e 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
i