"Mark me, my lads," he added. "I have arranged all beyond the chance of defeat. I have contrived to turn the main strength of the soldiers on a wrong scent four miles on the other side of Charleville. I have laid my plans so that we cannot be disappointed, except through some fault of our own. Let us on to Churchtown Barracks. The sergeant, by whose rash and ready hand our friend has died, remains there with a handful of his comrades. He was sent thither to escape us. Fools! as if, for those who have a wrong to avenge, any spot can be too remote. Let us seize him, and give him the doom he gave the innocent. If they resist, we can fire the barracks, and burn them in their nest. But they will never be so mad as to offer resistance to such a force as ours, when we tell that we want only that one man. If they do—their blood be upon their own heads. Who joins me? Who will follow to the cry of 'On to Churchtown?' Now is the long-desired hour of revenge. Will any lag behind?"
Every man present repeated the cry—"On to Churchtown!" Some of the women also joined in it.
The Whiteboys and their leader left the cabin. An ancient crone, almost a reputed witch, and certainly known to be by far the oldest woman in the district, hobbled after them as far as the door, and threw her shoe after them—"for luck!"
Many a "God speed them" was breathed after that company of avengers by young and fair women. What Lord Bacon has called "the wild justice of revenge," and what America recognizes in the unseen but omnipotent incarnation of Judge Lynch, was necessarily the rule of action when injured Right took arms against tyrannic Might. Is it surprising that such should be the case? If wrongdoers cannot always be rewarded, "each according unto his works," within and by the law, why should not their impunity be broken down by the rational sense of justice which abides in the minds of men?
Forth on their mission, therefore, did the Whiteboys speed. Hurrying across the bog, they reached a farm which was almost isolated amid the black waste from which it had been indifferently reclaimed. They drew muskets, pistols, and pikes from the turf-rick in which they had been concealed. Some of them brought old swords, and scythe-blades attached to pike-handles (very formidable weapons in the hands of strong, angry men), from hiding-places in the bog itself. Stealthily, and across by paths unknown to and inaccessible to the military, that wild gang, "with whom Revenge was virtue," pushed forward for the attack on Churchtown Barracks.
[CHAPTER II. — THE LEADER.]
Stealthily and in silence the Whiteboys proceeded to the scene of intended operation. Not a word was spoken—not a sound heard, except the noise of their footsteps whenever they got on the high road. As much as possible they avoided the highway, the course which would the soonest bring them to the appointed place. It would seem as if their leader had bound them together, by some spell peculiarly their own, to yield implicit and unquestioned obedience to his imperious will. It strongly illustrated the aphorism—
"Those who think must govern those who toil."
Whoever knows how lively and mercurial is the natural temperament of the peasantry in the South of Ireland, must be aware of the difficulty of restraining them from loud-voiced talking in the open air; but now not one of that large and excited gathering spoke above his breath. Their leader commanded them to be silent, and to them his will was law.
Who was that leader? The question involves some mystery which it may be as well to unveil before proceeding with the action of this narrative.