The Wolfe Tone Republicans are honourable men. Their band marched at the head of the procession through the streets of the village. They played all the most seditious tunes there are, and went on playing for half a mile outside the village. The police, headed by Mr. Hinde, followed them. At the cross-roads there was a halt. The bandsmen laid down the instruments very carefully on a pile of stones beside the road. Then they took the fork of the road which leads southwards.
The direct route to Dicky’s Brae lies northwest along the other fork of the road. Cornelius O’Farrelly had the instinct of a military commander. His idea was to make a wide detour, march by a cross-road and take the Dicky Brae position in the rear. This would require some time; but the demonstrators had a long day before them, and if the speeches were cut a little short no one would be any the worse.
Jimmy McLoughlin and the members of the Loyal True-Blue Invincibles sat on the roadside at the foot of Dicky’s Brae and waited. They expected that the Wolfe Tone Republicans would reach the place about noon. At a quarter to twelve Mr. Hinde and five police arrived. They had with them a cart carefully covered with sacking. No one was in the least disturbed by their appearance. Five police, even with an officer at their head, cannot do much to annoy two armies of sixty and seventy men.
The police halted in the middle of the road. They made no attempt to unload their cart.
At 1.30 Jimmy McLoughlin took council with some of the leading members of the Loyal True-Blue Invincible Lodge. It seemed likely that the Wolfe Tone Republicans had gone off to demonstrate in some other direction, deliberately shirking the fight which had been promised them.
“I’d never have thought it of Cornelius O’Farrelly,” said Jimmy sadly. “I had a better opinion of him, so I had. I knew he was a Papist and a rebel and every kind of a blackguard, but I’d never have thought he was a coward.”
While he spoke, a small boy came running down the hill. He brought the surprising intelligence that the Wolfe Tone Republicans were advancing in good order from a totally unexpected direction. Jimmy McLoughlin looked round and saw them. So did Mr. Hinde.
While Jimmy summoned his men from the ditches where they were smoking and the fields into which they had wandered, Mr. Hinde gave an order to his police. They took the sacking from their cart. Underneath it were all the band instruments belonging to the Orange Lodge. The police unpacked them carefully and then, loaded with drums and brass instruments, went up the road to meet the Wolfe Tone Republicans.
Jimmy McLoughlin ran to Mr. Hinde, shouting as he went:
“What are you doing with them drums?”