he highway. The police who went into Woodford
with the tale report the people as laughing and jeering at the agony of
the widowed woman. She was with them, and, maddened by the savage
conduct of these wretched creatures, she knelt down over-against the
house of Father Egan, and called down the curse of God upon him.

On the next day things were worse. No one could be found to supply a
coffin for the murdered man.[17] When the police called upon the priests
to exert their influence and enforce some semblance at least of
Christian and Catholic decency upon the people confided to their charge,
the priests not only refused to do their duty, but floutingly referred
the police to Lady Mary Burke. "He did her work," they said, "let her
send a hearse now to bury him." The lady thus insolently spoken of is
one of the best of the Catholic women of Ireland. At her summons Father
Burke, a few years only before his death, I remember, made a long winter
journey, though in very bad health, from Dublin to Marble Hill to soothe
the last hours and attend the death-bed of her husband.

No one who knew and loved him can wish him to have lived to hear from
her lips such a tale of the degradation of Catholic priests in his own
land of Galway.

Mr. Tener pointed out to me, at another place on the road, near
Ballinagar, the deserted burying-ground in which, after much trouble, a
grave was found for the brave old soldier who had escaped the Russian
cannon-balls to be so foully done to death by felons of his own race.
There the last rites were performed by Father Callaghy, a priest who was
himself "boycotted" for resigning the presidency of the League in his
parish, and for the still graver offence of paying his rent. For weeks
it was necessary to guard the grave![18]

From that day to this no one has been brought to justice for this crime,
committed in broad daylight, and within sight of the highway. Mr. Place,
whom I saw at Portumna, told me that he believed the police had no moral
doubt as to the murderer of Finlay, but that it was useless to think of
getting legal evidence to convict him.

Mr. Tener tells me that when Mr. Wilfrid Blunt came to Woodford he went
with Father Egan, and accompanied by the police, to see the widow of
this murdered man, heard from her own lips the sickening story, and took
notes of it. But when Mr. Rowlands, M.P., an English "friend of Home
Rule," was examined the other day during the trial of Mr. Blunt, he was