I too shall be gone, but my name shall be spoken,
When Erin awakes and her fetters are broken
Some minstrel shall come in the summer's eve gleaming,
When Freedom's young light on his spirit is beaming,
And bend o'er my grave with a tear of emotion,
Where calm Avonbui seeks the kisses of ocean,
Or plant a wild wreath from the banks of that river,
O'er the heart and the harp that are sleeping for ever.
We saw at a short distance, the pass which so enraptured us the night before, but we resisted the temptation to revisit it, lest the glare of light might disenchant us of those sublime impressions of beauty it had made on our minds.
We found a most comfortable dinner on our arrival, for which we could not account. In the course of the evening we learned casually from our host that he had spent several years of his life where it was impossible he should not have seen and known me. This was a disturbing conviction wherewith to retire to rest, but we trusted to our propitious stars, in which we had begun to feel a superstitious confidence. We were not disappointed then or afterwards, and next morning we slept in unquestioning security. We rose late and reluctantly, and left a scene where we enjoyed more undisturbed rest and real comfort than had fallen to our lot for weeks before. The day became dark and showery. Crossing the bogs in the recesses of Shehigh, we were overtaken by a storm, from which we took shelter in some hay gathered on the bleak moor, where I wrote the following:—
Hurrah for the outlaw's life!
Hurrah for the felon's doom!
Hurrah for the last death-strife!
Hurrah for an exile's tomb!
Come life or death, 'tis still the same,
So we preserve our stainless name
From losel of the coward's shame.
Hurrah for the mountain side!
Hurrah for the bivouac!
Hurrah for the heaving tide!
If rocking the felon's track.
Hurrah for the scanty meal!
If served by th' ungrudging hand,
Hurrah for the hearts of steel,
Still true to this fallen land!
Still true, though every hazard brings
Some new disaster on its wings,
Which o'er her last faint hope it flings.
Hurrah, etc.
Hurrah; though the gibbet loom!
Hurrah; though the brave be low!
Hurrah; though a villain doom!
The true to the headsman's blow.
As long as one life-throb remain,
We'll spurn the tyrant's gyve and chain
On gallows-tree or bloody plain.
Hurrah, etc.
Hurrah for that smile of light,
Which like a prophetic star,
Illumined the long, lone night
Of the wanderers from afar.
Give us for resting-place the rath,
Give us to brave the foeman's wrath,
So that dear smile be o'er our path.
Hurrah for the mountain side!
Hurrah for the bivouac!
Hurrah for the heaving tide!
If rocking the felon's track.
Being apprehensive that our former retreat near Dunmanway was discovered, and that we would be looked for there, we determined to try another district, from which we might be able to communicate with her who had evinced such sympathy for us. We sought the house of a friend of hers, but found him so terrified that we could not think of forcing ourselves on his hospitality. He promised, however, to call on her and learn if she had any letters or other information for us. On our return, next day, he was somewhat reassured. He brought us a note from her, and letters from home. My comrade's was a sad, sad blow. Where he had most trusted on earth, his application had been coldly received, and his most unlimited confidence utterly disappointed. Money was forwarded to him from other sources; but the spirit that braved every disaster up to that, broke under disappointed affection and blighted love. For some time he refused to take another step, but yielding himself up to the agony of shattered feelings, he ardently desired to abandon a struggle involving nothing but the life he no longer desired to save. From my knowledge of the country, and other resources, he regarded my chances of escape as favourable, and his own presence as an impediment and a check. He was therefore anxious to relieve me of a burden, at the same time that he would free himself from a weight still more intolerable. In that he was mistaken. His imperturbable equanimity, and ever daring hope, had sustained me in moments of perplexity and alarm when no other resource could have availed. During the whole time which we spent, as it were, in the shadow of the gibbet, his courage never faltered, and his temper never once ruffled. The arrival of our enthusiastic friend, who had stolen to see us, revived his spirits, and her persuasions reassured his resolution. We drove for some time in her car, and after nightfall returned to the house where we had slept on the previous night. A practice which prevailed in that part of the county Cork greatly facilitated our efforts. It was this: in the vicinity of the great routes of travel, the farmers are in the habit of giving lodgings for payment, the amount of which generally depends on the traveller's ability to pay. As our means, for purposes of at least this kind were not stinted, we were sure of welcome a second time. But this fact had a tendency to frustrate our aim in another point of view; for it always excited curiosity, so that it was doubtful whether we would not be safer with persons who would provide for us at the cost of their last morsel, by confiding to them who and what we were. But in this district of Cork, the centre of which is the notorious town of Bandon, were scattered several families of Orangemen, who were intensely inimical to the cause and people of Ireland. In this very instance we lodged with one of those families. A letter that I tore near the house was picked up, put together, and read, so as to lead to suspicion, which was immediately communicated to the magistrate. This caused the most vigilant surveillance to be exercised over the homes and persons of our friends. But before the discovery was made we were far beyond the reach of our pursuers. We had learned that the efforts made for our escape were unsuccessful, and that time would be required to effect anything, so as not to arouse the suspicion of those who guarded the coast; and we agreed to conceal ourselves as best we could in some distant part of the country, for three weeks, and then return or communicate with our friend, who promised, meantime, to leave no effort untried on our behalf. A second time, we set out by the same route. When we found ourselves on a hill-top, far from human haunts, we sat down as was our wont, to consider our future course. We determined to visit some obscure watering-place in the vicinity of Cape Clear. With that view we skirted the picturesque mountains that surround Dunmanway. These mountains present features to which the eye of one living in the inland country is little accustomed. The mountains of the midland and eastern counties are generally enormous clumps with little inequality of surface, and covered over with heath and weeds. Here, on the contrary, the mountains seemed to be carved out into the most fantastic shapes, covered with white granite stones, whose reflections in the watery surface gave the scene an appearance of singular beauty. However strange it may appear, we lingered over these picturesque scenes in intense delight; the more so because there seemed no limit to our journey, and no definite aim to which our efforts led. And a mountain-top has always an assurance of safety stamped upon it. There we could indulge our admiration for the beautiful; there we could snatch an hour of fearless and unbroken sleep.
But elements of danger began to lower over our loved haunts. The grouse season had just set in, and occasionally the report of a musket broke our reverie, or startled our deepest sleep. Yet, even from this cup of bitterness did we derive some sparkles of happiness. We could easily avoid the sportsman's eye; and when we wanted anything from the lower regions, the vicinity of the mountains, and the business of the fowler, accounted for our presence and our wants, and readily gained us a supply. But the potato crop had failed, and the disease had already destroyed all the tubers which had approached maturity. This rendered it necessary to look to other resources, and we contrived to procure bread and sometimes meat, which we were able to get prepared easily under pretence of being catering for shooting parties.
On the first day we made this experiment, we found ourselves descending into that dreary plain that stretches out to the doomed district of Skibbereen. Under cover of night we sought to penetrate this desolate region in the remotest direction of the sea, where we hoped we might remain unnoticed as country bathers. We obtained shelter at a small farmers, and made a great many inquiries concerning the neighbouring watering-places, whither we said we were going for the benefit of our health. There were two young girls, the confidence of one of whom my comrade contrived to win during the evening. She told him that her sister had a courtship with the sergeant of police, who usually visited there every day. This hastened our departure next morning. We set out in the grey dawn, and once again reascended the mountain, to rest and take thought. The communication of the young girl; the sister's long delay, when she went to procure refreshments at the village, where the police-sergeant was stationed; the father's pursuits, and other circumstances, induced us to believe that to follow the plan which, to a certain extent, we had unfolded, would be dangerous. We therefore determined to change our course. We were then about fifteen miles south-southwest of Dunmanway. Adhering to our resolution of settling for a few weeks in some village on the seaside, we purposed to substitute the Kerry side of Bantry Bay for the district we had at first fixed on. The distance was about fifty miles, and we had to cross a plain several miles wide. We swept over this plain with a rapidity that taxed severely our exhausted energies, and lay down to sleep on the first patch of heath we gained on the Bantry mountains.