It was on a market evening of Claremorris, in the year 1830, that the mother of M’Gennis, a withered hag, almost doubled with age, and who on our first seeing her strongly reminded us of the witches that used, in description at least, to frighten and fascinate our boyhood, hobbled with great apparent terror into the cabin nearest her own, and alarmed the occupants by stating that she had heard a noise in the potato room, and that she feared her daughter-in-law was doing some harm to herself. Two or three of them accordingly returned speedily with her, and, entering the room, saw the lifeless body of the unfortunate young woman lying on the potatoes in a state of complete nudity. There was no blood or mark of violence on any part of the body, except the face and throat, round the latter of which a slight handkerchief was suffocatingly tied, by which she had evidently been strangled, as both face and neck were blackened and swollen.
Who then had perpetrated the deed? was the question whispered by all the neighbours as they came and went. M’Gennis, according to his mother’s account, had not yet returned from the market; the hag herself would not have had strength to accomplish the murder even if bloody-minded enough to attempt it, and it was next to an impossibility that the young woman herself could have committed self-destruction in that manner.
While the callous hag was so skilfully supporting her part in the murderous drama, the chief performer, who had not been seen to return from the market, immediately after the commission of the horrid deed, through whatever motive he had done it, crossed a neighboring river to Bricken, where it intersects the high-road by means of stepping-stones, as bridge it had none,[2] though it is occasionally in winter a furious torrent. On the opposite side he chanced to meet a country tailor (we forget his name), who was proceeding from one village to another, to exercise his craft in making and mending; and the devil suggesting a plan on the spur of the moment, which was to recoil with destruction on his guilty head, he forced the tailor to take on his knees the most fearful oaths that he would never divulge what should then be revealed to him, and that he would act in strict conformity with the directions he should receive, threatening, if he refused compliance, to beat out his brains with a stone, and then fling him into the river.
The affrighted tailor having of course readily taken the required oaths, M’Gennis confessed to him the murder of his wife, using at the same time horrible imprecations, that if ever a word on the subject escaped the tailor’s lips, he would, dead or alive, take the most deadly vengeance on him. He then proceeded to cut and dinge his hat in several places, and inflict various scratches on his hands and face, directing the tailor to assert that he had found him attacked by four men on the road, on his return from Claremorris; after which, to give the more appearance of probability to the tale, he obliged his involuntary accessory after the fact (as the law has it) to bear him on his back to a cabin at some distance, as if the murderer were too weak to proceed himself after the violent assault committed on him. And here, if we could venture to raise a smile in the course of so revolting a detail, we would observe, that it must have been a ludicrous sight to see the tailor, who was but a meagre specimen of humanity, trailing along the all but giant frame of the murderer. The poor tailor’s own feelings were, however, at the time much more akin to mortal terror than to mirth or humour, as he found at the same time his mind burdened with an unwished-for, terrible, and dangerous secret, and himself in company with the murderer, who might at any moment change his mind, repent his confession, and take his life too.
On reaching the cabin, the tailor told the story of the pretended attack, as he had been directed, while M’Gennis himself, showing his scratches, and detailing in a weak voice the assault on him by men he did not know, affected such faintness as to fall from the chair on which he had been placed. A farrier was then procured at his request; and to such lengths did he proceed with the plan he had struck out, that he got himself blooded, though the farrier shrewdly perceived at the same time (according to his after evidence) that there seemed to be no weakness whatever about him, except in his voice, and that his pulse was strong and regular.
It may seem strange at first that M’Gennis should have divulged to the tailor, an entire stranger, the secret of his guilt, then unknown to any being on earth but his mother; an instant’s reflection will show us that when once the thought occurred to make use of the tailor’s assistance in the manner described to aid him in avoiding detection, he might just as well confess the whole terrible secret, which, coming from him, would strike additional terror—the only engine on which he could rely for procuring the secrecy and assistance he required. Accordingly, so strongly was the terror impressed, that on the following day the tailor disappeared from that part of the country, and reappeared not, though M’Gennis and his mother were at once committed on suspicion, till the approach of the ensuing assizes, when he came forward, probably as much induced by the large reward offered for the murderer’s conviction, as for the purpose of disburdening himself of his fearful secret in aiding justice.
There was much interest excited at those assizes, we recollect, by the trial of M’Gennis and his mother, who were arraigned together, and of a grey-haired man named Cuffe, for a murder committed twenty-four years previously, of which more anon; and with respect to the former parties, there was unmixed abhorrence expressed by the numerous auditors. It was indeed a revolting sight, and one not readily to be forgotten, the towering and powerfully proportioned son in the prime of life, and apparently with the most hardened callousness, standing side by side to be tried for the same heinous offence with his withered parent, whose age-bowed head scarce reached his shoulder, while her rheumed and still rat-like eye wandered with an eager and restless gaze round the court, as if she was only alive to the novelty of the scene, and utterly unconcerned for the fearful position she stood in. It was absolutely heart-sickening to see how repeatedly the wretched hag pulled her guilty son towards her during the trial, to whisper remarks and inquiries, frequently altogether unconnected with the evidence, and the crime she was accused of and believed to have instigated and aided in.
Even in the strongly guarded court, it was on the side of the dock remotest from where M’Gennis stood that the tailor ventured forward to give his evidence, though the murderer’s reckless hardihood of bearing altered not for a moment, either in consequence of his appearance, or during the course of his evidence; in fact, he seemed to be principally occupied in answering his mother’s queries, and quieting her.
The testimony of the tailor, bearing strongly the impress of truth, singular as it was, was strengthened by that of the brother of the deceased, who seemed greatly affected while deposing that he had met M’Gennis in Claremorris on the day of the murder, and that the handkerchief afterwards found round his sister’s neck had been worn by the murderer on that occasion. There was not an iota of evidence for the prisoners, and accordingly a verdict against the son was instantly handed in, though the vile hag was acquitted for want of substantiating evidence against her, to the regret of a crowded court.
After condemnation, M’Gennis was placed in the same cell with Cuffe, the other murderer, who had been also convicted; and nothing could be more dissimilar than their demeanour while together. Cuffe was calm, communicative, and apparently penitent, while M’Gennis was sullen and silent; nor could all the exertions of the clergymen who attended him induce him to acknowledge either guilt or repentance. On the morning after conviction, an alarm was given in the cell by Cuffe, and on entering, the turnkeys found that M’Gennis had anticipated the hangman’s office, by rather strangling than hanging himself. He had effected the suicide by means of a slight kerchief appended to the latch of the door, which was scarcely three feet from the floor, and on a level with which he had brought his neck, by shooting the lower portion of his body along the cell-flags from the door; and perhaps not the least remarkable fact connected with this extraordinary suicide is, that the handkerchief was the very one with which he had effected the murder of his wife, and which had been produced on the trial. It is very unusual for any article produced in evidence to find its way to the dock, but in this case it appears the handkerchief must by some strange casualty have come into the hands of the murderer again; and having soaped it highly (he was allowed soap even in the condemned cell), he consummated his fearful deeds with it.