NO. III.
Some fourteen years ago there was living in the city of Galway a victualler named Hughes: he was not a Galwaygian by birth, nor originally a victualler by trade; but having settled there some years previously, and married a butcher’s daughter, he entered into the business, and throve apace. At the time we are now speaking of, there were few gentlemen in the county of Galway with whom his word would not be sufficient for a hundred pounds’ worth of cattle, and upwards; and the man who was the envy of all his brother victuallers bore strongly the apparent marks of prosperity, and a contented mind in his florid, good-humoured, open countenance. So little do appearances consort with character and circumstances at times!
He was a kind husband and father, and reared his family well and religiously; attending himself regularly to his devotions. He was also a hospitable, off-handed fellow, that would not higgle for a trifle, either in buying or selling; was equally ready to take or “stand a treat” at fairs and markets where his business frequently brought him, and was in consequence a general favourite with high and low. In short, every one said he was in the way of making a larger fortune than had been made in his business for many a year in the city; and every one said he deserved it, as he was an honest, a hard-working, and a worthy man. There were apparently but two drawbacks on his character, namely, a violent temper, which at times hurried him on with irresistible impetuosity, particularly when under the influence of liquor, and a habit of jeering and jibing in season and out of season. These defects, however, as they never led to anything serious, were rather pitied than censured, as being the only blemishes on an otherwise excellent disposition.
Hughes was standing one day at his stall, tapping his highly polished boots with his whip, and feeling his well-filled pocket, as he was preparing to set out on a journey for the purchase of cattle. He was in high spirits, and was liberally scattering about his jibing witticisms among his admiring brethren, when a travelling basket-maker entered the shambles. Instantly Hughes directed the current of his jeering towards the humble newcomer.
“You look as if a good beef steak would lie in your way this morning, friend.”
“Be goxty ye might sing that, sir, if ye had an air to it.”
“Well, it’s lucky there’s so many about you, any how, as, to tell you the thruth, I don’t much like your looks, and wouldn’t thrust yon with your own brogues to the brogue-maker’s.”
“Faix, may be you’d be right too, sir,” rejoined the stranger slowly, as he surveyed, with an eager and a half bewildered gaze, the jiber’s face, like one striving to recall portions of a half-forgotten dream, “though it isn’t every one that’s to be taken by his looks.”
“I wish, any way, I had as good a house as you’d rob. But how come you to be trading in twigs? You mistook your thrade surely; it’s in hemp you ought to be dealing.”
“Faix, if every man got his due,” said the basket-maker in a decided tone, “more nor me would be dailin’ in himp. But ye needn’t be so hard intirely on us, Mr M’Cann.”
On hearing this name, which had not met his ears for many a year, the victualler gave a convulsive start as if he had received a shot, while a fierce blaze deepened the hue of his cheek, flitted across his brow, and the next moment subsided into monumental paleness. He recovered himself, however, immediately; and, remarking laughingly how curiously people were often mistaken for others, took an opportunity of following the basket-maker, who had advanced into the shambles, and invited him to breakfast the next morning.
Accordingly, punctual to the hour, the rambling mechanic made his appearance at Hughes’s house, situated in one of those archways characteristic of the Spanish built city, and which strike the stranger so much in wandering through it for the first time. The breakfast was excellent and ample; and the basket-maker was received with great apparent cordiality and welcome, and pressed immoderately to consider himself at home, and partake plentifully of such fare as he was seldom regaled with—a request with which he complied to the utmost of his ability, notwithstanding that he discovered his entertainer several times scanning him with an expression of countenance he by no means liked. The breakfast over, Hughes invited his guest to take a walk, stating that he would show him part of the city; and accordingly they sallied forth from the archway, which was off Shop-street, immediately contiguous to the fine old church of St Nicholas, and within pistol shot of the house over the door of which is inserted the slab containing the far-famed death’s head and cross-bones.
“The Queen of Connaught” has been so often and so well described, particularly by her own gifted son James Hardiman, the distinguished antiquary, of whom she has such just reason to be proud; and has, these late years, been so much visited by tourists on their route to the wild territory of mountain, bog, and lake, Connemara, during the touring season, that her localities are generally known. Many of our readers will then, at once, understand the direction taken by the pair, and conceive Hughes’s probable motive for taking that, when we state that he led his guest to the eminence on the south-east side of the city, designated Fort-hill, which terminates in a precipice lashed by the waves when the tide is in, while scattered over its surface are several deep wells.
The victualler had made no allusion whatever, during the breakfast, to the basket-maker’s having called him M’Cann, nor to the county they both came from. As they went along, however, he began to make some inquiries as if to sound his companion. But the latter had become wary. In fact, as they left the crowded parts of the town behind, fear began to grow on him, on finding himself alone even in the day-light, and adjoining a bustling city, with one whom he knew to be a murderer; and that fear was strengthened by the manner of Hughes, who sometimes strode on a few steps rapidly, as if labouring under some excitement, and then halted to stammer out some observation to his companion, while he occasionally flung searching glances around, as if to ascertain who might be in view. So, after having twice or thrice expressed his wish to return to the city, on reaching the first of the wells, the basket-maker refused to proceed any farther, and turned to retrace his steps at an increased pace, though he did not venture to run. Calling on him in vain to return, Hughes now darted furiously after him with the intention of forcing him back; but he was restrained by the sight of approaching persons, and the basket-maker pursued his way back into the city with a step quickened by fear, though he still durst not run.
On regaining his humble lodgings the stranger lost no time in repairing to the abode of the mayor, Mr Hardiman Burke we think, an active, intelligent magistrate, to whom he accused Hughes, or M’Cann as his real name was, of having perpetrated a murder in the county of Down, eighteen years previously. The charge was so extraordinary and so utterly at variance with the peaceable, prosperous, and even humorous habits of the accused, that the mayor at first utterly scouted the tale, saving that the accuser must be completely mistaken as to the identity of M’Cann. But the basket-maker was so clear in his statement, recollected M’Cann so well while a journeyman baker (his original trade) before the commission of the murder, or his arrival in Galway, and was so intimately acquainted with everything connected with him, that, in a short time, after having detailed the morning’s proceedings, he satisfied the mayor of the well-groundedness of the charge, terrible as it was, and reluctant as he naturally was to believe it; and the magistrate proceeded forthwith to act on the information.
At that period the city of Galway containing probably nearly forty thousand inhabitants, some of them certainly not among the most peaceable in Ireland, did not possess even a single town constable for the protection of its peace. Indeed, some years subsequently, when we first visited it, it had no constabulary, though that force had been for years appointed in every other portion of the province, and was in consequence a peculiarly lawless place; so much so, that it was quite a risk for strangers or natives to venture abroad at all after dark, unless in numbers, as, were you foolhardy enough to do so, some of a gang of desperate and daring ruffians that infested the streets by night, and traversed them openly in the day-light, though branded with a hundred crimes, were sure to assault you, and take your money, if you carried any, and if you did not, to give you still worse usage for not having it. We learned one night while passing the West Bridge, a favourite haunt of those desperadoes, that the brother of a priest had been just flung into the river there. Galway is now, however, as efficiently protected and as well ordered as any town in her majesty’s dominions, west of the Shannon at least.
The mayor’s first step, then, was to obtain a file of soldiers whom he placed in his own house; after which he proceeded at once to the shambles, where he found M’Cann after having returned, not deeming, probably, that the basket-maker’s informations would be so rapidly given. The victualler was apparently engaged in his usual avocations, but as the mayor watched him attentively for a few moments, his motions were so irregular and so unlike his usual active, bustling habits, as if he was labouring under some spell, that they utterly put to flight any slight doubts the magistrate was still inclined to entertain of his being the guilty person. Accordingly, he proceeded to purchase a quarter of beef from M’Cann, whom he begged to come at once to his house and cut it up there. To this request M’Cann made some objections, stating that he could not then conveniently spare time, but would send an assistant: his reluctance arising probably from the connection in his mind between the terrors of discovered guilt and the mayor’s legal functions—of the latter’s having been made acquainted with his secret crime he had not then the least conception. After much persuasion, however, he assented, chiefly through the clever cajolery of the mayor, who stated that he never could get one to please him in cutting up beef but M’Cann himself and he accordingly accompanied Mr Burke to his house, on entering which he was instantly delivered to the military stationed there.
He was forthwith transmitted to Downpatrick, and at the ensuing assizes there, convicted of the murder of another journeyman baker with a peel (an instrument used for placing bread in the oven and drawing it when baked), eighteen years previously. His death, it would appear, was a torturing one, as the rope broke, and, previous to the consummation of his terrible fate he was obliged to be strengthened with a draught whilst seated on his coffin—this last receptacle of humanity being frequently placed at the gallows foot during an execution.
The singular detection of M’Cann created a great sensation from the extremity of the Claddagh to that of Bohermore. Yet was it not more extraordinary than the blameless and perseveringly industrious tenor of his life, and the apparently utter want of all compunction after the perpetration of the fearful deed; though these have been paralleled in numerous instances, as well as in the celebrated one of Eugene Aram; we allude to the real case, not to Bulwer’s magnificent fiction. His striking and sudden abstraction from among them, as if a thunderbolt had cleft him—though every thing connected with him and his family has long since disappeared from the city, forms still a frequent and exciting theme among the Galwaygians, who invariably seem to be of opinion that M’Cann’s object in leading the basket-maker to Fort-hill was for the purpose of adding another murder to his crimes, by pitching the stranger into a well, or hurling him over a precipice into the sea. In this opinion we also fully coincide, as we have little doubt that the murderer, but for the approach of the chance visitors, would have attempted, at all risks, to precipitate his companion into a well, where, entire stranger as he was, he might have remained long undiscovered; or to consign himself and his fearful secret for ever to those faithful preservers of innumerable dark secrets, the waves.
A.
To produce as much happiness as we can, and to prevent as much misery, is the proper aim and end of all true morality and all true religion.