A DESPERATE ENCOUNTER.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 121, 2 June 1870, Page 7

A DESPERATE ENCOUNTER.

(From " Trench's Realities of Irish Life.) The country at this time was very seriously disturbed. Several murders had been committed in that immediate vicinity bordering on the county Armagh ; and the people had become excited, and were in a very dangerous temper. I therefore carefully loaded a brace of double-barrelled pistols on which I could thoroughly depend ; and having determined to go to the man's .abode alone, but wholly unexpected, I took with me a tracing of the estate map to show me the way to his house, without the necessity of making any enquiries along the road. And mounting my horse, I started from Carrickmacross at ten o'clock in the morning, telling no one of my destination. McKey's residence was about seven miles from Camckmacross. I rode quickly to prevent the possibility of my intention being suspected or anticipated, and I arrived at the house of course wholly without notice. It had once been respectable, but had fallen much into decay. The hall door stood in the centre of the building, with a long narrow window on either side. I knocked at once, and after a short interval, a man dressed only in his shirt and trousers came to the narrow window and asked .vhat I wanted. " I want to get in," said I. " You can't get in here," he replied curtly, and with a clear determined voice. I at once suspected that this was the man I sought, and I asked him immediately, " Are you Joe McKey % " " And what if lam % " said he boldly. " Nothing," I replied, " but that I want to speak to you, and should be obliged if you would let me in." " Speak to me as you are — you can't get in here." " Do you know who I am?" I asked. " No," said he, " nor I don't care a rap." " I am Mr. Trench." "Oh!" returned he, "I beg your pardon, Sir — I did not know it was you ; but lam sorry to say I can't possibly let you m." It was something, I thought, to have made him change his tone — so I immediately changed mine. " I heard that you were a stout and daring fellow, and that you feared no man when alone. I want to speak to you, and I came alone, and I suppose you will let me in." He looked at me suspiciously for a few moments, cast an eye round to see if there was a bailiff concealed, seemed very undecided in his mind, but at length shook his head and said again, " I am sorry to refuse you, Sir, but I can't possibly let you in." I was annoyed ; and partly forgetting myself for a moment, I replied, "I believe you are bub a coward after all. I told you I was alone. I pledge you my word of honour no one is with me, or near me, nor knows that lam here. I came to speak to you and to see you entirely alone — are you afraid of one man ? " He did not hesitate now ; but going to the door, unbarred and unbolted it, and throwing it wide open with an air of offended dignity, he said, " " Walk in, Sir, walk in, if that's the way you talk — walk in and welcome ; you shall never say I hindered you ; " and he strode on before me into the kitchen or living-room, pushing that door also as wide as it could be opened. I gave my horse to. a boy to hold, who came out at the same moment, and I followed my conductor in. I felt very much as if I was walking into a lion's den ; but there was no help for it now, so. I determined to make the best of it. The room into which he led me presented rather a singular scene. The furniture was of the meanest class \ but sitting at the fire were two men— each between thirty and forty years of age — able, athletic fellows, and they did not seem to welcome me. They also were in their shirts and trousers, and , their eyes looked koniewhat bleared and inflamed; but they were all perfectly sober. They stood up as I entered, made a slight obesience, and remained quietly in their places. Near them was a young woman, neat in her dress, and very good.looking, though perhaps somewhat careworn, and apparently about twenty-three- years of age. She seemed frightened and uneasy, not at me — whom she scarcely noticed — but at McKey, off whom she never for a moment took her eyes. Her gaze was so intense upon him,, that I turned round from the others, whom I was going to address, and sitting down to show that I intended no personal violence, I faced McKey himself. A bright fire was burning, and the rays of the morning sun, which made their way through a narrow window, threw a light over his entire frame. It was not a common one. His hair and whiskers were black, and a dark stubble was on his chin and upper lip, as of a beard unshaven for a day or two. His neck was bai"e, and his shirt sleeves, were tucked up above his elbows, revealing an ai*m like a knotted rope. His trousers were fastened round his waist by a red handkerchief. He stood perfectly motionless, following me with his eyes ; his arms were folded, and he leaned somewhat back, with a half-sav-age half-sneering smile upon his face. His" frame was very muscular ; he stood about five feet eleven inches in height.

He was apparently in perfect health, but without one bit on him save hard sinew and muscle strung as tight as whipcord. Though I was by no means a weak man at the time, yet I felt I could be no match for such an antagonist in a personal struggle ; and as I looked at the man before, a model of activity and strength, with a daring and almost insolent look in the manner in which he threw back his head, I thought I had never seen a finer or a bolder figure. " You wish to speak to me, sir ? " " Yes," said I—"I — " but who are these men, and what are they doing here ? " '•"We were distilling poteen," returned one of the men — " would your honour like to taste some ? " "No, thank you," I replied; and drawing my chair near the fire, I began to chat. They were civil enough, but seemed perfectly unconcerned as to what I might think of their illegal proceedings. McKey stood apart ail the time, his arms still folded, and the young woman watching him intently. I suddenly addressed him. " And so, McKey, you are the terror of the country, and no one dares take you?" He made a quick and uneasy movement as I said this, and cast a rapid glace at the window. "No one has taken me," he rep'ied; "but you said you wanted to speak with me?" " Yes ; I wanted to ask you how you expect all this to end. You owe five years' rent ; you will pay nothing, and I hear you have sworn to shoot any one who attempts to arrest you." He went over quietly to a greatcoat which was hanging against the wall, and turning the coat upon the peg on ; which it hung, exposed the large brassmounted handle of a horse pistol pro- ! jecting out of the pocket. [ " Just so," said I ; no wonder they are afraid of you." " You have a pretty set of bailiffs to be afraid of that" returned he ; and he drew the pistol out, and I saw it had neither lock nor barrel ! " That's what I frighten them with," said he, as he replaced the pistol in the coat-pocket, and laughed heartily — his recollection seeming to recur to some ridiculous scene, which probably had passed The men laughed too, and so did I ; and for the first time also the young woman smiled, and seemed a little more at ease. " Oh, that's all very well," I re1 marked — rather put out of sorts, howI ever, as the laugh was decidedly against me — ' but you know well that you keep the whole country at bay — and no one dares take you." The laughter left his face now. " And why should they take me ? or — what I think worse of — why should they want to take my little place ? I , built the most of this house myself — look at the garden there," he coni tinued, as he flung open a back door. " I have planted every stick, and I have raised every stone ; and they hunt me now to give up my little place, and I will never give it up but with my life." He was much excited, and he breathed very quickly — not from speaking, but from anger. " Never mind, Joe dear," urged the young woman; "this gentleman doesn't want to take it ; no one does." McKey was quiet again. "Will you walk this way, Sir ? we had better speak on this matter alone," and without waiting for an answer he left the kitchen, went past the hall door, and entered a room at the other end of the house. He held the door open for me to follow. I did so ; and as I entered he gave the door a peculiar slam after him, which made me look at it attentively, and I saw that the handle which turned the lock was gone, and that when the door was shut, no one could [ open the lock without some square i instrument to turn it. Another glance thrown around the room showed roe that there was nothing in it but two 1 chairs and a small table, a bed, and ■ beside the bed a bill-hook — a most 1 formidable looking weapon — leaning ! against the wall. I took care to- place myself between him and the bill-hook, and we both sat down at the table. V That is your defender-," I remarked pointing to the bill-hook. " It is," he briefly replied. He then opened a 1 drawer and took [ from it a petition or statement which I he had drawn up himself, intending to send it to Lady Bath. This he read : with great emphasis and unction. It : was not badly drawn up ; but it could • only state his poverty, and the hard- ' ship of being required to leave his place because he was unable to pay for it. "I fear," said I, "that this will hardly induce Lady Rath to leave you I your land, unless you pay your rent — s you will never pay it by making illicit : whisky. I have come to ask you ; seriously what you are going to do, for you must know that things cannot go on with me as they did before." He rose up hastily, and stood op- '■ posite to me at the table — " I never saw you before, Sir, and I don't knovy > what brings you of all men here now, but I tell you plainly, 1 never will surrender ; I never will give up my little place. I have planted every stick — I have raised every stone." he: continued again, " and I never will be taken, or give up my place but with my life." He became so excited and' glanced so often at the window and so often at the bill-hook, that I rose

quickly too. His nerves seemed wrought into a most extraordinary state of tension, and he seemed gathering himself as if to spring at the billhook. I drew my pistols from my pocket, cocked them, and held one in either hand, my eye still fixed upon his. We stood opposite to e\ch other, the small table only between us. I knew that if once a personal struggle should commence with such a frame as that, I had no chance cf my life, and feeling now convinced that he had got me into that room to kill me, I was determined if he stirred to shoot him. But a far different suspicion was in his mind, yet urging him on equally to violence. He thought that I had collected the bailiffs or police outside — that I had deceived him — that I had got into his house to arrest him myself ; and he was determined either to take my life or lose his own, first. And there we stood, like two tigers, watching who would spring first. His eye met mine, but it did not quail in the le-ist jwand after watching one another for nearly holf a minute — during which time almost a quiver of his eye would have made me shoot him, so great was the tension of my own nerves — I slowly and gradually raised the pistol — without losing for a moment the hold of my eye upon his — till it fairly covered his head. He watched me till he must have seen straight into the barrels of my pistol ; when quietly drawing himself up, and folding his arms very slowly, as if to show that no sudden movement was intended, he seemed to defy me to fire. A feeling came over me as quick as lightning, with a conviction und suddennes which only moments such as these can bring — that I had mistaken him, that he was acting on the defensive rather than the offensive, and with an impulse which to this hour I am wholly unable to account for, I flung the pistols on the table within his reach, and said in i*elief of my own excited feelings, " You scoundrel, you know you dare not hurt me !" He looked at me steadily, and then sitting down gradually and quietly on the chair, without trusting himself to look at the pistols which lay loaded and cocked on the table before him, he put his hands to his head, leaned his arms on the table, and said in a low voice — " What do you want me to do, Sir 1 ?" "To give me possession of your house and place at once," said I, " and to coroe with me now into Carrickinacross." " I will, Sir," he replied. He rose, put his iron finger into the place where the handle of the door ' should have been, and turned tha bolt ; and walking up to the other men in the kitchen, he said, "Begone out of that till I give up the place." They stared at him and were perfectly astounded : " Begone I say," he repeated, and he pushed them out of the room. The young woman then came up to him — " What is this, Joe 1 " she asked. "You must go," said he kindly. "Don't talk — leave the house." She went at once. He put out the fire by kicking it about the floor, took " sod and twig " from the garden, and handed me legal possession of the house and grounds ! " And now," I contin vied, " come with me into Carrickmacross." He hesitated : " Sir, I will follow you in, but don't ask me to go with you." " Why not 1 n I asked. "Because I always swore no man should ever take me alive, and if I was seen to go in with you the people would I say you had taken me prisoner." "I understand you," said I ; "can I trust you then to follow me ? " He seemed almost hurt at the question. " I would not fail in my word for a thousand pounds I " " I have not a doubt of it," replied I ; and I mounted my horse and galloped into Ciirrickmacross. I told my head clerk and confidential man all that had happened. He could not believe his senses, and thought I had lost mine. "Well," I said, "McKey will behere within an hour, or I have been dreaming all morning. " He will never come," was his reply. As the hour approached, I confess I became very nervous and anxious ; and at length about the time I had stated, the clerk came into- my inner room looking somewhat pale, and said, " McKey wants to see you in the office, Sir." There he was — quiet, but firm as ever. I told him to return to his home for the present, and that I would see him handsomely provided for in America. He left and said no more. The sequel was sad enough. Ha never reached America. The Presbyterian clergyman came to me soon after, and to-ld me that McKey was ill, but that I had need to mind myself, as he had it from a suire source that he wj,s determined to take my life. In about a month after this, hearing again that he was very ill, I resolved to go and see him once more. I rode to the house, and found poor JoeMeKey lying on his bed, a corpse. The same stern mouth, the same noble forehead, but hollow and sunken cheeks. The young woman knelt beside him weeping. " When did he die ? " I asked. "This morning, Sir," she replied, and her tears flowed fresh and fast. "Wh.tdidhedieof?" " .A. decline, Sir. He never got the better of that day. The people said you took Mm — which yowc honour well

knows was a rank lie — and it broke his heart that they should, say so." " He was a noble fellow m his way," said I ; " but he had never been tamed, and I always feared he would come to grief." " Oh! Sir," replied she in an agony, "you did not know him, you did not know him! his heart was as tender as a little child's, and he was the kindest of the kind to me." " I fear you were never married to him?" I observed. "And if I never was," she replied, almost angrily, " what matter was it, when in the sight of Grod we were man and wife? I loved him as few wedded wives love their husbands, and wasn't Joe the best and truest of husbands to me? You did not know him, Sir — you did not know him! He would not have hurt a hair of young honour's head for worlds, but he was well-nigh maddened by the people," " And how did the people madden him?" I asked. " Sure didn't they tell hin over and over again that the land was his and not the landlord's at all ? And then they swore all the oaths you could think of, they would soon have it all to themselves again. The poor boy that's lying before you, had a darin' heart, so he had, more than all the rest of them together ; so they put him on for beginning the war, which the bloody cowards were afeared to face themselves. Oh Joe, my darlin' Joe!" cried she in an agony of grief, as she turned to the corpse again, "it was yourself that had the kind and darin" heart and now they've broke it on you by saying you were took a pi'isoner' when no one knows better than his honour here that my darlin' Joe alive. It was the kind word that made him give in, and never the fear of mortal man." He was buried the following day. She soon after left the country. From the moment that McKey had appeared in my office, the feeling of that district changed, and the effects which I had anticipated followed. The people came in and paid their rents, or settled with me as best they could. Some went to America, some paid up by instalments ; but the district over which Joe McKey held sway, succumbed.