Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush (26 page)

“‘That is not very likely, Captain Kinnaird. At any rate, it would be a satisfaction to me if you would come and look at it.’

“‘I’m in too great a hurry. Put on the old one.’

“I still held the door in my hand. ‘It’s only a step from here to the harness-house.’

“He rose reluctantly, and followed me into the kitchen. The harness-house formed part of a lean-to off the kitchen, and you went down two steps into it. He went on before me, and as he descended the steps, I clutched the gun I had left behind the door, took my aim between his shoulders, and shot him through the heart. He staggered forward and fell, exclaiming as he did so, ‘O God, I am shot!’

“In a few minutes he was lying in the cellar, beside our other victim. Very little blood flowed from the wound; he bled internally. He had on a very fine shirt; and after rifling his person, and possessing myself of his pocket-book, I took off his shirt, and put on the one I had bought of the pedlar.”

“Then,” cried Mr. Mac—ie, to whom this confession was made, “that was how the pedlar was supposed to have had a hand in the murder. That circumstance confused the evidence, and nearly saved your life.”

“It was just as I have told you,” said Macdermot.

“And tell me, Macdermot, the reason of another circumstance that puzzled the whole court. How came that magazine, which was found in the housekeeper’s bed saturated with blood, in that place, and so far from the spot where the murder was committed?”

“That, too, is easily explained, though it was such a riddle to you gentlemen of the law. When the captain came out to look at the saddle, he had the book open in his hand. When he was shot, he clapped the book to his breast with both his hands. Almost all the blood that flowed from it was caught in that book. It required some force on my part to take it from his grasp after he was dead. Not knowing what to do with it, I flung it into the housekeeper’s bed. While I harnessed the riding-horse into his new buggy, Grace collected all the valuables in the house. You know, Sir, that we got safe on board the steamer at Toronto; but, owing to an unfortunate delay, we were apprehended, sent to jail, and condemned to die.

“Grace, you tell me, has been reprieved, and her sentence commuted into confinement in the Penitentiary for life. This seems very unjust to me, for she is certainly more criminal than I am. If she had not instigated me to commit the murder, it
never would have been done. But the priest tells me that I shall not be hung, and not to make myself uneasy on that score.”

“Macdermot,” said Mr. Mac—ie, “it is useless to flatter you with false hopes. You will suffer the execution of your sentence to-morrow, at eight o’clock, in front of the jail. I have seen the order sent by the governor to the sheriff, and that was my reason for visiting you to-night. I was not satisfied in my own mind of your guilt. What you have told me has greatly relieved my mind; and I must add, if ever man deserved his sentence, you do yours.”

“When this unhappy man was really convinced that I was in earnest – that he must pay with his life the penalty of his crime,” continued Mr. Mac—ie, “his abject cowardice and the mental agonies he endured were too terrible to witness. He dashed himself on the floor of his cell, and shrieked and raved like a maniac, declaring that he could not, and would not die; that the law had no right to murder a man’s soul as well as his body, by giving him no time for repentance; that if he was hung like a dog, Grace Marks, in justice, ought to share his fate. Finding that all I could say to him had no effect in producing a better frame of mind, I called in the chaplain, and left the sinner to his fate.

“A few months ago I visited the Penitentiary; and as my pleading had been the means of saving Grace from the same doom, I naturally felt interested in her present state. I was permitted to see and speak to her and Mrs. M—. I never shall forget the painful feelings I experienced during this interview. She had been five years in the Penitentiary, but still retained a remarkably youthful appearance. The sullen assurance that had formerly marked her countenance, had given place to a sad and humbled expression. She had lost much of her former good looks, and seldom raised her eyes from the ground.

“‘Well, Grace,’ I said, ‘how is it with you now?’

“‘Bad enough, Sir,’ she answered, with a sigh; ‘I ought to feel grateful to you for all the trouble you took on my account. I thought you my friend then, but you were the worst enemy I ever had in my life.’

“‘How is that, Grace?’

“‘Oh, Sir, it would have been better for me to have died with Macdermot than to have suffered for years, as I have done, the torments of the damned. Oh, Sir, my misery is too great for words to describe! I would gladly submit to the most painful death, if I thought that it would put an end to the pangs I daily endure. But though I have repented of my wickedness with bitter tears, it has pleased God that I should never again know a moment’s peace. Since I helped Macdermot to strangle Hannah Montgomery, her terrible face and those horrible bloodshot eyes have never left me for a moment. They glare upon me by night and day, and when I close my eyes in despair, I see them looking into my soul – it is impossible to shut them out. If I am at work, in a few minutes that dreadful head is in my lap. If I look up to get rid of it, I see it in the far corner of the room. At dinner, it is in my plate, or grinning between the persons who sit opposite to me at table. Every object that meets my sight takes the same dreadful form; and at night – at night in the silence and loneliness of my cell, those blazing eyes make my prison as light as day. No, not as day – they have a terribly hot glare, that has not the appearance of anything in this world. And when I sleep, that face just hovers above my own, its eyes just opposite to mine; so that when I awake with a shriek of agony, I find them there. Oh! this is hell, Sir – these are the torments of the damned! Were I in that fiery place, my punishment could not be greater than this.’

“The poor creature turned away, and I left her, for who could say a word of comfort to such grief? it was a matter solely between her own conscience and God.”

Having heard this terrible narrative, I was very anxious to behold this unhappy victim of remorse. She passed me on the stairs as I proceeded to the part of the building where the women were kept; but on perceiving a stranger, she turned her head away, so that I could not get a glimpse of her face.

Having made known my wishes to the matron, she very kindly called her in to perform some trifling duty in the ward, so that I might have an opportunity of seeing her. She is a middle-sized woman, with a slight graceful figure. There is an air of hopeless melancholy in her face which is very painful to contemplate. Her complexion is fair, and must, before the touch of hopeless sorrow paled it, have been very brilliant. Her eyes are a bright blue, her hair auburn, and her face would be rather handsome were it not for the long curved chin, which gives, as it always does to most persons who have this facial defect, a cunning, cruel expression.

Grace Marks glances at you with a sidelong stealthy look; her eye never meets yours, and after a furtive regard, it invariably bends its gaze upon the ground. She looks like a person rather above her humble station, and her conduct during her stay in the Penitentiary was so unexceptionable, that a petition was signed by all the influential gentlemen in Kingston, which released her from her long imprisonment. She entered the service of the governor of the Penitentiary, but the fearful hauntings of her brain have terminated in madness. She is now in the asylum at Toronto; and as I mean to visit it when there, I may chance to see this remarkable criminal again. Let us hope that all her previous guilt may be attributed to the incipient workings of this frightful malady.

W
e left Kingston at three o’clock,
P.M
., in the “Passport,” for Toronto. From her commander, Captain Towhy, a fine British heart of oak, we received the kindest attention; his intelligent conversation, and interesting descriptions of the many lands he had visited during a long acquaintance with the sea, greatly lightening the tedium of the voyage.

When once fairly afloat on the broad blue inland sea of Ontario, you soon lose sight of the shores, and could imagine yourself sailing on a calm day on the wide ocean. There is something, however, wanting to complete the deception, – the invigorating freshness – the peculiar smell of the salt water, that is so exhilarating, and which produces a sensation of freedom and power that is never experienced on these freshwater lakes. They want the depth, the fulness, the grandeur of the ocean, though the wide expanse of water and sky are, in all other respects, the same.

The boat seldom touches at any place before she reaches Cobourg, which is generally at night. We stopped a short time at the wharf to put passengers and freight on shore, and to receive fresh passengers and freight in return. The sight of this town, which I had not seen for many years, recalled forcibly to my mind a melancholy scene in which I chanced to be an actor. I will relate it here.

When we first arrived in Canada, in 1832, we remained for three weeks at an hotel in this town, though, at that period, it was a place of much less importance than it is at present, deserving little more than the name of a pretty rising village, pleasantly situated on the shores of Lake Ontario. The rapid improvement of the country has converted Cobourg into a thriving, populous town, and it has trebled its population during the lapse of twenty years. A residence in a house of public entertainment, to those who have been accustomed to the quiet and retirement of a country life, is always unpleasant, and to strangers as we were, in a foreign land, it was doubly repugnant to our feelings. In spite of all my wise resolutions not to give way to despondency, but to battle bravely against the change in my circumstances, I found myself daily yielding up my whole heart and soul to that worst of all maladies, home sickness.

It was during these hours of loneliness and dejection, while my husband was absent examining farms in the neighbourhood, that I had the good fortune to form an acquaintance with Mrs. C—, a Canadian lady, who boarded with her husband in the same hotel. My new friend was a young woman agreeable in person, and perfectly unaffected in her manners, which were remarkably frank and kind. Hers was the first friendly face I had seen in the colony, and it will ever be remembered by me with affection and respect.

One afternoon while alone in my chamber, getting my baby, a little girl of six months old, to sleep, and thinking many sad thoughts, and shedding some bitter tears for the loss of the dear country and friends I had left for ever, a slight tap at the door roused me from my painful reveries, and Mrs. C—entered the room. Like most of the Canadian women, my friend was small of stature, slight and delicately formed, and dressed with the smartness and neatness so characteristic of the females of this continent, who, if they lack some of the accomplishments of English women, far surpass them in their taste in dress, their choice of colours, and the graceful and becoming manner in which they wear their clothes. If my young friend had a weakness, it was on this point; but as her husband was engaged in a lucrative mercantile business, and they had no family, it was certainly excusable. At this moment her pretty neat little figure was a welcome and interesting object to the home-sick emigrant.

“What! always in tears,” said she, carefully closing the door. “What pleasure it would give me to see you more cheerful! This constant repining will never do.”

“The sight of you has made me feel better already,” said I, wiping my eyes, and trying to force a smile. “M—is away on a farm-hunting expedition, and I have been alone all day.
Can you wonder, then, that I am so depressed? Memory is my worst companion; for by constantly recalling scenes of past happiness, she renders me discontented with the present, and hopeless of the future, and it will require all your kind sympathy to reconcile me to Canada.”