Again, “Paddy Cummisky’s wife tuck ill of a young one, an’ Phelim was sent for to bring the midwife; but afore he kem to Paddy’s, or hard o’ the thing at all, the prisoner, airly in the night, comin’ to sit awhile wid Paddy, went for the midwife instead o’ Phelim, an’ thin they sot up an’ had a sup in regard of the ‘casion; an’ the prisoner never left them at all that night until the next mornin’.  An’ by the same token, he remimbered Paddy Cummisky barrin’ the door, an’ shuttin’ the windies, bekase it’s not lucky to have them open, for fraid that the fairies ’ud throw their pishthrogues upon the young one, an’ it not christened.”

Phelim was certainly an accomplished youth.  As an alibist, however, his career was, like that of all alibists, a short one.  The fact was, that his face soon became familiar to the court and the lawyers, so that his name and appearance were ultimately rather hazardous to the cause of his friends.

Phelim, on other occasions, when summoned as evidence against his well-wishers or brother Ribbonmen, usually forgot his English, and gave his testimony by an interpreter.  Nothing could equal his ignorance and want of common capacity during these trials.  His face was as free from every visible trace of meaning as if he had been born an idiot.  No block was ever more impenetrable than he.

“What is the noble gintleman sayin’?” he would ask in Irish; and on having that explained, he would inquire, “what is that?” then demand a fresh explanation of the last one, and so on successively, until he was given up in despair.

Sometimes, in cases of a capital nature, Phelim, with the consent of his friends, would come forward and make disclosures, in order to have them put upon their trial and acquitted; lest a real approver, or some one earnestly disposed to prosecute, might appear against them.  Now the alibi and its usual accompaniments are all of old standing in Ireland; but the master-stroke to which we have alluded is a modern invention.  Phelim would bear evidence against them; and whilst the government—­for it was mostly in government prosecutions he adventured this—­believed they had ample grounds for conviction in his disclosures, it little suspected that the whole matter was a plan to defeat itself.  In accordance with his design, he gave such evidence upon the table as rendered conviction hopeless.  His great object was to damn his own character as a witness, and to make such blunders, premeditated slips, and admissions, as just left him within an inch of a prosecution for perjury.  Having succeeded in acquitting his friends, he was content to withdraw amid a volley of pretended execrations, leaving the Attorney-General, with all his legal knowledge, outwitted and foiled.