furlong distant. Their final resolution was, to be guided by circumstances
as to the mode of conducting the affair; and yet, as it seemed essential
to success that they should assume the air of strangers to each other, it
was necessary that they should preconcert some general outline of their
plan; since it would on this scheme be impossible, without awaking violent
suspicions, to make any communications under the eyes of the family. This
outline included, at the least, one murder: so much was settled; but,
otherwise, their subsequent proceedings make it evident that they wished
to have as little bloodshed as was consistent with their final object. On
the appointed day, they presented themselves separately at the rustic inn,
and at different hours. One came as early as four o'clock in the
afternoon; the other not until half-past seven. They saluted each other
distantly and shyly; and, though occasionally exchanging a few words in
the character of strangers, did not seem disposed to any familiar
intercourse. With the landlord, however, on his return about eight o'clock
from Manchester, one of the brothers entered into a lively conversation;
invited him to take a tumbler of punch; and, at a moment when the
landlord's absence from the room allowed it, poured into the punch a
spoonful of laudanum. Some time after this, the clock struck ten; upon
which the elder M'Kean, professing to be weary, asked to be shown up to
his bedroom: for each brother, immediately on arriving, had engaged a bed.
On this, the poor servant girl had presented herself with a bed-candle to
light him upstairs. At this critical moment the family were distributed
thus:--the landlord, stupefied with the horrid narcotic which he had
drunk, had retired to a private room adjoining the public room, for the
purpose of reclining upon a sofa: and he, luckily for his own safety, was
looked upon as entirely incapacitated for action. The landlady was
occupied with her husband. And thus the younger M'Kean was left alone in
the public room. He rose, therefore, softly, and placed himself at the
foot of the stairs which his brother had just ascended, so as to be sure