But Mr. O'Brien was not destined to accomplish the object of his solicitude. About twelve o'clock on the morning of Saturday, the 29th day of July, he was apprised of the approach of a body of police, under command of Captain Trant. Simultaneously with the appearance of the police, an indiscriminate crowd, composed for the most part of women and boys with a few armed men, ranged themselves around him. They occupied an eminence in front of the road by which the police approached. Another road crossed this at right angles, and Captain Trant, instead of leading his men directly against Mr. O'Brien's position, denied along the cross-road to the right hand—that which led to the Widow M'Cormick's. The motive of this manoeuvre was obvious. Either from personal cowardice, or from cool judgment, he determined to await further reinforcements, and, meantime, to secure some place of shelter and defence. The crowd, with Mr. O'Brien, immediately rushed from their position and hung fiercely on the policemen's rear. Captain Trant ordered a retreat, or those under his command adopted that precaution without his authority. The armed leaders among the people, Messrs. MacManus, Stephens and Cavanagh, hesitated to fire on troops flying for their lives. But they urged the pursuit so rapidly, that, by the time the police took shelter in Mrs. M'Cormick's house, they were hot upon their track. The crowd surrounded the house, and Mr. O'Brien, approaching one of the front windows, called on Captain Trant to surrender. The latter demanded half an hour to consider, which Mr. O'Brien unhappily granted. Pending the half hour, the crowd became furious and began to fling stones in through the windows. Some of the men inside were knocked down by the stones, and the officer hurt. Seeing that their own leaders could no longer control the people, and believing the destruction of himself and his party to be inevitable, Captain Trant gave orders to his men to fire, which presented his only chance of escape. Mr. O'Brien immediately rushed between the people and the window, on one of which he jumped up, and once more demanded the officer to surrender. But the order to fire had been given and executed with deadly effect. Two men fell dead, and several were badly wounded. The crowd fell back; but Mr. O'Brien remained still in front of the house. There were several windows in front and two small ones only in the rear; parallel with the rear was a barn, in which there were two still smaller windows. Messrs. Stephens and MacManus took possession of this house, and, placing three or four sure marksmen inside for the purpose of taking down any of the police who should appear at the back windows, they proposed to burn the house in which the police took shelter. They carried bundles of hay and placed them against the back door and roof. The police seized on Mrs. M'Cormick's children, and held them up to the windows, to terrify or appease the people. At this juncture the Catholic clergymen appeared on the scene. Either, being appalled by the scene of death before them, or being personally cowardly, or feeling that to continue the conflict would be productive of useless slaughter, they exerted themselves to the utmost to disperse the crowd. Whatever may have been their motives, it is certain that, although Mr. O'Brien was in the neighbourhood since the previous Wednesday, they had not in any way interfered, and only came upon the scene to attend to the dying and the dead. Mr. O'Brien and his comrades, finding themselves beset by this unexpected difficulty, retired a short distance, to consider what was best to be done. The people were again quickly forming around them, and all were hurriedly preparing to storm the house, when a fresh body of police was seen approaching from the opposite direction. This force consisted of sixty men; the first only amounted to forty-five. Constable Carroll rode on considerably in advance of his party. He found himself suddenly surrounded, and was forced to surrender and dismount. He and two others of the advance-guard were removed. But the main body continued to approach rapidly; and Mr. O'Brien was not in a position and had not strength to intercept their junction with the other body. His friends pressed Mr. O'Brien to retreat, which he refused. Admitting, fully, his inability to cope with these forces, he declined to avail himself of the means of escape at his disposal. His comrades impressed on him that his life belonged to the country; that another effort was yet within the range of possibility, and that it was incumbent on him to save himself for the final issue. By long and passionate entreaty, they induced him to mount the police-officer's horse and retire. When he had left, Messrs. Stephens and MacManus led off the remainder of their party, without being pursued or molested.
After a short consultation, they determined to separate. Mr. Stephens proposed to go on to Urlingford, where a large force was collecting, and MacManus accepted the duty of bearing to us the intelligence of the disaster, and taking chance with us for the future. He came up with Mr. Meagher, Mr. O'Donohoe, and Mr. Leyne, who were then on their way to the Comeragh mountains, but changed their purpose on hearing this sad intelligence. They remained that night at the house of a man named Hanrahan, near Nine-mile House, a small village on the high road from Kilkenny to Cork.
I was all this time ignorant of what occurred. After Mr. Reilly had left me, and I was joined by the young friend already mentioned, I summoned as many of the farmers of the neighbourhood as I could collect, and it was agreed that ten of them, who would represent each one hundred men, should meet me next day, after divine service, at the wood of Keilavalla, situate near the western base of Slievenamon. We were to be joined by two others from the neighbourhood of Carrick-on Suir, from which we were distant about ten miles. On that morning the news of Mr. O'Brien's disaster spread far, and was, of course, exaggerated. I had slept the previous night not far from the mountain, where I was watched by two brothers named Walsh, who lived at Brookhill, but have since removed to the United States. I gladly avail myself of this occasion to attest their fidelity and bravery. At the time appointed, my friend and I proceeded to the place of rendezvous. We remained for hours, and remained in vain. At last one only of the ten arrived. He told us that at the chapel the Rev. Patrick Laffan read the names of the proscribed traitors for whose persons a reward was offered....
We continued on the mountain during the remainder of the day; and toward evening about fifty men came up to us, who, one and all, expressed the utmost indignation at what had happened. Once more our hopes revived. If Mr. O'Brien could avoid arrest for a few weeks only, we expected that a sense of shame would sting the country to desperate exertion.
After night-fall we descended, and slept at a farmer's house at the southern base of the mountain, where we were most kindly entertained and sedulously guarded. We there heard of the Ballingarry disaster. Next morning we once more ascended Slievenamon, where we endeavoured to dissipate the heavy hours and the still heavier consciousness at our own hearts by firing at a mark. The day suddenly darkened, and we had to seek shelter under rocks from a pitiless mountain shower. We had dispatched a messenger to O'Mahony to demand an interview that evening; and, after he had returned, we were invited to partake of some new potatoes (then beginning to exhibit the blight), milk, eggs and butter. I remember lying down in a bed, and getting so feverish that I believed my doom was sealed. My noble young friend sat at my bedside, with a rifle and two pistols, prepared to defend my rest with his life. The illness was, however, but trifling and temporary, and the necessity of acting enabled me at once to shake it off. After nightfall, we proceeded to the appointed interview. We travelled in a common car, accompanied by four others, all armed. Our haunt was a poor cabin on the roadside, near a place called Moloch, in the neighbourhood of Carrick. There I bid my faithful young friend good night, but was doomed not to see him afterwards. Mr. O'Mahony and myself slept on some straw, but we had scarcely closed our eyes when we learned that the cabin was surrounded by the military and police. We were apprised of our perilous position just in time to escape: this we effected, after a struggle, aided by extreme darkness. We spent the remainder of the night in a field, where I slept very soundly. At break of day we retired to a farmer's house near the Suir, where, after partaking of some refreshments, we went to bed, and slept, one or two hours. The breakfast scene of that morning is not easily forgotten. Perhaps there is no place in the world where a more substantial breakfast can be produced than at a comfortable Irish farmer's. On this occasion the silent, watchful, anxious grace of our young hostess, in her attentions, enhanced the flavour of the repast. It is only by those who have partaken of such hospitality that the speechless tenderness of the females among that class of farmers can be appreciated. But on the occasion to which I refer, there was added to the customary delicacy a deep anxiety for our fate. Save hushed words of pressing and eloquent looks of sympathy, the meal passed off without conversation; and we rose from the table to depart, as if conscious we had exchanged our last earthly greeting. It was not so, however, and our hostess shared much of our after fortune, and now shares our exile. Her fate, too, is harder than ours. We are occasionally cheered by public approval, by the sympathy and admiration of every lover of liberty, whereas her name is never spoken. She has fallen from a position of comparative affluence, lost her independence (I use the word in its practical worldly sense), and is doomed to toil for her daily bread. Of all the vicissitudes of fortune in which the attempt of which I write resulted, there is not one that has given me more pain than that of Margaret Quinlan, the lady (who has higher claims to that title?) to whom I have alluded.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] The other four were Terence Bellew MacManus, John Cavanagh, J.D. Wright (a T.C.D. student, afterwards a lawyer in America), and D.P. Cunningham, afterwards a journalist in New York.—Ed.
CHAPTER VIII
ARREST OF MR. O'BRIEN, OF MESSRS. MEAGHER AND O'DONOHOE. — ARREST OF TERENCE BELLEW MACMANUS. — CLONMEL SPECIAL COMMISSION. — TRIAL, CONVICTION, SPEECHES AND SENTENCE OF THE REBELS. — WRIT OF ERROR. — COMMUTATION OF SENTENCE. — TRANSPORTATION OF THE HEROES.