droop above, and the low undertone of the bright waves which glide not far from their old haunts. These men are no longer figures of bronze and marble set in the far horizon of the past, and scarcely recognized as men who actually lived; they descend from their pedestals, they touch your hand with a pressure warm like your own, and you can feel the beating of hearts human like your own. All this do these old localities enable us to see and understand. Lee wanders here as of old, surrounded by his dogs, and sneers at Washington while he speaks of his own prowess, which made Frederick and Stanislaus his friends; Gates sits on his porch with drooping head, and dreams of Saratoga and of Camden; Stephen assembles his wild comrades round his great fire-place, and shakes the rafters with his revelry, or, stretched upon his old camp couch within hearing of the waves of the Opequan, thinks of all his battles; and Darke is telling of his wars in the wilderness, or starting up, with frowning brows and threatening sword, to show Mr. Blinko, painter of historical pieces, how he slew the Indian or the Englishman! It is scarcely time thrown away to visit these old haunts, and listen to the neighborhood traditions; for these men, and all that concerns them, belong to history. Invention has certainly had nothing to do with any thing herein stated; and we leave the reader to form his own opinion upon the significance or insignificance of the subject and the matter. [Since the above was written I have met with the following brief notice of General Darke, from the pen of a local chronicler, in the Charlestown Free Press. It contains some additional facts, and a pleasing incident, very characteristic of the brave soldier: "WILLIAM DARKE-His name belongs to the Biography of American Heroes; nor is it unknown in the early statesmanship of Virginia. General Darke was in the State Convention of 1788, and voted for the Federal Constitution. He was badly wounded at St. Clair's defeat; and his son, Captain Joseph Darke, was slain. He served previously in the Revolution, and suffered long as a prisoner. There is a tradition that, on his return from confinement, he stopped at a tavern where a bird was encaged. He bought it from the landlady for one dollar, and immediately threw it up, telling it to go free, as he knew the life of a prison. He was one of the Rangers of 1755 (then nineteen years old), serving under Washington, in Braddock's ill-managed march toward Fort Duquesne. He was born in Pennsylvania, but came to this neighborhood when six years old, in 1741, with kis father. The splendid estate where he was reared, and where he reared his family, was on Elk Branch, Duffield's Dépôt being included in it."] THE IDENTIFICATION: A NARRATIVE OF FACTS, BY A CONSTABULARY OFFICER. JOVEMBER the 15th, 18, I received a report from Constable Hanly, of Ballytoher station, to the effect, that the house of a respectable widow, named Murphy, had been attacked on the previous night, and broken into by a party, two of whom were armed with pistols. The house had been robbed of a considerable sum of money, and the widow and her daughter severely beaten. The old woman had been treated in a barbarous manner. I lost not a moment in hastening to "visit the scene." Mrs. Murphy was the widow of a man named Michael Murphy, who had been for several years a tenant to Colonel N———, of — He held by lease about twenty acres of land at a fair rent. When he died he left behind him the widow, a son about twenty years of age, and a daughter, not then eighteen, together with a small amount which he had hoarded. No person was within at the time when the outrage was committed, except the widow, her daughter, and a servant girl. Her son, James Murphy, had gone to a distant fair to sell calves, and had not returned. On my arrival at the house, about half past eight o'clock in the morning, I found the state of the poor widow to be very alarming. I cleared the house, and examined the daughter, who, after hesitation and weeping, stated that she knew one of the men, and he the principal. This was a young man named Thomas Courtney, of Cloongoon, and she could not be mistaken, as she had known him for years. She had taxed him with it to his face when he was beating her mother, and told him she would hang him for the murder. The servant girl corroborated this as to Thomas Courtney; but neither of them knew the other persons who had attacked the house. Courtney happened to be a young man of the most unexceptionable character in the neighborhood. I proceeded to the house of Courtney's father, accompanied by two policemen. It was a mile from the widow's; and on going in we found Thomas Courtney at breakfast with his father and mother, and a younger brother. They all stood up, and although there was evident surprise in their manner, there was nothing to indicate guilt or even confusion in Tom's appearance. "Welcome, your honor, welcome!" said father and son, almost in a breath. "Sit down, your honors, and take an air of the fire; you're out early, and the mornin' is damp." "No, thank you, Courtney," said I. "The fact is, I have called upon business." "Upon business, your honor; why, then, is there any thing the matter? Or is there any thing Tom or I can do for you?" There was a freedom from any alarm in all this which it was painful to be obliged to dissipate. I asked Thomas where he had been all night? He said, at home; and father and mother, both getting uneasy, declared they could swear he had. His brother Billy, who slept in the bed with him, said the same. I then told Courtney that he was my prisoner, charged with a serious offense, and I requested him not to say any thing. He would be brought before the magistrate, and it was better for the present that he should be silent. "Silent!" he cried, dashing the chair upon which he had been sitting against the ground; "silent! I care not who hears what I say. I stand at the world's defiance; there's no person so black as can injure me: and even if I had not my father and my mother, and my brother Billy there to clear me, I have enough within my breast to tell me that I can defy the world. I shall be ready in one minute, Sir," he added, in a calmer tone; and, going to an inner room, he returned almost immediately, with his great coat and hat on. It were needless to pursue the scene which took place when the actual fact of his being about to be marched off forced itself upon his father and mother. There was all that clapping of hands and screaming upon the part of the mother, with silent and sullen preparation by the father to accompany him, interrupted with exclamations of "Whist, I tell you-will you hold your tongue, you fool!" addressed to his wife, which are usual on such occasions. Before leaving the house, I made search for young Courtney's clothes and shoes, for the night had been very wet; but I found them dry and unsoiled. I then brought Tom Courtney away with me. He made light of any thing which could be brought against him; said he was certain, when he was brought face to face with his accusers, he could defy them, and seemed confident of being permitted to return with his father; told his mother not to fret, that he'd be back in a couple of hours, and to keep up her heart; but as we started she threw herself, in a state of distraction, upon the stone bench in front of the house, rocking to and fro, with a short of shivering moan, which it was piteous to hear, dying away in the wind as we got farther from the door. thinking, although he left my poor Jemmy an orphan, and my little girl without a mother; I'd rather say nothing at all about it; I forgive him; oh! let me die with the comfort of forgiveness upon my heart. He must have been mad, for he wasn't drunk; but I'll not swear against him. I'm on my death-bed, and I'll take no oath at all. Oh, Tom, Tom, I forgive you! and may the Lord forgive you as I do this day!" The magistrate told her she would be required merely to tell the truth before God. He considered she was bound in conscience to do so. "Oh, I know that, Sir," she replied; "and sure you can have the truth from enough without asking it from a dyin' woman; there is Kitty herself, and there's Winny Cox, didn't they both see him better than I did, and didn't they both tax him to his face? And sure he never spoke a word, for he couldn't deny it. Oh, Tom, Tom-Thomas Courtney, may the Lord forgive you this day! 'twas surely you and your party that murdered me. Oh, Tom, Tom, avic machree! wouldn't I give her to you an' welcome before any boy in the parish, if she was for you? and didn't I often tell you, asthore, to wait, and that maybe she'd come round! Oh, Tom, Tom, if I wanted help isn't it to yourself I'd send? and to think that it was you, Tom, that came and murdered me and robbed me, and that it's on you I must lay my death at last! Oh, Tom, I wonder will the Lord forgive you, if I do this day." Here she lay back, exhausted. The magistrate, who had written all that was necessary of what she had said, and put it into proper form (I had written down every word precisely as she had uttered it: all through this narrative of actual occurrences I copy from my continued steadfastly to affirm that Courtney had been the leader in the attack. November 19th, Constable Hanly arrived at my station early, with an account that the Widow Murphy died during the night. "Well, Hanly," said I, "what is this you have to tell me now?" On my arrival at the police-barrack with Courtney, I learned that the Widow Murphy was in a poor state. The doctor feared there was a fracture of the skull. She was also se-note-book), then read it over to her, and she riously injured by burning. Within the last half hour she had in some degree revived, and recognized her daughter. I then sent Catherine Murphy and Winefred Cox (the servant girl who had been in the house at the time of the attack) to my own head station, where I soon after brought the prisoner. I had sent a policeman across the fields to the magistrate, with a few lines in pencil, to request that he would come over as soon as possible, as I feared there had been murder done during the night; and I had not long to wait his arrival. He received the informations of the daughter and the servant girl, both of whom swore in the most distinct manner against Thomas Courtney as the principal, and he was fully committed for trial. The same day James Murphy, having returned from a fair, came to me, and detailed a conversation he had with Tom Courtney two days before the fair; of which more anon. spectable man in every sense. He had realized | tongue, as a clever boy ought, and takin' the larnin' from thim that was able to give it, it's what he was always intherruptin' him, startin' him questions, and meanderin' about books that he wasn't within a year and a half of." a few hundred pounds, which lay to his credit in the Branch Bank of Ireland. He was a favorite with the gentry, who used to shake hands with him at the fairs, and ask his opinion about stock. Thomas was his eldest son. Tom was It was decided that Tom should enter the sent when a mere lad to a neighboring school, Church, and he spent three years at Maynooth. where he soon exhibited great parts; and ere It was before the end of the third year that three years had been accomplished, was fit to Courtney unexpectedly appeared at home, hav"blind the master" in the classics. He would ing nothing whatever of a clerical appearance argue with him, and discoorse him for a whole about him, and unhesitatingly declared "that hour with an ingenuity that baffled, and an elo- he never would go back to Maynooth, as he had quence that astonished poor M'Sweeny-such given up all idea of ever going into the ministry was the master's name - while the younger-at least into-;" and here he stopped short, scholars sat, with their mouths open and their and would give no reason for any thing he either "Universles" on their knees, whispering and had done or intended to do. nudging in wonder and delight, to see the master scratching his head with his left hand, while every moment he drew the thumb of his right across the tip of his tongue, and with a rapidity that almost eluded the quickest eye (and Tom's eye was quick) turned the leaves over and over, backward and forward, quoting a line here and there, as much as to say, Why, thin, you young jackanapes you, there isn't a line of it, from cover to cover (the book had none), that I hadn't at my fingers' ends before you were born. 'Tityre tu patulæ recubans'-och, bother (another turn or two)—'O, Formose puer nimium ne crede colori'-bah! can you translate that, Misther Courtney, eh?" On After this interview it began to be pretty generally reported through the parish that young Courtney had turned Protestant-a circumstance which, as he had not been at mass since his return, was also pretty generally believed. the other hand, however, he had not been at church; but this was an extreme step, which, perhaps, he was not prepared to brave, if his views were even so decided or confirmed as to have prompted it. Tom Courtney was tall. His glossy, dark hair grew in rich curls backward from a broad and manly forehead, and contrasted with the marble whiteness of a long neck, which Byron might have envied. His eyes shone with a dark "You're out there, at all events, Mr. Mac, but soft brilliancy, which prevented you from befor I never had a bit." "Well, you're as consated as if you had. Stan' up there, three syllables, will you?" and thus would half an hour's sparring take place between M'Sweeny and his pupil. own age. His ing able to ascertain their precise color. His nose was straight and perfectly formed. checks were pale-very pale-except at times when exercise or the excitement of debate or argument tinged them with a bloom which, for a moment, you thought rendered him handsomer than usual; but, when it was gone, you thought you were wrong, and that the pale cheek became him most. In disposition Tom Courtney had hitherto been considered a most amiable and benevolent young man, and his character for every thing that was correct and good had been proverbial. Matters lay in abeyance for three months. It was now the middle of February; the assizes drew near, nothing new had turned up, and Philip Moran had not been heard of a very damaging fact for poor Tom Courtney's case. About this time, too-for Tommy was now past sixteen (and it is extraordinary how early the Irish youngsters take a notion)-Tom Courtney fell in love with Catherine Murphy, the daughter of the Widow Murphy, of Cortheen; she was a beautiful girl, somewhat about his But if my remark about the youngsters falling in love thus early be applicable to the boys, believe me, it is no less true as regards the girls in Ireland—and, early as Tommy was in the field, he was not in time, for there was one before him; and Catherine refused to hear a word from him, point-blank, though without telling him why. But he soon found out; and March 2d.-Hanly had found Philip Moran as he shortly afterward changed the scene and at Carrickfergus, where he had fled to a friend's manner of his life, and perhaps many of the house. I brought him before the magistrate feelings with which his boyish days were asso- with the view of having his informations taken. ciated, he thought but seldom of Catherine He refused, however, to be sworn, maintaining Murphy. Tom continued, however, to go to an unbroken silence. The magistrate explainM'Sweeny's school for another year, at the ended to him the position in which he was placed if of which he had learned more than M'Sweeny his evidence was against his nephew; but that, could teach, and "was quite all out and entire- at the same time, he had a duty to perform from ly"-to use the pedagogue's own words-be- which he should not shrink: but Moran only yant his ingenuity or comprehinsion to resolve.' compressed his lips the more closely, as if deMr. M'Sweeny, therefore, called one morning termined not to speak. The magistrate then on old Courtney, and told him "that he'd have told him if he continued to refuse he had no to send Masther Courtney to some other school, course left but to commit him to jail. His only for that he could get no good of him-that in reply was, "God's will be done, I do refuse." place of larnin' his lessons and houldin' his A committal was then made out, and Philip Moran lay that night not four cells distant from | his nephew in the county jail. March 7th.-It was now the evening before the assizes, at least the evening before the trials. The Crown Judge, Sir William Smith, had arrived, opened the commission, given his charge to the grand jury, and retired to his lodgings; the town was in a bustle; two sentries were measuring about dueling distance before the Judge's door. The sheriff's carriage was rolling up the street; police, with their packs, were arriving in small parties from the distant stations; and lodging-houses and eatinghouses were on the alert. Two of these police parties met from different directions at the head of the main street, when the following incident occurred: Constable Collert, with two men, plumped up against Constable Ferriss, with one man, at the corner of the street. "Halloa! boys," said Ferriss, "where do you put up? let us stop together; Martin Kavanagh recommended us to stop at Frank Hinnegan's -a quiet, decent house, and no resort of any one but respectable people; come along with us, you'll not get cheaper or better lodgings in the town; come along." "Ay," replied Collert, "so it is, but it's very far from the court and the parades; we're three to two against you, and come with us to Jemmy M'Coy's it's just as cheap and respectable a house as Hinnegan's, and not half so far from the parades. Hinnegan's, I know, is a clean, comfortable house, but it's an out-of-the-way place." "Did you ever stop in it ?" said Ferriss. "I did, one quarter sessions," said Collert; "and, indeed, a cheap, nice house it is; but I tell you, 'tis out of the way; so come away with us to M'Coy's; the County Inspector is very sharp as to time-he's always on parade himself: I vote for M'Coy's, 'tis quite close to our work, boys." "Toss up for choice," said a young sub who had not yet spoken, "and let us all abide by the winner." "Done!" said Ferriss, "though I am very unlucky." 66 loud, but which, in its beauty and distinctness, was heard by the farthest individual in the court, "Not guilty, so help me God, in this my great extremity ;" and he leaned forward, faintingly. Mr. B, the famous counsel, was assigned to the prisoner. The trial commenced with an able statement from the Counsel for the Crown. Catherine Murphy was the first witness. She stated, that on the 14th of November she was in her mother's house. Her brother, James, was absent at a fair; some time after midnight there was a loud knocking at the door; witness got up, and put on her clothes; was greatly frightened; her mother told her not to speak. Winny Cox slept on a loft over a small room that was off the far side of the kitchen; Winefred Cox got up also, while the knocking was going on, and just as she was coming down from the loft the door was smashed in upon the floor, and two men entered. They lit a candle at the fire; knew the man that blew the coal; knew him when the light of the coal was flaring on his face, as well as after the candle was lit; could not be mistaken, as she knew the prisoner from the time they were children, and her heart jumped up when she saw it was Tom Courtney. The men were armed with pistols; they came to the bedside where her mother lay; one of them seized her by the arm and made her sit up; on her oath, it was the prisoner, and "it's at his door I lay my mother's death.” There was here a sensation and murmur through the court; but after a few moments the examination was continued. "Witness knew the prisoner for many years; he was son to a neighbor; is positive that he is the man; the prisoner demanded where the money was; her mother denied that she had any money in the house; the prisoner then struck her with the end of the pistol; knew that her mother had a small box with some money in it; thinks about fourteen or fifteen pounds besides some silver, but did not know where she kept it; if she knew she would have told the prisoner at once to save her mother; told her mother, for God's sake, to tell him where it was, 'Agreed," said they all in a voice, and out and let their bad luck go with it; her mother recame a half-penny from Ferriss's pocket. "I'll cry," said Collert. plied, 'Never; Tom, you're the last man breathing I thought would do me an ill turn, and only "With all my heart," said Ferriss. Up it for you struck me, I'd think it was joking you went. "Head!" cried Collert. "You lost," said Ferriss, "it's legs; I won, for once in my life, boys; maybe there's luck in that Manx half-penny." They all then adjourned to Hinnegan's lodging-house. are, or through liquor, what I never saw on you yet.' They then dragged my mother out of the bed, and brought her into the kitchen, where they struck her again, but she would not tell; they drew out the rakings of the fire upon the hearth, and threw her down upon them; the prisoner held her under the arms, and the other March 9th.-Tom Courtney stood erect in the man pulled her legs from under her; witness front of the dock, and never took his eyes off the then roared murder, and seized the prisoner by clerk of the Crown while he was reading the in- the throat; called the prisoner by his name, and dictment. When he had ended with the usual said, "Tom Courtney, I'll hang you as high as question of "How say you, are you guilty or the castle for this night's work;' he gave witnot?" Courtney threw his eyes, as it would ap-ness a blow which staggered her over against pear, through the vaulted roof up into the very heaven, and replied, in a voice which was not the wall, and said, 'Give up the money before there's mischief done;' her mother was scream ing very loud. When they first threw her mother down upon the coals, Winny Cox jumped down off the loft and grappled with the second man; with Winny's help, and what witness could do after she got the blow, her mother struggled into the middle of the kitchen floor, and said, 'Give them the box, Kitty, it's in the little press at the head of the bed,' and she fainted off. They then departed, leaving her mother, as she thought, dead; saw the notes in the box when the prisoner opened it; there was also a purse in the box with some silver in it, which belonged to witness herself; would know it again if she saw it among a thousand-a good right she'd have 'twas the prisoner himself gave it to her, about four years ago; it was a leather purse, lined with silk, and there were letters upon it; witness gave it to her mother to keep for safety; did not know the second man that came into the house." This witness was cross-examined at much length by Mr. B—, principally as to her former intimacy with the prisoner, but nothing was elicited. Winefred Cox was next examined, and she corroborated every syllable that had been sworn to by the first witness in its most minute particulars: heard Catherine Murphy say, "Tom Courtney, I'll hang you for this night's work; it's often my mother nursed you, to murder her at last!" knew the prisoner for many years, and could not be mistaken. Philip Moran was then sent for to the witness room, and put upon the table; and here there was a very painful scene indeed-not a being in court whose heart did not beat. Moran never raised his eyes, never opened his lips; he moved not; he did not appear to breathe. The Clerk of the Crown held forth the book and told him to take it, but his arms seemed as though they were dead by his side. The Counsel for the Crown rose, and addressing his lordship, said, while I address a very few words to you," continued the Judge. Had he been made of marble he could not have been more immovable; death could not have been more still. I think the Judge thought he must have been in a fit of some kind, for he seemed perplexed, and I heard him ask, in an undertone, if the medical gentleman who had charge of the jail was in court, and directed him to be sent for. In the mean time he again addressed him by saying, 66 Witness, I am quite certain you must hear what I say; at least I shall take it for granted that you do: your present course can not avail you; the law must be vindicated; and however painful it may be to you, you must give your evidence; or, should you persist in refusing to do so, I shall have no course left but to commit you to prison, and that, let me add, indefinitely." Still not a word; not a move. Here the prisoner started up from the position he had all this time maintained, and called out, "Uncle Philip - Uncle Philip, won't you speak to me? You will; you must!" This seemed to act like magic on the witness, for he turned quickly round and gazed his nephew in the face as he continued, "Uncle Philip, take the book and give your evidence like a man; what are you afraid of? Think you not that your unwillingness to tell the truth must be construed into an unwillingness to injure me? May it not, nay, must it not, impress the jury and the public as clearly against me as any evidence which you can give? Uncle Philip, there is but one consideration which should tempt you to hold out in this manner, and that is, a consciousness of having been induced, through any influence, to be about to state that which is not the fact: if that be the case, you do well to pause; but no, it is an unworthy thought, and I ask your pardon; the love you have borne my mother and myself, and the whole course you have adopted in this melancholy business forbid the supposition." Here the prisoner was completely overcome, and again covering his face with his hands he writhed in the agony of distress-'twas the word mother that unmanned him. I have been for upward of thirty years in the habit of attending like places, and I never witnessed such a scene. "My lord, this is a most material witness, and however painful the position in which he stands toward the prisoner, and in which we stand in being obliged to bring him forwardfor I understand he is his uncle-the case is one of such magnitude in itself, and so peculiar as regards the unfortunate man in the dock, that we feel it imperative upon us to establish it by the mouths of many witnesses. The prisoner, I understand, has hitherto borne a most excellent character, and I am aware that such will be attested here this day by many most respectable persons; but this very fact, my lord, "Rouse yourself, Uncle Philip; take the book only makes it the more incumbent upon us to and give your evidence. I know you will swear fortify our case by all the evidence we can fair-nothing but what you believe to be the truth." ly bring to bear upon it, in order to satisfy, not only the jury, but the public, beyond the shadow of a doubt, as to the guilt of the prisoner." "I have no doubt he will give his evidence," said the Judge. "Witness, listen to me." Not a move; not a stir. "Witness, pray direct your eyes toward me, Presently the prisoner regained his self-possession, and "proudly he flung his clustering ringlets back," and continued, ""Tis a difficult thing, Tom," said his uncle, turning round, "and for all I have to say it isn't much." As he took the book I heard Tom Courtney say, "God help you, Uncle Philip! they might have spared you this, for they have enough." Philip Moran was then sworn and examined: kept a public house at Raheen; on the night |