Within a month from the scene between Winny and her father described
above, Rathcash bad been purchased and paid for. There had been "a
great auction" of the stock, crops, and furniture. The house was shut
up, the door locked, and the windows bolted. No smoke curled from the
brick chimneys through the poplars. No sleek dark-red cows stood
swinging their tails and licking their noses, while a fragrant smell
of luscious milk rose through the air. No cock crew, no duck quacked,
no Turkey gobbled, and no goose gabbled. No dog bayed the moon by
night. Bully-dhu was at the flitting. The corn-stands and haggard were
naked and cold, and the grass was beginning to grow before the door.
The whole place seemed solitary and forlorn, awaiting a new tenant, or
whatever plans the proprietor might lay out for its future occupation.
Winny and her father had torn themselves from the spot hallowed to the
old man by years of uninterrupted happiness, and to the young girl by
the memory of a blissful childhood and the first sunshine of the
bright hope which is nearest to a woman's heart, until that fatal
night when vengeful crime broke in and snapt both spells asunder.
Rathcash and Rathcashmore had been a byword in the mouths of young and
old for the nine days limited for the wonder of such things.
If the goodness of his only child had broken the heart of one old man
from the reflection that her earthly happiness had been hopelessly
blighted, and his fond plans and prospects for her crushed for ever,
the villany and wickedness of another had not been less certain in a
similar result. Old Mick Murdock--ere his son stood before an earthly
tribunal to answer for his crimes--had been summoned before the court
of heaven.
The assizes came round, "the charge was prepared, the judge was
arrayed--a most _ter_rible show." Old Cavana and his daughter were, as
a matter of course, summoned by the crown for the prosecution, as were
also Pat Lennon, Jamesy Doyle, Biddy Murtagh, and the policemen who
had come to the rescue.
Old Ned was the first witness, Winny the second, Jamesy Doyle the
third. Then Biddy Murtagh and Pat Lennon, and finally, before the
doctor's medical evidence was given, the policemen who came to the
rescue, particularly he who had seen the shot fired and the man fall.
This closed the evidence for the Crown. There was no case, there could
be no case, for the prisoner, beyond the futile cross-examination of
the witnesses, by an able and tormenting counsellor, old Bob B----y,
whose experience in this instance was worse than useless.
The reader need hardly follow on to the result. Tom Murdock was
convicted and sentenced to death; and ere three weeks had elapsed he
had paid the penalty of an ungovernable temper and a revengeful
disposition upon the scaffold.
Poor Winny had pleaded hard with the counsel for the crown, and even
with the attorney-general himself--who prosecuted in person--that Tom
Murdock might be permitted to plead guilty to the abduction, and be
sentenced to transportation for life. But the attorney-general, who
had all the informations by heart, said that the animus had been
manifest all through, from even prior to the hurling-match, which was
alluded to by the prisoner himself as he fired the shot, and that he
would most certainly arraign the prisoner for the murder. And so he
was found guilty; and Winny, with her heart full of plans of peace and
charity, was obliged to forge the first link in a chain the
succeeding ones of which dragged Tom Murdock to an ignominious grave.
Old Ned and Winny, accompanied by faithful Bully-dhu, had returned to
B----, where the old man read and loitered about, watching every
figure which approached, hoping to see his angel girl pass on some
mission of holy charity, dressed in her black hood and cape.
Accompanied by Bully-dhu, he picked up every occurrence in the street,
and compiled them in his memory, to amuse Winny in the evenings, in
return for her descriptions of this or that case of distress which she
had relieved. Thus they told story about, not very unlike tragedy and
farce!
A sufficient time had now elapsed, not only for the deeds to have been
perfected, but for the provisions which they set forth to have been
carried out. Pat Lennon had already removed to the comfortable cottage
upon the snug little farm which had been purchased for him by Winny,
and the "annuity" she had settled upon him was bearing interest in the
savings-bank at C. O. S.
Phil M'Dermott was one of the best to do men in that side of the
country, and his wife (if you can guess who she was) was the nicest
and the handsomest he (now that Winny was gone) that you'd meet with
in the congregation of the three chapels within four miles of where
she lived. Jamesy Doyle had been transferred--head, body, and
bones--to the establishment, where he excelled himself in everything
which was good and useful and--_handy_. Many a figary was got from
time to time after him in the forge, filed up bright and nice, and if
he does not "sorely belie" his abilities and aptitude, he will one day
become a "whitesmith" of no mean reputation.
Biddy Murtagh was to have gone as cook and thorough servant to _Mrs.
M'Dermott;_ but the hundred pounds which had been lodged to her credit
in the bank soon smoothed the way between her and Denis Murrican--a
Shanvilla boy, you will guess--who induced her to become cook, but not
thorough servant, I hope, to himself; so Kate M'Dermott--how strange
it seems not to write 'Kate Mulvey'!--was obliged to get somebody
else.
Poor Winny, blighted in her own hopes of this world's happiness, had
turned her thoughts to a surer and more abiding source. She had seen
her plans for the happiness of those she loved carried out to a
success almost beyond her hopes. Her poor old father, getting whiter
and whiter as the years rolled on, attained a ripe and good old age,
blessed in the fond society of the only being whom he loved on earth.
Winny herself found too large a field for individual charity and good
to think of joining any society, however estimable, during her
father's lifetime, and was emphatically _the_ Sister of Charity in the
singular number.
But poor old Ned has long since passed away from this scene of earthly
cares, and sleeps in peace in his own chapel-yard, between _two
tombs_. Long as the journey was, Winny had the courage and
self-control to come with her father's bier, and see his coffin laid
beside that of him who had been so rudely snatched away, and whom she
had so devotedly loved. Poor Bully-dhu was at the funeral, and gazed
into the fresh-made grave in silent, dying grief. When all was over,
and the last green sod slapped down upon the mound, he could nowhere
be found. He had suddenly eluded all observation. But ere a week had
passed by, he was found dead upon his master's grave, after the whole
neighborhood had been terrified by a night of the most dismal howling
which was ever heard.
Winny returned to the sphere of her usefulness and hope, where for
many years she continued to exercise a course of unselfish charity,
which made many a heart sing for joy.
But she, too, passed away, and was brought home to her last
resting-place in Rathcash chapel-yard, where the three tombs are still
to be seen. Were she now alive she would yet be a comparatively young
woman, not much past sixty-four or sixty-five years of age. But it
pleased God, in his inscrutable ways, to remove her from the circle of
all her bounty and her love. Had it not been so, this tale would not
have yet been written.
[THE END]