The whole plateau, save this one bare rock, was a mass of verdure. It was watered by a small stream which fell through a deep, narrow cleft in the rocks, where the bog drains itself from Murdock’s present land. The after-grass was deep, and there were many clumps of trees and shrubs — none of them of considerable height except a few great stone-pines which towered aloft and dared the fury of the western breeze. But not all the beauty of the scene could hold my eyes, for seated on the rocky table in the centre, just as I had seen her on the hill-top at Knocknacar, sat a girl to all intents the ditto of my unknown.

My heart gave a great bound, and in the tumult of hope that awoke within my breast the whole world seemed filled with sunshine. For an instant I almost lost my senses; my knees shook, and my eyes grew dim. Then came a horrible suspense and doubt. It was impossible to believe that I should see my Unknown here when I least expected to see her. And then came the man’s desire of action.

I do not know how I began. To this day I cannot make out whether I took a bee-line for that isolated table of rock, and from where I was slid or crawled down the face of the rock, or whether I made a detour to the same end. All I can recollect is that I found myself scrambling over some large bowlders, and then passing through the deep, heavy grass at the foot of the rock.

Here I halted to collect my thoughts: a moment sufficed. I was too much in earnest to need any deliberation, and there was no choice of ways. I only waited to be sure that I would not create any alarm by unnecessary violence.

Then I ascended the rock. I did not make more noise than I could help, but I did not try to come silently. She had evidently heard steps, for she spoke without turning round.

“Am I wanted?” Then, as I was passing across the plateau, my step seemed to arouse her attention; for at a bound she leaped to her feet, and turned with a glad look that went through the shadow of my soul, as the sunshine strikes through the mist.

“Arthur!” She almost rushed to meet me, but stopped suddenly, for an instant grew pale, and then a red flush crimsoned her face and neck. She put up her hands before her face, and I could see the tears drop through her fingers.

As for myself, I was half dazed. When I saw that it was indeed my Unknown a wild joy leaped to my heart; and then came the revulsion from my long pent-up sorrow and anxiety; and as I faltered out, “At last! at last!” the tears sprang unbidden to my eyes. There is, indeed, a dry-eyed grief, but its corresponding joy is as often smitten with sudden tears.

In an instant I was by her side, and had her hand in mine. It was only for a moment, for she withdrew it with a low cry of maidenly fear; but in that moment of gentle, mutual pressure a whole world had passed, and we knew that we loved.

We were silent for a time, and then we sat together on a bowlder, she edging away from me shyly.

What matters it of what we talked? There was not much to say — nothing that was new — the old, old story that has been told since the days when Adam, waking, found that a new joy had entered into his life. For those whose feet have wandered in Eden there is no need to speak; for those who are yet to tread the hallowed ground there is no need either — for in the fulness of time their knowledge will come.

It was not till we had sat some time that we exchanged any sweet words: they were sweet, although to anyone but ourselves they would have seemed the most absurd and soulless commonplaces.