In the broad sunlight, the villagers, alarmed by the sound of
shooting, came timidly creeping towards the presbytery to see if harm
had befallen the priest, and found Father Anthony standing on the
bloody green sward wiping his sword and looking about him at the dead
men. The fury of battle had gone out of his face, and he looked gentle
as ever, but greatly troubled. 'It had to be,' he said, 'though, God
knows, I would have spared them to repent of their sins.'

'Take them,' he said, 'to the Devil's Chimney and drop them down, so
that if their comrades come seeking them there may be no trace of
them.' The Devil's Chimney is a strange, natural _oubliette_ of the
Island, whose depth none has fathomed, though far below you may hear a
subterranean waterfall roaring.

One of the dead men's horses set up a frightened whinnying. 'But the
poor beasts,' said Father Anthony, who had ever a kindness for
animals, 'they must want for nothing. Stable them in M'Ora's Cave
till the trouble goes by, and see that they are well fed and watered.'

An hour later, except for some disturbance of the grass, you would
have come upon no trace of these happenings. I have never heard that
they cast any shade upon Father Anthony's spirit, or that he was less
serene and cheerful when peace had come back than he had been before.
No hue and cry after the dead yeomen ever came to the Island, and the
troubles of '98 spent themselves without crossing again from the
mainland. After a time, when peace was restored, the yeomen's horses
were used for drawing the Island fish to the market, or for carrying
loads of seaweed to the potatoes, and many other purposes for which
human labour had hitherto served.

But Father Anthony O'Toole was dead many and many a year before that
tablet was set up to his memory. And the strange thing was that Mr.
Hill, the rector, who, having no flock to speak of, is pretty free to
devote himself to the antiquities of the Island, his favourite study,
was a prime mover in this commemoration of Father Anthony O'Toole,
and himself selected the text to go upon the tablet.

In a certain Wicklow country-house an O'Toole of this day will display
to you, as they display the dead hand of a martyr in a reliquary, the
uniform, the sword and pistols, the feathered hat and the riding
boots, of Father Anthony O'Toole.

III

THE UNLAWFUL MOTHER

In the Island the standard of purity is an extraordinarily high one,
and it is almo