Songs, too, they made to music now sweet, now fierce, in honour of my mistress, acclaiming her as not the least in the long list of a line of heroes! Whereupon the castle rang with tumultuous shoutings of applause. Then the minstrels cunningly turned their themes to the Burkes of Mayo, English once, but Irish now—ay, even more Irish than the Irish themselves.
And so the day passed.
In the morning we left Carrickahooley with a hundred horsemen and a hundred running footmen, besides horse-boys and others. Behind us came many of the fugitives who had come to us fleeing from before the English, and who now were returning to their homes, or to what poor, charred remains of them might be found.
As we moved swiftly on, we saw many evidences of the havoc wrought by the ruthless invaders; here the hut of the wood-kerne, who lives by hunting, there the hovel of the churl, who tills the fields, burnt to the ground; while over all brooded the silence of desolation and death.
It was not till evening was upon us that we knew by many indications that we were close on the enemy. Then we halted and waited till the night had fully come, sending out in the meantime our spies to see what the English were doing.
Softly, like thieves, they returned with word they had discovered that Sir Nicholas and the greater portion of his army were not to be seen, having apparently gone on, but that a small company of English soldiers and most of the O’Flahertys of Aughnanure were camped some two or three miles away, having in their charge great droves of cattle. Having no thought that they were being followed up by us, they had made no preparations for defence, and therefore might easily fall into our hands.
Leaving our chargers to the care of the horse-boys, we divided ourselves into two bands, Richard Burke being in command of the one, and I of the other; and, going very circumspectly so as to give no hint of our approach, we burst upon the enemy, many of whom were slain at the first onset, but a far larger number escaped us in the darkness. We spent the rest of the night in their camp, having secured the cattle; and when daylight made manifest everything to us I saw that we had accomplished all this victory without the loss of a single man, there being but few wounds even among us.
Then we rode on that day and two more, now and again falling in with scattered companies of the enemy, whom we slew or dispersed, and recovering from them whatever plunder they were taking out of the land. But Sir Nicholas we did not meet with, as he had gone on day and night without halting, having heard, as I afterwards learned, that the Burkes of Clanrickarde, under Ulick, the son of the earl, had brought together several hundred men, including many Scots, and that they were even now threatening Galway itself.
As we were not purposed to go on to Galway after the Governor, we returned to Carrickahooley at our leisure.