CONCLUSION.
The story of the poor mad woman who still proclaims in her seclusion the
justice of the deed which she did, has now been told. It may perhaps be
well to collect the scattered ends of the threads of the tale for the
benefit of readers who desire to know the whole of a history.
Mrs. O'Hara never returned to the cottage on the cliffs after the
perpetration of the deed. On the unhappy priest devolved the duty of
doing whatever must be done. The police at the neighbouring barracks
were told that the young lord had perished by a fall from the cliffs,
and by them search was made for the body. No real attempt was set on
foot to screen the woman who had done the deed by any concealment of the
facts. She herself was not alive to the necessity of making any such
attempt. "An eye for an eye!" she said to the head-constable when the
man interrogated her. It soon became known to all Liscannor, to
Ennistimon, to the ladies at Castle Quin, and to all the barony of
Corcomroe that Mrs. O'Hara had thrust the Earl of Scroope over the
cliffs of Moher, and that she was now detained at the house of Father
Marty in the custody of a policeman. Before the day was over it was
declared also that she was mad,--and that her daughter was dying.
The deed which the woman had done and the death of the young lord were
both terrible to Father Marty; but there was a duty thrown upon him more
awful to his mind even than these. Kate O'Hara, when her mother
appeared at the priest's house, had been alone at the cottage. By
degrees Father Marty learned from the wretched woman something of the
circumstances of that morning's work. Kate had not seen her lover that
day, but had been left in the cottage while her mother went out to meet
the man, and if possible to persuade him to do her child justice. The
priest understood that she would be waiting for them,--or more probably
searching for them on the cliffs. He got upon his horse and rode up the
hill with a heavy heart. What should he tell her; and how should he tell
it?
Before he reached the cottage she came running down the hillside to him.
"Father Marty, where is mother? Where is Mr. Neville? You know. I see
that you know. Where are they?" He got off his horse and put his arm
round her body and seated her beside himself on the rising bank by the
wayside. "Why don't you speak?" she said.
"I cannot speak," he murmured. "I cannot tell you."
"Is he--dead?" He only buried his face in his hands. "She has killed
him! Mother--mother!" Then, with one loud long wailing shriek, she fell
upon the ground.
Not for a month after that did she know anything of what happened around
her. But yet it seemed that during that time her mind had not been
altogether vacant, for when she awoke to self-consciousness, she knew at
least that her lover was dead. She had been taken into Ennistimon and
there, under the priest's care, had been tended with infinite
solicitude; but almost with a hope on his part that nature might give
way and that she might die. Overwhelmed as she was with sorrows past and
to come would it not be better for her that she should go hence and be
no more seen? But as Death cannot be barred from the door when he knocks
at it, so neither can he be made to come as a guest when summoned. She
still lived, though life had so little to offer to her.
But Mrs. O'Hara never saw her child again. With passionate entreaties
she begged of the police that her girl might be brought to her, that she
might be allowed if it were only to see her face or to touch her hand.
Her entreaties to the priest, who was constant in his attendance upon
her in the prison to which she was removed from his house, were
piteous,--almost heartbreaking. But the poor girl, though she was meek,
silent, and almost apathetic in her tranquillity, could not even bear
the mention of her mother's name. Her mother had destroyed the father of
the child that was to be born to her, her lover, her hero, her god; and
in her remembrance of the man who had betrayed her, she learned to
execrate the mother who had sacrificed everything,--her very reason,--in
avenging the wrongs of her child!
Mrs. O'Hara was taken away from the priest's house to the County Gaol,
but was then in a condition of acknowledged insanity. That she had
committed the murder no one who heard the story doubted, but of her
guilt there was no evidence whatever beyond the random confession of a
maniac. No detailed confession was ever made by her. "An eye for an
eye," she would say when interrogated,--"Is not that justice? A tooth
for a tooth!" Though she was for a while detained in prison it was
impossible to prosecute her,--even with a view to an acquittal on the
ground of insanity; and while the question was under discussion among
the lawyers, provision for her care and maintenance came from another
source.
As also it did for the poor girl. For a while everything was done for
her under the care of Father Marty;--but there was another Earl of
Scroope in the world, and as soon as the story was known to him and the
circumstances had been made clear, he came forward to offer on behalf of
the family whatever assistance might now avail them anything. As months
rolled on the time of Kate O'Hara's further probation came, but Fate
spared her the burden and despair of a living infant. It was at last
thought better that she should go to her father and live in France with
him, reprobate though the man was. The priest offered to find a home for
her in his own house at Liscannor; but, as he said himself, he was an
old man, and one who when he went would leave no home behind him. And
then it was felt that the close vicinity of the spot on which her lover
had perished would produce a continued melancholy that might crush her
spirits utterly. Captain O'Hara therefore was desired to come and fetch
his child,--and he did so, with many protestations of virtue for the
future. If actual pecuniary comfort can conduce to virtue in such a man,
a chance was given him. The Earl of Scroope was only too liberal in the
settlement he made. But the settlement was on the daughter and not on
the father; and it is possible therefore that some gentle restraint may
have served to keep him out of the deep abysses of wickedness.
The effects of the tragedy on the coast of Clare spread beyond Ireland,
and drove another woman to the verge of insanity. When the Countess of
Scroope heard the story, she shut herself up at Scroope and would see no
one but her own servants. When the succeeding Earl came to the house
which was now his own, she refused to admit him into her presence, and
declined even a renewed visit from Miss Mellerby who at that time had
returned to her father's roof. At last the clergyman of Scroope
prevailed, and to him she unburdened her soul,--acknowledging, with an
energy that went perhaps beyond the truth, the sin of her own conduct in
producing the catastrophe which had occurred. "I knew that he had
wronged her, and yet I bade him not to make her his wife." That was the
gist of her confession and she declared that the young man's blood would
be on her hands till she died. A small cottage was prepared for her on
the estate, and there she lived in absolute seclusion till death
relieved her from her sorrows.
And she lived not only in seclusion, but in solitude almost to her
death. It was not till four years after the occurrences which have been
here related that John fourteenth Earl of Scroope brought a bride home
to Scroope Manor. The reader need hardly be told that that bride was
Sophie Mellerby. When the young Countess came to live at the Manor the
old Countess admitted her visits and at last found some consolation in
her friend's company. But it lasted not long, and then she was taken
away and buried beside her lord in the chancel of the parish church.
When it was at last decided that the law should not interfere at all as
to the personal custody of the poor maniac who had sacrificed everything
to avenge her daughter, the Earl of Scroope selected for her comfort the
asylum in which she still continues to justify from morning to night,
and, alas, often all the night long, the terrible deed of which she is
ever thinking. "An eye for an eye," she says to the woman who watches
her.
"Oh, yes, ma'am; certainly."
"An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth! Is it not so? An eye for an
eye!"