’One instance may be given.  A Mr. Pallas, who lived at Growse Hall, lately received information that a certain offender was to be found in a lone house, which was described to him.  He took a party of men with him in the night, and he got to the house very early in the morning.  It was scarcely light.  The soldiers searched, but no man was to be found.  Mr. Pallas ordered them to search again, for that he was certain the man was in the house; they searched again, but in vain; they gave up the point, and were preparing to mount their horses, when one man, who had stayed a little behind his companions, saw, or thought he saw, something move at the end of the garden behind the house.  He looked, and beheld a man’s arm come out of the ground:  he ran to the spot and called to his companions; but the arm disappeared; they searched, but nothing was to be seen; and though the soldier still persisted in his story, he was not believed “Come,” cries one of the party, “don’t waste your time here looking for an apparition among these cabbage-stalks—­go back once more to the house!” They went to the house, and lo! there stood the man they were in search of in the middle of the kitchen.

’Upon examination it was found that from his garden to his house there had been practiced a secret passage underground:  a large meal-chest in the kitchen had a false bottom, which lifted up and down at pleasure, to let him into his subterraneous dwelling.

’Whenever he expected the house to be searched, down he went; the moment the search was over, up he came; and had practised this with success, till he grew rash, and returned one moment too soon. . . .

’Previous to this time, the principal gentry in the county had raised corps of yeomanry; but my father had delayed doing so, because, as long as the civil authority had been sufficient, he was unwilling to resort to military interference, or to the ultimate law of force, of the abuse of which he had seen too many recent examples.  However, it now became necessary, even for the sake of justice to his own tenantry, that they should be put upon a footing with others, have equal security of protection, and an opportunity of evincing their loyal dispositions.  He raised a corps of infantry, into which he admitted Catholics as well as Protestants.  This was so unusual, and thought to be so hazardous a degree of liberality, that by some of an opposite party it was attributed to the worst motives.  Many who wished him well came privately to let him know of the odium to which he exposed himself.

’The corps of Edgeworth Town infantry was raised, but the arms were, by some mistake of the ordnance officer, delayed.  The anxiety for their arrival was extreme, for every day and every hour the French were expected to land.