“Excuse me for a few minutes—I wish to go back to the spot where my father and brothers sleep; that surely is but natural, and I will soon overtake you.”
They then proceeded, and he remained at the graves of his relatives. He stood over them in silence for many minutes, keeping his face covered with his hands. At length he knelt down and sobbed out aloud.
“Father,” said he, “I have fulfilled my oath—Torley, I have fulfilled my oath—Brian, my sweet and fair-haired child—your brother, when none was left to do you justice but myself, has fulfilled his oath. Listen to me and rest quiet in your, graves. The oppressor is no more—the scourge of the poor—the persecutor—the robber that trampled upon all law—that laughed at justice—that gave vent to his bad passions, because he knew that there was neither law, nor justice in the country to protect people like you or to punish himself;—that oppressor—that scourge of the poor—that persecutor—that robber, is this night sent to his account by my hand—for by no other had such a right to fall.—Sleep quiet and contented in your graves my father—and Torley and poor Brian! As we had no law for us in this country—I was his law—I was his justice—and so may God prosper me, if there is not a heavy load taken off of my heart by the fate that has come on the villain by my hand!”
He spoke these words m tears and deep sobs after which he composed himself, so that he might appear in his usual mood, that of simple grief, on rejoining his companions.
The morning of the following day, the town, and neighborhood of Castle Cumber were in a state of extraordinary excitement and tumult.
“Valentine M'Clutchy, Esq.,” said the True Blue, “the excellent and humane Agent of the Castle Cumber property, was most barbarously shot dead in his parlor, about ten o'clock on the previous night. By this diabolical act, the poor of that admirably managed property,” continued his brother Orangeman, “have lost, &c, &c.”
But it is really sickening to read these unprincipled vindications of the scoundrels who drive the people into crime and bloodshed by their rack-renting and oppression. It is time that honest men should speak out, and fasten upon these scourges of their country, their proper appellative. To this murder, as to others of a similar character, there never was any clew found; notwithstanding the large rewards that were subscribed by the gentry of the county and by government. Phil was too drunk the evening before to remember anything distinctly. His pistols were never found, nor was any other discovery made which could fasten even suspicion on any particular individual.
If Phil, however, were drunk the night before his father's death, he was sober enough the night after it. On that night there was not a hill head on all the Castle Cumber estate which had not its bonfire and its rejoicing—for the re-appointment of Mr. Hickman to the agency. It might, however, be observed in-general—and it is frightful to be forced to record such a surfeit of things—that the tenantry, one and all appeared to feel a singular complacency of temper on the occasion—a strong sense as it were, of great relief—a revival of good spirits—a cherishing of rational hope—associated with dreams of domestic comfort, reasonable indulgence, sympathy, and common justice.
