CHAPTER XXVI. — The Pedlar Runs a Close Risk of the Stocks.
Nelly's suspicions, apparently well founded as they had been, were removed from the Prophet, not so much by the disclosure to her and Sarah, of his having been so long cognizant of Sullivan's murder by Dalton, as by that unhappy man's own confession of the crime. Still, in spite of all that had yet happened, she could not divest herself of an impression that something dark and guilty was associated with the Tobacco-box; an impression which was strengthened by her own recollections of certain incidents that occurred upon a particular night, much about the time of Sullivan's disappearance. Her memory, however, being better as to facts than to time, was such as prevented her from determining whether the incidents alluded to had occurred previous to Sullivan's murder, or afterwards. There remained, however, just enough of suspicion to torment her own mind, without enabling her to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion as to Donnel's positive guilt, arising from the mysterious incidents in question. A kind of awakened conscience, too, resulting not from any principle of true repentance, but from superstitious alarm and a conviction that the Prophet had communicated to Sarah a certain secret connected with her, which she dreaded so much to have known, had for some time past rendered her whole life a singular compound of weak terror, ill-temper, gloom, and a kind of conditional repentance, which depended altogether upon the fact of her secret being known. In this mood it was that she left the cabin as we have described.
“I'm not fit to die,” she said to herself, after she had gone—“an' that's the second offer for my life she has made. Any way, it's the best of my play to lave them; an' above all, to keep away from her. That's the second attempt; and I know to a certainty, that if she makes a third one, it'll do for me. Oh, no doubt of that—the third time's always the charm!—an' into my heart that unlucky knife 'ill go, if she ever tries it a third time! They tell me,” she proceeded, soliloquizing, as she was in the habit of doing, “that the inquest is to be held in a day or two, an' that the crowner was only unwell a trifle, and hadn't the sickness afther all. No matther—not all the wather in the sky 'ud clear my mind that there's not villany joined with that Tobaccy-box, though where it could go, or what could come of it (barrin' the devil himself or the fairies tuck it,) I don't know.”
So far as concerned the coroner, the rumor of his having caught the prevailing typhus was not founded on fact. A short indisposition, arising from a cold caught by a severe wetting, but by no means of a serious or alarming nature, was his only malady; and when the day to which the inquest had been postponed had arrived, he was sufficiently recovered to conduct that important investigation. A very large crowd was assembled upon the occasion, and a deep interest prevailed throughout that part of the country. The circumstances, however, did not, as it happened, admit of any particular difficulty Jerry Sullivan and his friends attended as, was their duty, in order to give evidence touching the identity of the body. This, however, was a matter of peculiar difficulty. On disinterring the remains, it was found that the clothes worn at the time of the murder had not been buried with them—in other words, that the body had been stripped of all but the under garment, previous to its interment. The evidence, nevertheless, of the Black Prophet and of Red Rody was conclusive. The truth, however, of most if not of all the details, but not of the fact itself, was denied by old Dalton, who had sufficiently recovered from his illness, to be present at the investigation. The circumstances deposed to by the two witnesses were sufficiently strong and home to establish the fact against him, although he impugned the details as we have stated, but admitted that—after a hard battle with weighty sticks, he did kill Sullivan with an unlucky blow, and left him dead in a corner of the field for a short time near the Grey Stone. He said that he did not bury the body, but that he carried it soon afterwards from the field in which the unhappy crime had been committed, to the roadside, where he laid it for a time, in order to procure assistance. He said he then changed his mind, and having become afraid to communicate the unhappy accident to any of the neighbors, he fled in great terror across the adjoining mountains, where he wandered nearly frantic until the approach of day-break the next morning. He then felt himself seized with an uncontrollable anxiety to return to the scene of conflict, which he did, and found, not much to his surprise indeed, that the body had been removed, for he supposed at the time that Sullivan's friends must have brought it home. This he declared was the truth, neither more nor less, and he concluded by solemnly stating, that he knew no more than the child unborn what had become of the body, or how it disappeared. He also acknowledged that he was very much intoxicated at the time of the quarrel, and that were it not for the shock he received by perceiving that the man was dead, he thought he would not have had anything beyond a confused and indistinct recollection of the circumstance at all. He admitted also that he had threatened Sullivan in the market, and followed him closely for the purpose of beating him, but maintained that the fatal blow was not given with an intention of taking his life.
The fact, on the contrary, that the body had been privately buried and stripped before interment, was corroborated by the circumstance of Sullivan's body-coat having been found the next morning in a torn and bloody state, together with his great coat and hat; but indeed, the impression upon the minds of many was, that Dalton's version of the circumstances was got up for the purpose of giving to what was looked upon as a deliberate assassination, the character of simple homicide or manslaughter, so as that he might escape the capital felony, and come off triumphantly by a short imprisonment. The feeling against him too was strengthened and exasperated by the impetuous resentment with which he addressed himself to the Prophet and Rody Duncan, while giving their evidence, for it was not unreasonable to suppose that the man, who at his years, and in such awful circumstances, could threaten the lives of the witnesses against him, as he did, would not hesitate to commit, in a fit of that ungovernable passion that had made him remarkable through life, the very crime with which he stood charged through a similar act of blind and ferocious vengeance. Others, on the contrary held different opinions; and thought that the old man's account of the matter was both simple and natural, and bore the stamp of sincerity and truth upon the very face of it. Jerry Sullivan only swore that, to the best of his opinion, the skeleton found was much about the size of what his brother's would be; but as the proof of his private interment by Dalton had been clearly established by the evidence of the Prophet and Rody, constituting, as it did, an unbroken chain of circumstances which nothing could resist, the jury had no hesitation in returning the following verdict:—
“We find a verdict of wilful murder against Cornelius Dalton, Senior, for that he, on or about the night of the fourteenth of December, in the year of grace, 1798, did follow and waylay Bartholomew Sullivan, and deprive him of his life by blows and violence, having threatened him to the same effect in the early part of the aforesaid day.”
During the progress of the investigation, our friend the pedlar and Charley Hanlon were anxious and deeply attentive spectators. The former never kept his eyes off the Prophet, but surveyed him with a face in which it was difficult to say whether the expression was one of calm conviction or astonishment. When the investigation had come to a close, he drew Hanlon aside and said—
“That swearin', Charley, was too clear, and if I was on the jury myself I would find the same verdict. May the Lord support the poor old man in the mane time! for in spite of all that happened one can't help pity'n' him, or at any rate his unfortunate family. However see what comes by not havin' a curb over one's passions when the blood's up.”
“God's a just God,” replied Hanlon—“the murderer deserves his punishment, an' I hope will meet it.”