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.