depends on the traveller's
ability to pay. As our means, for purposes of at least this kind were
not stinted, we were sure of welcome a second time. But this fact had a
tendency to frustrate our aim in another point of view; for it always
excited curiosity, so that it was doubtful whether we would not be
safer with persons who would provide for us at the cost of their last
morsel, by confiding to them who and what we were. But in this district
of Cork, the centre of which is the notorious town of Bandon, were
scattered several families of Orangemen, who were intensely inimical to
the cause and people of Ireland. In this very instance we lodged with
one of those families. A letter that I tore near the house was picked
up, put together, and read, so as to lead to suspicion, which was
immediately communicated to the magistrate. This caused the most
vigilant surveillance to be exercised over the homes and persons of our
friends. But before the discovery was made we were far beyond the reach
of our pursuers. We had learned that the efforts made for our escape
were unsuccessful, and that time would be required to effect anything,
so as not to arouse the suspicion of those who guarded the coast; and we
agreed to conceal ourselves as best we could in some distant part of the
country, for three weeks, and then return or communicate with our
friend, who promised, meantime, to leave no effort untried on our
behalf. A second time, we set out by the same route. When we found
ourselves on a hill-top, far from human haunts, we sat down as was our
wont, to consider our future course. We determined to visit some obscure
watering-place in the vicinity of Cape Clear. With that view we skirted
the picturesque mountains that surround Dunmanway. These mountains
present features to which the eye of one living in the inland country is
little accustomed. The mountains of the midland and eastern counties are
generally enormous clumps with little inequality of surface, and
covered over with heath and weeds. Here, on the contrary, the mountains
seemed to be carved out into the most fantastic shapes, covered with
white granite stones, whose reflections in the watery surface gave the
scene an appearance of singular beauty. However strange it may appear,
we lingered over these picturesque scenes in intense delight; the more
so because there seemed no limit to our journey, and no definite aim to
which our efforts led. And a mountain-top has always an a