While the callous hag was so skilfully supporting her part in the murderous drama, the chief performer, who had not been seen to return from the market, immediately after the commission of the horrid deed, through whatever motive he had done it, crossed a neighboring river to Bricken, where it intersects the high-road by means of stepping-stones, as bridge it had none,[2] though it is occasionally in winter a furious torrent. On the opposite side he chanced to meet a country tailor (we forget his name), who was proceeding from one village to another, to exercise his craft in making and mending; and the devil suggesting a plan on the spur of the moment, which was to recoil with destruction on his guilty head, he forced the tailor to take on his knees the most fearful oaths that he would never divulge what should then be revealed to him, and that he would act in strict conformity with the directions he should receive, threatening, if he refused compliance, to beat out his brains with a stone, and then fling him into the river. The affrighted tailor having of course readily taken the required oaths, M’Gennis confessed to him the murder of his wife, using at the same time horrible imprecations, that if ever a word on the subject escaped the tailor’s lips, he would, _dead or alive_, take the most deadly vengeance on him. He then proceeded to cut and dinge his hat in several places, and inflict various scratches on his hands and face, directing the tailor to assert that he had found _him_ attacked by four men on the road, on his return from Claremorris; after which, to give the more appearance of probability to the tale, he obliged his involuntary accessory after the fact (as the law has it) to bear him on his back to a cabin at some distance, as if the murderer were too weak to proceed himself after the violent assault committed on him. And here, if we could venture to raise a smile in the course of so revolting a detail, we would observe, that it must have been a ludicrous sight to see the tailor, who was but a meagre specimen of humanity, trailing along the all but giant frame of the murderer. The poor tailor’s own feelings were, however, at the time much more akin to mortal terror than to mirth or humour, as he found at the same time his mind burdened with an unwished-for, terrible, and dangerous secret, and himself in company with the murderer, who might at any moment change his mind, repent his confession, and take _his_ life too.