CHAPTER X
On a lovely evening some thirty years ago there was a jolly wedding at the home of a young Irish girl in a Western city. Tom Evans, the groom, a big-hearted, jovial fellow, was deeply in love with the girl of his choice. He was earning good wages and he intended to take good care of his wife.
It was midnight, and the streets were flooded with brilliant moonlight when Evans started to take his bride from her home to his, accompanied on the way by Jim Maguire, Larry Flannigan, and Ned Foster, three of the wedding guests. They were not carriage folks and were walking to the street-car when Jim Maguire, who had not been averse to the exhilarating liquids in hospitable circulation at the wedding feast, became unduly hilarious and disported himself with song and dance along the sidewalk—a diversion in which the others took no part. This hilarity was summarily interrupted by a policeman, who attempted to arrest the young man for disorderly conduct, a proceeding vigorously resisted by Maguire.
This was the beginning of an affray in which the policeman was killed, and the whole party were arrested and taken into custody. As the policeman was well known, one of the most popular men on the force, naturally public indignation ran high and the feeling against his slayers was bitter and violent.
Tom Evans and Jim Maguire were held for murder, while Larry Flannigan, a boy of seventeen, and Ned Foster, as participants in the affair, were charged with manslaughter. The men were given fair trials—separate trials, I believe—in different courts, but it was impossible to get at the facts of the case, as there were no actual witnesses outside of those directly affected by the outcome; while each lawyer for the defence did his best to clear his own client from direct responsibility for the death of the policeman, regardless of the deserts of the others under accusation.
And so it came to pass that Jim Maguire and Tom Evans were "sent up" for life, while the bride of an hour returned to her father's house and in the course of time became the bride of another. Larry Flannigan was sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment. Ned Foster, having served a shorter sentence, was released previous to my acquaintance with the others.
Some five years later one of the prison officers interested in Jim Maguire asked me to interview the man. Maguire was a tall, muscular fellow, restive under confinement as a hound in leash; nervous, too, and with abounding vitality ready at a moment's notice again to break out in song and dance if only the chance were given. This very overcharge of high animal spirits, excited by the wedding festivities, was the starting-point of all the tragedy. No doubt, too, in his make-up there were corresponding elements of recklessness and defiance.
Our first interview was the beginning of an acquaintance resulting in an interchange of letters; but it was not until a year afterward that in a long conversation Maguire gave me an account of his part in the midnight street encounter. Admitting disorderly conduct and resistance against the officer, he claimed that it was resistance only and not a counter attack; stating that the struggle between the two continued until the officer had the upper hand and then continued beating him into subjection so vigorously that Maguire called for help and was rescued from the hands of the officer by "one of the other boys." He did not say which one nor further implicate any one.
"Ask the other boys," he said. "Larry didn't have anything to do with the killing, but he saw the whole thing. Get Larry to tell the story," he urged.