Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Psalm 85, verse 10
Good Friday it may have been, but yesterday morning as dawn lightened to clear blue skies over Enniskillen, the sun rose over the Erne and the jewel-green Fermanagh hills glistened under a light blanket of snow, to a misty-eyed Southerner, it seemed more like Resurrection Day.
In this little town on the periphery of the United Kingdom, a place that the Remembrance Day bombing transformed into an icon of the Northern Ireland troubles just over 10 years ago, many had stayed up into the early hours, listening, watching, praying for such a dawn. And remembering.
Joan Wilson, who lost her 20-year-old daughter Marie on that November day, was among them.
In a voice trembling with loss, loneliness and thanksgiving, she talked of "this wonderful day, this good news on Good Friday".
"I'm lonely, yes. I know Gordon would have been delighted, it's the day he worked so hard for."
Mercy and truth are met together . . . David Bolton, the 42-year-old social worker who addressed the Dublin Forum, quoted the psalm, the song of pleading, hope and restoration with which the Nicaraguans began each meeting when after their peace settlement, they went out to explain its meaning to ordinary Nicaraguans. "This day is so important . . . It's about dealing with our collective tragedy. It's a solemn moment."
A shopkeeper sensed the history, too, but equally understood the absence of euphoria: "When you saw the likes of Mo Mowlam staggering out of Castle Buildings this morning into a beautiful dawn, it was the sort of thing that poets sit down and write about. But to get carried away at this stage? No way. What I'd say today is that ordinary Joe Bloggs is quietly hopeful rather than quietly confident."
Among these quiet, reserved, undemonstrative people, it's as apt a summary of popular feeling as any.
These are some of the people who suffered most grievously and publicly and whose dignity humbled the world for 10 agonising days in 1987. Many children lost both parents; some of the casualties live on with terrible injuries. One remains in a coma. For them and for many people around Northern Ireland, their Calvary continues.
"It is such a secret place, the land of tears", wrote local author and editor of the Impartial Reporter, Denzil McDaniel, quoting from The Little Prince. So yesterday was not an occasion for champagne or dancing in the streets. Their journey has been too painful, too complex to allow for the simplistic view.
This is a town, after all, where indelible bloodstains still mark the floor of the TA Centre which served as a makeshift mortuary on that terrible Sunday. A town full of young people without a cinema or a bowling alley because the complex was bombed out of existence a few weeks ago. A place where to this day, people talk of the "enormous courage" required of those Catholics who in 1987 knocked on the doors of their stricken Protestant neighbours because they felt that the heinous crime had been committed in their name.
So they talk hesitantly and reflectively . . .
of relief laced with wariness, of hope and apprehension, of delight and great bitterness. There is no room for misty-eyed sentimentality. "No, I wasn't up praying. There's too much hurt on both sides at the minute and they can't talk it over in one night," said Margaret Veitch, who lost both her parents on Remembrance Day.
"There's a whole lot of us will never forget." In her fashion shop near the cenotaph, her grief, anger and confusion poured out in a stream of consciousness: at "Paisley's disgusting behaviour" on Thursday night, at the republican aspirations that led to her parents' death, at the thought that the dead might be written out of history. And yet, she said, "the two communities have to live together. They must move forward and stop blaming each other. I know that. But I know I sound confused . . ."
In the Railway Hotel, a 52-year-old nationalist sipping coffee conceded that yesterday's agreement was "a hopeful sign", nothing more. "It's like the old dog. If you've been kicked into the corner for 50 years, you learn to be sceptical. There's a long road ahead and plenty of wee fellas up in lofts plotting their next move. Maybe after the referendum, we'll light the bonfires. Maybe . . ."
Two 24-year-olds, Emily and Anna, shrugged. "We're not full of hope. It's good that they've come this far but we'd be reserving judgment for a while yet."
As first news of the settlement details filtered through on the two televisions in Pat's Bar (once known locally as the Civil Rights Bar) amid talk of a unionist hold-up, few glanced up from their lunches.
Meanwhile, priorities were sorted. "I've a headline for you - United!" chortled a football fan as both television screens began to blare out match commentary from Manchester United and Liverpool.
Catherine Quinn, a 23-year-old PhD student looked aghast. "Does anyone have the remote control to switch this one back . . .?" she shouted over the roar of dismay at a missed shot. "Could you turn the other one down a bit?" she asked as George Mitchell's face appeared on the screen, surrounded by politicians and a sense of history in the making. "Want to get lynched?" asked the barman, as someone noisily hit the jackpot on the fruit machine and Liverpool scored to massive cheers and groans.
A young trainee solicitor watching it all remained stonily unmoved. "You won't find me bursting into tears, anyway," she said. "Northern Ireland's politics has no power to move me. None of this means that somebody isn't going to go out and shoot somebody next week."
Davy Kettyles, the independent socialist councillor, found himself torn between the match and the history. "Peace, work, jobs and football - and not necessarily in that order . . . Life goes on. They all have their priorities. It may seem bizarre but it's called normality."
But the few history viewers were still visibly shaken at the news that Jeffrey Donaldson had walked out in the end. "The lines are drawn now," said Denzil McDaniel, "it's not about the unionists versus nationalists any more. It's about the future versus the past. I suppose it only emphasises that this agreement is not the end of anything. It's only the beginning."
Davey Kettyles was suddenly serious. "It reinforces what we've all been saying. People had better be prepared to wage peace with as much ferocity as they waged war. This is our chance."