those three, that the entire family of the
Kellys was to be sacrificed to stop the tongue of one talkative
old woman, a horror must have fallen upon them as they recognised
the duty which was incumbent on them. The duty of saving those six
unfortunates they did not recognise. They could not screw themselves
up to the necessary pitch of courage to enable them to enter in among
loaded pistols and black-visaged murderers. The two women and the
children had to die, though the three men were so close to them; so
close as to have been certainly able to save them, or some of them,
had they rushed into the cabin and created the confusion of another
advent. To this they could not bring themselves, for are not the
murderers armed? But an awful horror must have crept round their
minds as they thought of the self-imposed task they had undertaken.
They waited until the murders had been completed, and then they went
back home and told the police.

From this moment the mystery by which murders in County Galway and
elsewhere were for a short period protected was over in Ireland. Men
have not seen, as yet, how much more lovely it is to tell frankly all
that has been done, to give openly such evidence as a man may have to
police magistrates and justices of the peace, than to keep anything
wrapped within his own bosom. The charm of such outspoken truth does
not reconcile itself at once to the untrained mind; but the fact of
the loveliness does gradually creep in, and the hideous ugliness
of the other venture. On the minds of those men of Kerrycullion
something of the ugliness and something of the loveliness must have
made itself apparent. And when this had been done it was not probable
that a return to the utter ugliness of the lie should be possible.
Whether the ten be hanged,--to the intense satisfaction of Hunter and
his master,--or some fewer number, such as may suffice the mitigated
desire for revenge which at present is burning in the breasts of men,
the thing will have been done, and the mystery with all its beauty
will have passed away.

At Castle Morony the beginning of the passing away of the mystery was
hailed with great delight. It took place in this wise. A little girl
who had been brought up there in the kitchen, and had reached the age
of fifteen under the eyes of Ada and Edith,--a slip of a girl, whose
feet our two girls had begun to trammel with shoes and stockings, and
who was old enough to be proud of the finery thou