All Hallow Eve or The Test of Futurity Part 34

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 a.s.sizes 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 pa.s.s 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 apt.i.tude, 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 pa.s.sed 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, pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d, 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]