as if she wasn't staunch to her own faith. She was as regular
in her prayers and crossings and beads and all the rest of it
as mother herself, and if there ever was a good girl in the whole world
she was one. She turned faint as she said this, and I thought she was going
to drop down. If anything could have turned me then it would have been this.
It was almost like giving her life for ours, and I don't think
she'd have valued hers two straws if she could have saved us.
There's a great deal said about different kinds of love in this world,
but I can't help thinking that the love between brothers and sisters
that have been brought up together and have had very few other people
to care about is a higher, better sort than any other in the world.
There's less selfishness about it -- no thought but for the other's good.
If that can be made safe, death and pain and poverty and misery
are all little things. And wasn't I fond of Aileen, in spite of all
my hardness and cross-grained obstinacy? -- so fond that I was just going
to hug her to me and say, `Take it all your own way, Ailie dear,'
when Jim came tearing out of the hut, bareheaded, and stood listening
to a far-off sound that caught all our ears at once. We made out
the source of it too well -- far too well.

What was the noise at that hour of the night?

It was a hollow, faint, distant roaring that gradually kept getting louder.
It was the strange mournful bellowing that comes from a drove of cattle
forced along an unknown track. As we listened the sound came clearly
on the night wind, faint, yet still clearly coming nearer.

`Cattle being driven,' Jim cried out; `and a big mob too. It's father --
for a note. Let's get our horses and meet him.'