CHAPTER VIII.

MISFORTUNE AND GRIEF.

When the scholars assembled on Monday morning, the first news they heard was that Mr. Brown's splendid and valuable watch-dog had been poisoned, and died on Saturday night.

Mr. Brown had obtained evidence so convincing against Michael Hennessy as to cause his arrest.

Great was the indignation of his young friends, and unanimous their declarations that they knew Michael did not do it.

"A great deal more like that hateful Joe Bundy," said one.

"Oh! it couldn't be him," said another; "for he was one of the party, and of course it wasn't he. If he hadn't been invited, he might have done it out of spite; but now he had no object."

Various were the conjectures and discussions at school and in the whole neighborhood.

The trial was on Tuesday, and Mr. Blair was the prosecuting attorney. The village apothecary testified that on the Friday previous Michael Hennessy purchased some poison of him, representing that his mother sent him for it to poison rats. A neighbor of Mr. Brown's alleged that he saw Michael passing his residence in the road on Saturday afternoon, and Joe Bundy averred that he saw him prowling around the farm buildings about the time indicated by the last witness.

Mrs. Hennessy testified that she sent Michael for the poison to kill the rats that infested their premises. Mr. Hennessy said he had mended a hand-reel for a person who lived just beyond Mr. Brown's, and sent Michael home with it on Saturday afternoon.

Mr. Blair accepted the evidence of the parents, and urged the probability that a portion of the poison had been reserved by the lad as an instrument of his spite against Mr. Brown, for the application of which the errand upon which he was dispatched furnished an opportunity.

He set forth every circumstance unfavorable to poor Michael in the strongest possible light, blending with his argument such reflections and assertions upon the character and training of the children of foreign parentage as could not fail to influence a prejudiced jury.

Notwithstanding an able defence, the jury, after a short consultation, returned a verdict of "guilty," and Michael was sentenced for twelve months to the reform-school.

Nothing could exceed the grief and indignation of his comrades, or the sympathy of the whole village with poor Mr. and Mrs. Hennessy. Michael stoutly protested his innocence, and there were but very few who doubted it; but his father, whose health was very poor and his family large, was not able to risk an appeal to a higher court, which would probably, after all, confirm the decision, and Mike was not willing to have him. So they prepared, with heavy hearts, for the separation.

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Sullivan to her neighbor Mrs. Mellen--"indeed, it's a sore thing to be put upon two such decent people, through the hatred of that miserable old Blair against an Irishman's boy, and him as innocent as the child in his mother's arms!"

"You knew them before they came here, I have heard," said Mrs. Mellen, who had not lived long in the place.

"They came over on the vessel with us, and were from the next county at home; and this was the way of it:

"The two brothers, Pat and Mike Hennessy, married two sisters, Mary and Bridget Denver. They were decent tradesmen as any in the two counties, and were well enough to do until the hard times came, when old Ireland saw her poor children starving on every side so that it would melt the heart of a stone, or any thing softer than an English landlord's, to hear tell of it. Well, in the midst of the famine, Mike agreed that he'd come to America, and prepare a place against Patrick should come with Mary and Bridget. So when he left them, Pat set to get all he could together by selling his bits of furniture and things, and when times grew worse and worse, he would not delay, but took Mary with her baby of a week old, and Bridget, and came, as I said, on the vessel with us; and, by the same token, the ship's name was the Hibernia. A good name with a rough fortune, like the dear old land; for the weather was boisterous from first to last, and when we had been out four days, the most awful storm arose, that you'd think heaven and earth was comin' together. And in the midst of it what does poor Bridget do but sicken and die with the fright, leaving her little baby; but it followed its mother that same night which was God's blessing on it, poor motherless thing, seein' it was baptized by a priest we had on board, and who attended Bridget at the last.

"When we reached Boston, no tidings was to be heard of Mike; so Pat staid there hopin' to get news of him, and we came on to Vermont, where Sullivan's sister's husband came the year before.

"After a while Pat heard that the vessel Mike sailed on was struck by an iceberg, and went down with all on board; and it was called the Polar Queen, a name no knowledgeable man would have put on a vessel, in respect of them same icebergs, that would naturally enough claim their own.

"So when Pat heard these news, and he not finding such work as he wanted, seein' it was very costly living in the city, they started for the West; but hearing at Albany that the cholera was ragin' there, they turns and they follows us to Vermont, thinking, poor creatures! that it would be some comfort to be near those who knew of all their troubles. The church was then a building, and Mr. Wingate gave him work on it, and has been the best of friends to him ever since, and he has never wanted for employment; but lately his health is poor, and I'm afeered this grief will kill him entirely, and indeed my heart is scalded for them, bein' that we're all as one family, and their sorrow is our sorrow."