“Every night one of Beal Derg’s men must go to the mouth of the cave, which opens of itself, an’ then look out for the sign that’s expected. He walks up to the top of the mountain, an’ turns to the four corners of the heavens, to thry if he can see it; an’ when he finds that he can not, he goes back to Beal Derg, who, afther the other touches him, starts up, an’ axis him, ‘Is the time come?’ He replies, ‘No; the man is, but the hour is not!’ an’ that instant they’re both asleep again. Now, you see, while the soger is on the mountain top, the mouth of the cave is open, an’ any one may go in that might happen to see it. One man it appears did, an’ wishin’ to know from curiosity whether the sogers were dead or livin’, he touched one of them wid his hand, who started up an’ axed him the same question, ‘Is the time come?’ Very fortunately he said ‘No;’ that minute the soger was as sound in his trance as before.”
“An’, Barney, what did the soger mane when he said, ‘The man is, but the hour is not?’”
“What did he mane? I’ll tell you that. The man is Bonyparty; which manes, when put into proper explanation, the right side; that is, the true cause. Larned men have found that out.”
“Barney, wasn’t Columkill a great prophet?”
“He was a great man entirely at prophecy, and so was St Bridget. He prophesied ‘that the cock wid the purple comb is to have both his wings clipped by one of his own breed before the struggle comes.’ Before that time, too, we’re to have the Black Militia, an’ afther that it is time for every man to be prepared.”
“An’, Barney, who is the cock wid the purple comb?”
“Why, the Orangemen to be sure. Isn’t purple their colour, the dirty thieves?”
“An’ the Black Militia, Barney, who are they?”
“I have gone far an’ near, through north an’ through south, up an’ down, by hill an’ hollow, till my toes were corned an’ my heels in griskins, but could find no one able to resolve that, or bring it clear out o’ the prophecy. They’re to be sogers in black, an’ all their arms an’ ’coutrements is to be the same colour; an’ farther than that is not known as yet.”
“It’s a wondher you don’t know it, Barney, for there’s little about prophecy that you haven’t at your finger ends.”