Ballingary.  On arriving at this point the police found that effective measures had been adopted to dispute their further progress.  Across the road before them a barricade had been thrown up, and behind it was arrayed a body of men, numbering from three to four hundred.  Fearing to face the insurgent forces, the police turned off to the right, and rushed towards a slate house which they saw in the distance.  The people saw the object of the movement, and at once gave chase; but the police had the advantage of a long start, and they succeeded in reaching the house and barring the door by which they entered, before their pursuers came up.

The die was cast, and the struggle so long watched for, and sighed for, had come at last.  But it came not as it had been depicted by the tribune and poet; the vision that had flashed its radiancy before the eager eyes that hungered for the redemption of Ireland, differed sadly from the miserable reality.  The serried ranks of glittering steel, the files of gallant pikemen, the armed columns of stalwart peasants, pouring through gap and river course, the glimmering camp fires quivering through the mist, the waving banners, and the flashing swords—­where were they now?  Where were the thousands of matchless mould, the men of strength and spirit, whose footfalls woke the echoes one month before in a hundred towns as they marched to the meetings at which they swore to strike down the oppressor?  Only a few months had passed since two thousand determined men had passed in review before O’Brien at Cork; scarcely six weeks since, similar sights were witnessed from the city of the Shannon to the winding reaches of the Boyne.  Everywhere there were strength, and numbers, and resolution; where were they now in the supreme hour of the country’s agony?  A thousand times it had been sworn by tens of thousands of Irishmen, that the tocsin of battle would find them clustered round the good old flag to conquer or die beneath its shadow.  And now, the hour had come, the flag of insurrection so often invoked was raised; but the patriot that raised it was left defenceless:  he at least kept his word, but the promises on which he relied had broken like dissolving ice beneath his feet.

Around O’Brien there clustered on that miserable noontide, about four hundred human beings—­a weak, hungry, and emaciated looking throng for the most part; their half naked forms, browned by the sun, and hardened by the winter winds—­a motley gathering; amongst whom there were scores of fasting men, and hundreds through whose wretched dwellings the, wind and rain found free ingress.  They were poor, they were weak, they were ignorant, they were unarmed! but there was one, thing at least which they possessed—­that quality which Heaven bestowed on the Irish race, to gild and redeem their misfortunes.  Of courage and resolution they had plenty:  they understood little of the causes which led to the outbreak in which they participated; of Smith O’Brien