outstripped her on the path to the Sheas' house
From where she stood the farmhouse was visible.
As she looked, a fire leaped out of the roof,
ran over the thatch, and instantly rose into a
pyramid of flame, for the wind was high that
night; the whole glen grew crimson. The
door was barricaded by the murderers. Not
one of the Sheas escaped. Shrieks and cries
for mercy rose from the seventeen burning
wretches within. The conspirators yelled with
laughter, whooped for joy, and discharged guns
and blunderbusses to celebrate and announce
their triumph. Then came a silence, and after
that, when the wind abated for a moment,
Mary Kelly could hear the deep groans of
the dying, and low moans of agony, as the fire
spread fiercer to complete its horrible task.
At every fresh groan the monsters discharged
their guns in fiendish jubilee.

A friend of the Sheas, named Phillip Hill,
who lived on the opposite side of the hill
adjoining the house, heard the guns echoing in
Slievenamawn, and, arousing his friends, made
across, if possible, to save the Sheas. These men
arrived too late; nor did they dare to attack the
murderers, who drew up at once to meet them.
Philip Hill defied them to come on, but they
declined his challenge, and waited the attack of
the inferior number. All this while the groans
from the burning house were growing fainter
and fainter till at last they entirely subsided.

John Butler, a boy who had a brother in the
Sheas' house, had accompanied Hill, and,
eager to discover the murderers, approached
nearer than the rest to the fire, and by its light
recognised William Gorman. The murderers
returned by the same way as they came, and
were again observed by Mary Kelly from her
hiding-place. The wretches as they passed her
were rejoicing over their success, and William
Gorman, with detestable and almost incredible
inhumanity, was actually amusing the party by
mimicking the groans of the dying, and mocking
the agonies he and his comrades had inflicted.

The morning beginning to break, Mary
Kelly, haggard and affrighted, returned home
with her terrible secret; but she did not breathe
a word either to her husband or her son, and
the next day, when taken before a magistrate,
denied all knowledge of the crime.

John Butler also went back to the house of
his mother—an old woman—and, waking her,
told her that her son had been burnt alive with
all in the Sheas' house. The old woman uttered
a wail of grief, but, instead of immediately
proceeding to a magistrate, she enjoined her son
not to ever disclose the secret, lest she and all
their family should meet the same fate.

The next day, all that side the county
gathered round the ruins. Mary Kelly was among
them, and no doubt many of the murderers.
The sight was a fearful one, even to those innocent
of the crime. Of the roof only the charred
rafters were left; the walls were gaping apart;
the door was burned to its hinges, close by
it lay sixteen corpses, piled together: those who
were uppermost were burned to the very bones;
those below were only partially consumed. The
melted flesh had run from the carcases in black
streams along the scorched floor. The first
thought of all had been to run to the door.

Poor Catherine Mullaly's fate was the most
horrible and most touching of all. In the midst
of the flames she had been prematurely
delivered of a child—that unhappy child, born only
to instantly perish, was the eighteenth victim.
In trying to save her child, she had placed it in
a tub of water, where it was found, with the
head burned away, but the body perfect. Near
the tub lay the blackened body of the mother,
her skeleton arm hanging over the water. The
spectators beheld the sight with dismay, but
they were afraid to speak. Some one
whispered, sternly, " William Gorman is well
revenged!" Many at first tried to argue that
the fire had been an accidental one, as no
Ribbonmen would, they said, have ever destroyed
so many innocent people merely because they
worked for the Sheas. This opinion gained ground
among persons jealous of the national character,
especially when no one came forward to obtain
the large reward. At last, however, it was
discovered that not only was the conflagration the
result of an extensive plot, but that the whole
population round Slievenamawn knew of the
project and its execution.

For sixteen months Mary Kelly kept the
secret. She did not dare to reproach Maher,
who constantly visited her house, and yet she
shuddered at his approach. Gradually her mind
began to yield to the pressure. She became
incapable of sleep, and used, in the dead of the
night, to rise and wander over the glen,
remaining by the black ruins of the Sheas' house
till morning, and then returning, worn and
weary, to her home. She believed herself
pursued by the spectre of her unhappy kinswoman,
and said, on the private examination before the
trial, that she never lay down in her bed without
thinking of the "burning," and fancying she
saw Catherine Mullaly lying beside her holding
her child, " as black as a coal," in her arms.
At length conscience grew stronger and drove
away fear. She revealed her secret in confession,
and the priest, like a good and honest man,
prevailed upon her to give instant information
to Captain Despard, a justice of peace for the
county of Tipperary.

It was not till 1827 that William Gorman
was apprehended and put upon his trial. There
is no doubt that Shea, the middleman, had been,
cruel and oppressive to Gorman, his
under-tenant. He had retaliated upon him the
severities of the superior landlord. Gorman had
been distrained, sued in the superior courts,
processed by civil bill, totally deprived of his
farm, house, and garden, and then driven out, a
disgraced beggar, to brood over vengeance.

A keen observer (we believe, the son of the
celebrated Curran), who was present at this
remarkable trial, has left a terrible picture of
Gorman's appearance and manner as he stood
at the Clonmel dock. " He was evidently," he
says, " most anxious for the preservation of his
life; yet the expression of anxiety which
disturbed his ghastly features occasionally gave