Part 52 (1/2)

While in prison, he vowed deadly vengeance against her brother, Magennis, and swore, that if ever she spoke to him, acknowledged him, or received him into her house during his life, she should never live another day under his roof.

In this state matters were, when her brother, having heard that her husband was in a distant part of the barony, surveying, or subdividing a farm, came to ask her to her sister's wedding, and while in the house, the Prophet, most unexpectedly, was discovered, within a few perches of the door, on his return. Terror, on her part, from a dread of his violence, and also an apprehension lest he and her brother should meet, and, perhaps, seriously injure each other, even to bloodshed, caused her to hurry the latter into another room, with instructions to get out of the window as quietly as possible, and to go home. Unfortunately he did so, but had scarcely escaped, when a poor mendicant woman, coming in to ask alms, exclaimed--”Take care, good people, that you have not been robbed--I saw a man comin' out of the windy, and runnin' over toward Jemmy Campel's house”--Campel being the name of the young man of whom her husband was jealous.

M'Ivor, now furious, ran towards Campel's, and meeting that person's servant-maid at the door, asked ”if her master was at home.”

She replied, ”Yes, he just came in this minute.”

”What direction did he come from?”

”From the direction of your own house,” she answered.

It should be stated, however, that his wife, at once recollecting his jealousy, told him immediately that the person who had left the house was her brother; but he rushed on, and paid no attention whatsoever to her words.

From this period forward he never lived with her, but she has heard recently--no longer ago than last night--that he had a.s.sociated himself with a woman named Eleanor M'Guirk, about thirty miles farther west from their original neighborhood, near a place called Glendhu, and it was at that place her brother was murdered.

Neither her anxieties nor her troubles, however, ended here. When her husband left her, he took a daughter, their only child, then almost an infant, away with him, and contrived to circulate a report that he and she had gone to America. After her return home, she followed her nephew to this neighborhood, and that accounted for her presence there. So well, indeed, did he manage this matter, that she received a very contrite and affectionate letter, that had been sent, she thought, from Boston, desiring her to follow himself and the child there. The deceit was successful. Gratified at the prospect of joining them, she made the due preparations, and set sail. It is unnecessary to say, that on arriving at Boston she could get no tidings whatsoever of either the one or the other; but as she had some relations in the place, she found them out, and resided there until within a few months ago, when she set sail for Ireland, where she arrived only a short time previous to the period of the trial. She has often heard M'Ivor say that he would settle accounts with her brother some fine night, but he usually added, ”I will take my time and kill two birds with one stone when I go about it,” by which she thought he meant robbing him, as well as murdering him, as her brother was known mostly to have a good deal of money about him.

We now add here, although the fact was not brought out until a later stage of the trial, that she proved the ident.i.ty of the body found in Glendhu, as being that of her brother, very clearly. His right leg had been broken, and having been mismanaged, was a little crooked, which occasioned him to have a slight halt in his walk. The top joint also of the second toe, on the same foot had been snapped off by the tramp of a horse, while her brother was a schoolboy--two circ.u.mstances which were corroborated by the Coroner, and one or two of those who had examined the body at the previous inquest, and which they could then attribute only to injuries received during his rude interment, but which were now perfectly intelligible and significant.

The next witness called was Bartholemew Sullivan, who deposed--

That about a month before his disappearance from the country, he was one night coming home from a wake, and within half a mile of the Grey Stone he met a person, evidently a carman, accompanying a horse and cart, who bade him the time of night as he pa.s.sed. He noticed that the man had a slight halt as he walked, but could not remember his face, although the night was by no means dark. On pa.s.sing onwards, towards home, he met another person walking after the carman, who, on seeing him (Sullivan) hastily threw some weapon or other into the ditch. The hour was about three o'clock in the night (morning,) and on looking close at the man, for he seemed to follow the other in a stealthy way, he could only observe that he had a very pale face, and heavy black eyebrows; indeed he has little doubt but that the prisoner is the man, although he will not actually swear it after such a length of time.

This was the evidence given by Bartholomew Sullivan.

The third witness produced was Theodosius M'Mahon, or, as he was better known, Toddy Mack, the Pedlar, who deposed to the fact of having, previously to his departure for Boston, given to Peter Magennis a present of a steel tobacco-box as a keep-sake, and as the man did not use tobacco, he said, on putting it into his pocket--

”This will do nicely to hould my money in, on my way home from Dublin.”

Upon which Toddy Mack observed, laughingly--

”That if he put either silver or bra.s.s in it, half the country would know it by the jingle.”

”I'll take care of that, never fear,” replied Magennis, ”for I'll put nothing in this, but the soft, comfortable notes.”

He was asked if the box had any particular mark by which it might be known?

”Yes, he had himself punched upon the lid of it the initials of the person to whom he gave it--P. M., for Peter Magennis.”

”Would you know the box if you saw it?”

”Certainly!”

”Is that it?” asked the prosecuting attorney, placing the box in his hands.

”That is the same box I gave him, upon my oath. It's a good deal rusted now, but there's the holes as I punched them; and by the same token, there is the letter P., the very place yet where the two holes broke into one, as I was punchin' it.”

”Pray, how did the box come to turn up?” asked the judge:--”In whose possession has it been ever since?”

”My lord, we have just come to that. Crier, call Eleanor M'Guirk.”

The woman hitherto known as Nelly M'Gowan, and supposed to be the Prophet's wife now made her appearance.