announced as a visitor to Killarney.  Once in our possession, we could have him conveyed to some inaccessible fastness where we could dictate terms to him concerning our imprisoned comrades.  We had scarcely a doubt of putting our plan into execution, and our sojourn near Killarney was prolonged for the purpose of becoming more familiar with the pathways whereby to escape to the mountains with our prisoner.  How success in that enterprise might have suggested or shaped a further course of aggression, it is now bootless to conjecture.  The project was marred by the Premier’s abandonment of his intention.

Having appointed to meet a person this evening, near Kenmare, who was to bring us the latest papers and otherwise inform us of his lordship’s movements, we proceeded in that direction, determined to return to Killarney next day to prosecute our examination of the locality.  But the current news informed us that Lord John Russell had left for Scotland.

We remained several days in the neighbourhood of Kenmare, where we had daily interviews with the friend to whom I have already alluded.  He spent all his time in endeavouring to devise some means of escape, and intermediately provided resting-places for us at various distances.  We had the guidance of a young country lad of fine intelligence and true fidelity, who was acquainted with every foot of bog and mountain for miles around.  We spent several days rather agreeably, perambulating the ranges of hills between Kilfademore and Templenoe, embracing a district about fifteen miles square.  One night we slept in an empty cabin within a field of Kilfademore House, a fine old mansion, belonging to the father of Christabel,[15] the mountain poetess, which is now only inhabited by the tenant of the farm, while the whole available military and police force of the district were drawing their lines of circumvallation around this old house, which, as soon as they made the proper dispositions to prevent our escape, they burst into with the stealth and precipitancy of a robber band.

We were most kindly received and cared for wherever our friend or his guide bespoke a night’s hospitality.  But although we unquestioningly reposed on the truth of all to whom our safety was committed, we felt the circle of our armed foes was closing and contracting around us, and it became indispensable to break through it.  It was clear that our steps were tracked, for every night a search was made for us in one or other of the houses over which the influence of our friend extended.  But our information respecting their arrangements was always earlier and surer than theirs concerning our movements.  During this interval when, although we travelled an average of fifteen miles a day, we considered ourselves resting, we received the kindest attentions everywhere; frequently finding a rude mountain cabin furnished with excellent beds and every delicacy.  But we pined to be more at large.  We had interviews with clergymen and others,