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The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine by William Carleton

W >> William Carleton >> The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine




When asked why he did not communicate an account of what he had seen to
some one in the neighborhood before he went, he replied, that "at that
hour the whole country was in bed, and when a man is flying for his
life, he is not very anxious to hould conversations with any body."

On the cross-examination he said, that the reason why he let the matter
rest until now was, that he did not wish to be the means of bringin'
a fellow-creature to an untimely death, especially such a man as the
prisoner, nor to be the means of drawing down disgrace upon his decent
and respectable family. His conscience, however, always kept him uneasy,
and to tell the truth, he had neither peace nor rest for many a long
year, in consequence of concealing his knowledge of the murder, and he
now came forward to free his own mind from what he had suffered by it.
He wished both parties well, and he hoped no one would blame him for
what he was doing, for, indeed, of late, he could not rest in his bed
at night. Many a time the murdhered man appeared to him, and threatened
him, he thought for not disclosing what he knew.

At this moment, there was a slight bustle at that side of the court
where the counsel for the defense sat, which, after a little time,
subsided, and the evidence was about to close, when the latter
gentleman, after having closely cross-examined him to very little
purpose, said:

"So you tell us, that in consequence of your very tender conscience, you
have not, of late, been able to rest in your bed at night?"

"I do."

"And you say the murdered man appeared to you and threatened you?"

"I do."

"Which of them?"

"Peter Magennis--what am I sayin'? I mean Bartle Sullivan."

"Gentlemen of the jury, you will please take down the name of Peter
Magennis--will your lordship also take a note of that? Well," he
proceeded, "will you tell us what kind of a man this Bartle or
Bartholomew Sullivan was?"

"He was a very remarkable man in appearance; very stout, with a long
face, a slight scar on his chin, and a cast in his eye."

"Do you remember which of them?"

"Indeed I don't, an' it wouldn't be raison able that I should, afther
sich a distance of time."

"And, you saw that man murdered?"

"I seen him dead, afther having been murdhered."

"Very right--I stand corrected. Well, you saw him buried?"

"I didn't see him buried, but I saw him dead, as I said, an' the grave
ready for him."

"Do you think now if he were to rise again from that grave, that you
would know him?"

"Well I'm sure I can't say. By all accounts the grave makes great
changes, but if it didn't change him very much entirely, it wouldn't be
hard to know him again--for, as I said, he was a remarkable man."

"Well, then, we shall give you an opportunity of refreshing your
memory--here," he said, addressing himself to some person behind him;
"come forward--get up on the table, and stand face to face with that
man."

The stranger advanced--pushed over to the corner of the table, and,
mounting it, stood, as he had been directed, confronting the Black
Prophet.

"Whether you seen me dead," said the stranger, "or whether you seen me
buried, is best known to yourself; all I can say is, that here I am--by
name Bartle Sullivan, alive an' well, thanks be to the Almighty for it!"

"What is this?" asked the judge, addressing Dalton's counsel; "who is
this man?"

"My lord," replied that gentleman, "this is the individual for the
murder of whom, upon the evidence of these two villains, the prisoner
at the bar stands charged. It is a conspiracy as singular as it is
diabolical; but one which, I trust, we shall clear up, by and by."

"I must confess, I do not see my way through it at present," returned
the judge; "did not the prisoner at the bar acknowledge his guilt?--had
you not some difficulty in getting him to plead not guilty? Are you
sure, Mr. O'Hagan, that this stranger is not a counterfeit?"

The reply of counsel could not now be heard--hundreds in the court
house, on hearing his name, and seeing him alive and well before them,
at once recognized his person, and testified their recognition by the
usual manifestations of wonder, satisfaction and delight. The murmur,
in fact, gradually gained strength, and deepened until it fairly burst
forth in one loud and astounding cheer, and it was not, as usual, until
the judge had threatened to commit the first person who should again
disturb the court, that it subsided. There were two persons present,
however, to whom we must direct the special attention of our readers--we
mean Condy Dalton and the Prophet, on both of whom Sullivan's unexpected
appearance produced very opposite effects. When old Dalton first noticed
the strange man getting upon the table, the appearance of Sullivan,
associated, as it had been, by the language of his counsel, with some
vague notion of his resurrection from the grave, filled his mind with
such a morbid and uncertain feeling of everything about him that he
began to imagine himself in a dream, and that his reason must
soon awaken to the terrible reality of his situation. A dimness of
perception, in fact, came ever all his faculties, and for some minutes
he could not understand the nature of the proceedings around him. The
reaction was too sudden for a mind that had been broken down so long,
and harrassed so painfully, by impressions of remorse and guilt. The
consequence was, that he had forgot, for a time, the nature of his
situation--all appeared unintelligible confusion about him,--he could
see a multitude of faces, and the people, all agitated by some great
cause of commotion, and that was, then, all he could understand about
it.

"What is this," said he to himself;--"am I on my trial?--or is it
some dhrame that I'm dhramin' at home in my own poor place among my
heart-broken family?"

A little time, however, soon undeceived him, and awoke his honest heart
to a true perception of his happiness.

"My lord," said the strange man, in reply to the judge's last
observation, "I am no counterfeit--an' I thank my good an' gracious God
that I have been able to come in time to save this worthy and honest
man's life. Condy Dalton," said he, "I can explain all; but in the
mane time let me shake hands wid you, and ax your pardon for the bad
tratement and provocation I gave you on that unlucky day--well may I say
so, so far as you are concerned--for, as I hear, an' as I see, indeed,
it has caused you and your family bitter trouble and sorrow."

"Bartle Sullivan! Merciful Father, is this all right? is it real? No
dhrame, then! an' I have my ould friend by the hand--let me see--let
me feel you!--it is--it's truth--but, there now--I don't care who sees
me--I must offer one short prayer of thanksgivin' to my marciful God,
who has released me from the snares of my enemies, an' taken this great
weight off o' my heart!" As he-spoke, he elapsed his hands, looked up
with an expression of deep and heartfelt gratitude to heaven, then knelt
down in a corner of the dock, and returned thanks to God.

The Prophet, on beholding the man, stood more in surprise than
astonishment, and seemed evidently filled more with mortification rather
than wonder. He looked around the court with great calmness, and then
fastening his eyes upon Sullivan, studied, or I appeared to study, his
features for a considerable time. A shadow so dark or we should rather
say, so fearfully black settled upon his countenance, that it gave him
an almost supernatural aspect; it looked in fact, as if the gloom of his
fate had fallen upon him in the midst of his plans and iniquities. He
seemed, for a moment, to feel this himself; for while the confusion and
murmurs were spreading through the court, he muttered to himself--

"I am doomed; I did this, as if something drove me to it; however, if I
could only be sure that the cursed box was really lost, I might laugh at
the world still."

He then looked around him with singular composure, and ultimately at
the judge, as if to ascertain whether he might depart or not. At this
moment, a pale, sickly-looking female, aided, or rather supported, by
the Pedlar and Hanlon, was in the act of approaching the place where
Dalton's attorney stood, as if to make some communication to him, when a
scream was heard, followed by the exclamation--

"Blessed Heaven! it's himself!--it's himself!"

Order and silence were immediately called by the crier, but the
Prophet's eyes had been already attracted to the woman, who was no other
than Hanlon's aunt, and for some time he looked at her with an apparent
sensation of absolute terror. Gradually, however, his usual indomitable
hardness of manner returned to him; he still kept his gaze fixed upon
her, as if to make certain that there could be no mistake, after which
his countenance assumed an expression of rage and malignity that no
language could describe; his teeth became absolutely locked, as if he
could have ground her between them, and his eyes literally blazed
with fury, that resembled that of a rabid beast of prey. The shock was
evidently more than the woman could bear, who, still supported by
the Pedlar and Planlon, withdrew in a state almost bordering on
insensibility.

A very brief space now determined the trial. Sullivan's brother and
several of the jurors themselves clearly established his identity,
and as a matter of course, Condy Dalton was instantly discharged. His
appearance in the street was hailed by the cheers and acclamations
of the people, who are in general delighted with the acquittal of
a fellow-creature, unless under circumstances of very atrocious
criminality.

"I suppose I may go down," said the Prophet,--"you have done with me?"

"Not exactly," replied Dalton's counsel.

"Let these two men be taken into custody," said the judge, "and let an
indictment for perjury be prepared against them, and sent to the grand
jury forthwith."

"My lord," proceeded the counsel, "we are, we think, in a capacity to
establish a much graver charge against M'Gowan--a charge of murder, my
lord, discovered, under circumstances little short of providential."

In short, not to trouble the reader with, the dry details of the courts,
after some discussion, it was arranged that two bills should be prepared
and sent up--one for perjury, and the other for the murder of a carman,
named Peter Magennis, almost at the very spot where it had, until then,
been supposed that poor Dalton had murdered Bartholomew Sullivan. The
consequence was, that Donnel, or Donald M'Gowan, the Black Prophet,
found himself in the very dock where Dalton had stood the preceding day.
His case, whether as regarded the perjury or the murder, was entitled to
no clemency, beyond that which the letter of the law strictly
allowed. The judge assigned him counsel, with whom he was permitted
to communicate; and he himself, probably supposing that his chance of
escape was then greater than if more time were allowed to procure and
arrange evidence against him, said he was ready and willing, without
further notice, to be brought to trial.

We beg to observe here, that we do not strictly confine ourselves to the
statements made during the trial, inasmuch as we deem it necessary
to mention circumstances to the reader, which the rules of legitimate
evidence would render inadmissable in a court of justice. We are not
reporting the case, and consequently hold ourselves warranted in
adding whatever may be necessary to making it perfectly clear, or in
withholding circumstances that did not bear upon our narrative. With
this proviso, we now proceed to detail the denouement.

The first evidence against him, was that of our female friend, whom we
have called the Widow Hanlon, but who, in fact, was no other than the
Prophet's wife, and sister to the man Magennis, whom he had murdered.
The Prophet's real name, she stated, was M'Ivor, but why he changed
it, she knew not. He had been a man, in the early part of his life, of
rather a kind and placid disposition, unless when highly provoked, and
then his resentments were terrible. He was all his life, however, the
slave of a dark and ever-wakeful jealousy, that destroyed his peace, and
rendered his life painful both to himself and others. It happened that
her brother, the murdered man, had prosecuted M'Ivor for taking forcible
possession of a house, for which he, M'Ivor, received twelve months'
imprisonment. It happened also about that time, that is, a little before
the murder, that he had become jealous of her and a neighbor, who had
paid his addresses to her before marriage. M'Ivor, at this period, acted
in the capacity of a plain Land Surveyor among the farmers and cottiers
of the barony, and had much reputation for his exactness and accuracy.
While in prison, he vowed deadly vengeance against her brother,
Magennis, and swore, that if ever she spoke to him, acknowledged him,
or received him into her house during his life, she should never live
another day under his roof.

In this state matters were, when her brother, having heard that her
husband was in a distant part of the barony, surveying, or subdividing
a farm, came to ask her to her sister's wedding, and while in the house,
the Prophet, most unexpectedly, was discovered, within a few perches
of the door, on his return. Terror, on her part, from a dread of his
violence, and also an apprehension lest he and her brother should meet,
and, perhaps, seriously injure each other, even to bloodshed, caused her
to hurry the latter into another room, with instructions to get out of
the window as quietly as possible, and to go home. Unfortunately he did
so, but had scarcely escaped, when a poor mendicant woman, coming in
to ask alms, exclaimed--"Take care, good people, that you have not been
robbed--I saw a man comin' out of the windy, and runnin' over toward
Jemmy Campel's house"--Campel being the name of the young man of whom
her husband was jealous.

M'Ivor, now furious, ran towards Campel's, and meeting that person's
servant-maid at the door, asked "if her master was at home."

She replied, "Yes, he just came in this minute."

"What direction did he come from?"

"From the direction of your own house," she answered.

It should be stated, however, that his wife, at once recollecting his
jealousy, told him immediately that the person who had left the house
was her brother; but he rushed on, and paid no attention whatsoever to
her words.

From this period forward he never lived with her, but she has heard
recently--no longer ago than last night--that he had associated himself
with a woman named Eleanor M'Guirk, about thirty miles farther west from
their original neighborhood, near a place called Glendhu, and it was at
that place her brother was murdered.

Neither her anxieties nor her troubles, however, ended here. When her
husband left her, he took a daughter, their only child, then almost an
infant, away with him, and contrived to circulate a report that he and
she had gone to America. After her return home, she followed her nephew
to this neighborhood, and that accounted for her presence there. So
well, indeed, did he manage this matter, that she received a very
contrite and affectionate letter, that had been sent, she thought, from
Boston, desiring her to follow himself and the child there. The deceit
was successful. Gratified at the prospect of joining them, she made
the due preparations, and set sail. It is unnecessary to say, that on
arriving at Boston she could get no tidings whatsoever of either the one
or the other; but as she had some relations in the place, she found them
out, and resided there until within a few months ago, when she set sail
for Ireland, where she arrived only a short time previous to the period
of the trial. She has often heard M'Ivor say that he would settle
accounts with her brother some fine night, but he usually added, "I will
take my time and kill two birds with one stone when I go about it," by
which she thought he meant robbing him, as well as murdering him, as her
brother was known mostly to have a good deal of money about him.

We now add here, although the fact was not brought out until a later
stage of the trial, that she proved the identity of the body found in
Glendhu, as being that of her brother, very clearly. His right leg had
been broken, and having been mismanaged, was a little crooked, which
occasioned him to have a slight halt in his walk. The top joint also of
the second toe, on the same foot had been snapped off by the tramp of a
horse, while her brother was a schoolboy--two circumstances which were
corroborated by the Coroner, and one or two of those who had examined
the body at the previous inquest, and which they could then attribute
only to injuries received during his rude interment, but which were now
perfectly intelligible and significant.

The next witness called was Bartholemew Sullivan, who deposed--

That about a month before his disappearance from the country, he was one
night coming home from a wake, and within half a mile of the Grey Stone
he met a person, evidently a carman, accompanying a horse and cart, who
bade him the time of night as he passed. He noticed that the man had a
slight halt as he walked, but could not remember his face, although the
night was by no means dark. On passing onwards, towards home, he met
another person walking after the carman, who, on seeing him (Sullivan)
hastily threw some weapon or other into the ditch. The hour was about
three o'clock in the night (morning,) and on looking close at the man,
for he seemed to follow the other in a stealthy way, he could only
observe that he had a very pale face, and heavy black eyebrows; indeed
he has little doubt but that the prisoner is the man, although he will
not actually swear it after such a length of time.

This was the evidence given by Bartholomew Sullivan.

The third witness produced was Theodosius M'Mahon, or, as he was better
known, Toddy Mack, the Pedlar, who deposed to the fact of having,
previously to his departure for Boston, given to Peter Magennis a
present of a steel tobacco-box as a keep-sake, and as the man did not
use tobacco, he said, on putting it into his pocket--

"This will do nicely to hould my money in, on my way home from Dublin."

Upon which Toddy Mack observed, laughingly--

"That if he put either silver or brass in it, half the country would
know it by the jingle."

"I'll take care of that, never fear," replied Magennis, "for I'll put
nothing in this, but the soft, comfortable notes."

He was asked if the box had any particular mark by which it might be
known?

"Yes, he had himself punched upon the lid of it the initials of the
person to whom he gave it--P. M., for Peter Magennis."

"Would you know the box if you saw it?"

"Certainly!"

"Is that it?" asked the prosecuting attorney, placing the box in his
hands.

"That is the same box I gave him, upon my oath. It's a good deal rusted
now, but there's the holes as I punched them; and by the same token,
there is the letter P., the very place yet where the two holes broke
into one, as I was punchin' it."

"Pray, how did the box come to turn up?" asked the judge:--"In whose
possession has it been ever since?"

"My lord, we have just come to that. Crier, call Eleanor M'Guirk."

The woman hitherto known as Nelly M'Gowan, and supposed to be the
Prophet's wife now made her appearance.

"Will you state to the gentlemen of the jury what you know about this
box?"

Our readers are partially aware of her evidence with respect to it. We
shall, however, briefly recapitulate her account of the circumstance.

"The first time she ever saw it," she said, "was the night the carman
was murdered, or that he disappeared, at any rate. She resided by
herself, in a little house at the mouth of the Glendhu--the same she and
the Prophet had lived in ever since. They had not long been acquainted
at that time--but still longer than was right or proper. She had
been very little in the country then, and any time he did come was
principally at night, when he stopped with her, and went away again,
generally before day in the morning. He passed himself on her as an
unmarried man, and said his name was M'Gowan. On that evening he came
about dusk, but went out again, and she did not see him till far in the
night, when he returned, and appeared to be fatigued and agitated--his
clothes, too, were soiled and crumpled, especially the collar of his
shirt, which was nearly torn off, as in a struggle of some kind. She
asked him what was the matter with him, and said he looked as if he had
been fighting." He replied--

"No, Nelly; but I've killed two birds with one stone this night."

She asked him what he meant by those words, but he would give her no
further information.

"I'll give no explanation," said he, "but this;" and turning his back
to her, he opened a tobacco-box, which, by stretching her neck, she saw
distinctly, and, taking out a roll of bank notes, he separated one from
the rest, and handing it to her, exclaimed--"there's all the explanation
you can want; a close mouth, Nelly, is the sign of a wise-head, an' by
keepin' a close mouth, you'll get more explanations of this kind. Do you
understand that?" said he. "I do," she replied.

"Very well, then," he observed "let that be the law and gospel between
us."

When he fell asleep, she got up, and looking at the box, saw that it
was stuffed with bank notes, had a broken hinge--the hinge was freshly
broken--and something like two letters on the lid of it.

"She then did not see it," she continued, "until some weeks ago, when
his daughter and herself having had a quarrel, in which the girl cut
her--she (his daughter) on stretching up for some cobwebs on the wall
to stanch the bleeding, accidentally pulled the box out of a crevice, in
which it had been hid. About this time," she added, "the prisoner became
very restless at night, indeed, she might say by day and night, and
after a good deal of gloomy ill temper, he made inquiries for it, and on
hearing that it had again appeared, even threatened her life if it were
not produced." She closed her evidence by stating that she had secreted
it, but could tell nothing of its ultimate and mysterious disappearance.

Hanlon's part in tracing the murder is already known, we presume, to the
reader. He dreamt, but his dream was not permitted to go to the jury,
that his father came to him, and said, that if he repaired to the Grey
Stone, at Glendhu, on a night which he named, at the hour of twelve
o'clock, he would get such a clue to his murder as would enable him to
bring his murderer to justice.

"Are you the son, then, of the man who is said to have been murdered?"
asked the judge.

"He was his son," he replied, "and came first to that part of the
country in consequence of having been engaged in a Party fight in his
native place. It seems a warrant had been issued against him and others,
and he thought it more prudent to take his mother's name, which was
Hanlon, in order to avoid discovery, the case being a very common one
under circumstances of that kind."

Rody Duncan's explanation, with respect to the Tobacco-Box, was not
called for on the trial, but we shall give it here in order to satisfy
the reader. He saw Nelly M'Gowan, as we may still call her, thrusting
something under the thatch of the cabin, and feeling a kind of curiosity
to ascertain what it could be, he seized the first opportunity of
examining, and finding a tobacco-box, he put it in his pocket, and
thought himself extremely fortunate in securing it, for reasons which
the reader will immediately understand. The truth is, that Rody,
together with about half a dozen virtuous youths in the neighborhood,
were in the habit of being out pretty frequently at night--for
what purposes we will not now wait to inquire. Their usual place
of rendezvous was the Grey Stone, in consequence of the shelter and
concealment which its immense projections afforded them. On the night
of the first meeting between Sarah and Hanlon, Rody had heard the whole
conversation by accident, whilst waiting for his companions, and very
judiciously furnished the groans, as he did also upon the second night,
on both occasions for his own amusement. His motives for ingratiating
himself through means of the box, with Sarah and Hanlon, are already
known to the reader, and require no further explanation from us.

In fact, such a train of circumstantial evidence was produced, as
completely established the Prophet's guilt, in the opinion of all who
had heard the trial, and the result was a verdict of guilty by the jury,
and a sentence of death by the judge.

"Your case," said the judge, as he was about to pronounce sentence, "is
another proof of the certainty with which Providence never, so to speak,
loses sight of the man who deliberately sheds his fellow creature's
blood. It is an additional and striking instance too, of the retributive
spirit with which it converts all the most cautious disguises of guilt,
no matter how ingeniously assumed, into the very manifestations by which
its enormity is discovered and punished."

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