The men were now ordered to fall out. The sergeant proceeded with them through the village, quartering two men on each house, while Ralph went round to see what provisions were obtainable. Potatoes and black bread were to be had everywhere, and he also was able to buy a good-sized pig, which, in a very few minutes, was killed and cut up.
"We have reason to consider ourselves lucky indeed," Ralph said, as he sat down with the excise officer half an hour later to a meal of boiled potatoes and pork chops roasted over a peat fire. "It's half-past four now, and will be pitch dark in another half-hour. If we had not struck upon that stream we should have had another night out among the hills."
Ralph's first measure after seeing his men quartered in the village was to inquire for a boy who would carry a message to Ballyporrit, and the offer of half a crown produced four or five lads willing to undertake it. Ralph chose one of them, an active-looking lad of about fifteen, tore out a leaf from his pocketbook, and wrote an account of what had happened, and said that the detachment would be in by two o'clock on the following day. Then directing it to Captain O'Connor or Lieutenant Desmond, whichever might be in the village, he gave it to the lad, who at once started at a trot along the road in the direction from which they had come.
"He will be there in four hours," Mr. Fitzgibbon said. "It's a regular road all the way, and he can't miss it even in the dark. It's lucky we turned the way we did, for although it was taking us further from home it was but two miles along the road here, while, if we had gone the right way, it would have been six or seven before we arrived at the next village."
"I think we are lucky all round," Ralph said. "An hour ago if any one told us we were going to sit down at half-past four to a hot dinner of pork and potatoes we should have slain him as a scoffer. It would have seemed altogether too good to be true."
Ralph had no difficulty in purchasing whisky, and he ordered the sergeant to serve out a tot to each man with his dinner and another half an hour later, and by seven o'clock there was scarcely one of the tired men who was not already asleep. The next morning they started at eight o'clock, having had a breakfast of potatoes before they fell in. Ralph rewarded the peasants generously for their hospitality, and the men set off in high spirits for their tramp, and reached Ballyporrit at half-past two in the afternoon.
"You gave us a nice scare yesterday, Conway," was Captain O'Connor's greeting as they marched in. "When twelve o'clock came and you didn't come back I began to think you must have lost yourselves; and a nice time we had of it till your messenger arrived at eight. It was no use sending out to look for you on the hills. But I went out with a party, with two or three men to guide us, to the end of a valley, up which a path went; beyond that there was no going, for one couldn't see one's hand. I stayed there an hour, firing off guns once a minute, and as there was no reply was sure that you must be a good distance off, wherever you were; so there was nothing to do but to come back and hope you had found shelter somewhere. Come in, lad; I have got some hot lunch waiting for you. Come in, Mr. Fitzgibbon. It's lucky I didn't catch you yesterday, or I should have considered it my duty to have hung you forthwith for decoying his majesty's troops among the hills."
"Well, Conway, you didn't bargain for all this when you offered to change places with me," Lieutenant Desmond said when they were seated at table.
"No; but now it's all over I am glad I did change, in spite of the tramp we had. It has been an adventure, and beside, it was a good thing to learn how best to get out of a fog."
"How did you manage, Conway?" Captain O'Connor asked; "for once lost in such a fog as that on those hills there really does not seem anything to be done."