the opposite direction.  This force consisted of sixty men; the first only amounted to forty-five.  Constable Carroll rode on considerably in advance of his party.  He found himself suddenly surrounded, and was forced to surrender and dismount.  He and two others of the advance-guard were removed.  But the main body continued to approach rapidly; and Mr. O’Brien was not in a position and had not strength to intercept their junction with the other body.  His friends pressed Mr. O’Brien to retreat, which he refused.  Admitting, fully, his inability to cope with these forces, he declined to avail himself of the means of escape at his disposal.  His comrades impressed on him that his life belonged to the country; that another effort was yet within the range of possibility, and that it was incumbent on him to save himself for the final issue.  By long and passionate entreaty, they induced him to mount the police-officer’s horse and retire.  When he had left, Messrs. Stephens and MacManus led off the remainder of their party, without being pursued or molested.

After a short consultation, they determined to separate.  Mr. Stephens proposed to go on to Urlingford, where a large force was collecting, and MacManus accepted the duty of bearing to us the intelligence of the disaster, and taking chance with us for the future.  He came up with Mr. Meagher, Mr. O’Donohoe, and Mr. Leyne, who were then on their way to the Comeragh mountains, but changed their purpose on hearing this sad intelligence.  They remained that night at the house of a man named Hanrahan, near Nine-mile House, a small village on the high road from Kilkenny to Cork.

I was all this time ignorant of what occurred.  After Mr. Reilly had left me, and I was joined by the young friend already mentioned, I summoned as many of the farmers of the neighbourhood as I could collect, and it was agreed that ten of them, who would represent each one hundred men, should meet me next day, after divine service, at the wood of Keilavalla, situate near the western base of Slievenamon.  We were to be joined by two others from the neighbourhood of Carrick-on Suir, from which we were distant about ten miles.  On that morning the news of Mr. O’Brien’s disaster spread far, and was, of course, exaggerated.  I had slept the previous night not far from the mountain, where I was watched by two brothers named Walsh, who lived at Brookhill, but have since removed to the United States.  I gladly avail myself of this occasion to attest their fidelity and bravery.  At the time appointed, my friend and I proceeded to the place of rendezvous.  We remained for hours, and remained in vain.  At last one only of the ten arrived.  He told us that at the chapel the Rev. Patrick Laffan read the names of the proscribed traitors for whose persons a reward was offered....

We continued on the mountain during the remainder of the day; and toward evening about fifty men came up to us, who, one and all, expressed the utmost indignation at what had happened.  Once more our hopes revived.  If Mr. O’Brien could avoid arrest for a few weeks only, we expected that a sense of shame would sting the country to desperate exertion.