...continued.... Star and Republican Banner Gettysburg, Pennsylvania June 19, 1832 On the same night in which suspicion had driven Edward from his couch a restless wanderer, it appears that the guilty lovers for the first time met in secret. According to the subsequent confession of Edward, he had concealed himself behind a pillar and had seen Gomez, wrapped in his mantle, glide with hurried steps out of a well known side-door in the house of Anna's father, which led immediately to her apartments. At the horrible certainty which now glared upon him, the fury of hell took possession of his soul; his eyes started form their sockets, the blood rushed and throbbed as if it would burst his veins; and as a man of dying of thirst pants for a draught of cooling water, so did his whole being pant for the blood of his rival. Like an infuriate tiger, he darted upon the unhappy youth, who recognized him, and vainly fled. Edward instantly overtook him, seized him, and burying his dagger a hundred times, with strokes like lightning flashes in the quivering body, gashed with Satanic rage the beautiful features which had robbed him of his beloved, and of peace. It was not till the moon broke forth from behind a cloud, and suddenly lighted the ghastly spectacle before him- the disfigured mass, which retained scarcely a feature of his beloved friend - the streams of blood which bathed the body and all the earth around it,- that he waked with horror, as from some internal dream. But the deed was done, and judgment was at hand. Led by the instinct of self-preservation he fled, like Cain, into the nearest wood. How long he wandered there, he could not recollect. Fear, love, repentance, despair, and at last madness, pursued him like frightful companions, and at length robbed him of consciousness- for a time annihilating the terrors of the past in forgetfulness; for kind nature puts an end to intolerable suffering of mind, as body, by insensibility or death.- Meanwhile the murder was soon known in the city; and the fearful end of the gentle youth, who had confided himself, a foreigner, to their hospitality, was learned by all with sorrow and indignation. A dagger, steeped in blood, had been found lying by the velvet cap of the Spaniard, and not far from it a hat, ornamented with plumes and a clasp of gems, showed the recent traces of a man who seemed to have sought safety in the direction of the wood. The hat was immediately recognized as Edward's and as he was no where to be found, fears were entertained that he had been murdered with his friend. The terrified father mounted his horse, and accompanied by a crowd of people, calling for vengeance, swore solemnly that nothing should save the murderer, were he even compelled to execute him with his own hands. We may imagine the shouts of joy, and the feelings of the father, when, at break of day, Edward Lynch was found sunk under a tree, living, and although covered with blood, yet apparently without any dangerous wound. We may imagine the shudder which ran through the crowd - the feelings the father we cannot imagine - when, restored to sense, he embraced his father's knees declared himself the murderer of Gonsalvo and earnestly implored instant punishment. He was brought home bound, tried before a full assembly of magistrates, and condemned to death by his own father. But the people would not lose their darling. Like the waves of the tempest-troubled sea, they filled the market-place and the streets, and forgetting the crime of the son in the relentless justice of the father, demanded with threatening cries the opening of the prison and the pardon of the criminal. During the night, though the guards were doubled, it was with great difficulty that the mob were withheld from breaking in. Towards morning, it was announced to the mayor that all resistance would soon be in vain, for that part of the soldiers had gone over to the people; - only the foreign guard held out - and all demanded with furious cries the instant ? of the criminal. At this the inflexible magistrate took a resolution, which many will call inhuman, but whose awful self-conquest certainly belongs to the rarest example of stoical firmness. Accompanied by a priest, he proceeded through a secret passage to the dungeon of his son; and when, with newly awakened desire of life, excited by the sympathy of his fellow citizens, Edward sunk at his feet, and asked him eagerly if he brought him mercy and pardon!- The old man replied with faltering voice, "No my son, in this world there is no mercy for you; your life forfeited to the law and at sun-rise you must die. One-and-twenty years I have prayed for your earthly happiness -but that is past - turn your thoughts now to eternity; and if there be yet hope there, let us kneel down together and implore the Almighty to grant you mercy hereafter; but then I hope my son, though he could not live worthy of his father, will at least know how to die worthy of him." With these words he rekindled the noble pride of the once dauntless youth, and after a short prayer, he surrendered himself with heroic resignation to his father's pitiless will. As the people, and the greater part of the armed men mingled in the ranks, now prepared amidst more wild and furious menaces, to storm the prison, James Lynch appeared at a lofty window; his son stood at his side, with the halter round his neck.- "I have swore, " exclaimed the inflexible magistrate, that Gonsalvo's murderer should die, even though I must perform the office of the executioner myself. Providence has taken me at my word; and you, madmen, learn from the most wretched of fathers, that nothing must stop the course of justice, and that even the ties of nature must break before it." While he spoke these words he made fast the rope to an iron beam projecting from the wall, and now suddenly pushed his son out of the window, he completed his dreadful work. Nor did he leave the spot till the last convulsive struggles gave certainty of the death of his unhappy victim. As if struck by a thunder-clap, the tumultuous mob had beheld the horrible spectacle in death like silence, and every man glided, as if stunned, to his own house.- From that moment the mayor of Galway resigned all his occupations and dignities, and was never beheld by any eye but his own family. He never left his house till he was carried from it to his grave.- Ann Blake died in a convent. Both families, in course of time disappeared from the earth, but the skull and the cross bones still mark the scene of this fearful tragedy. Cathy Joynt Labath Ireland Old News http://www.IrelandOldNews.com/