m he had spoken,
returned under the mistaken conviction that from the country nothing was
to be expected.

This decided Mr. O'Brien and his friends. He had been joined at Cashel
by P.J. Smyth, and James Cantwell, now in the United States, by James
Stephens, now at Paris, and by Patrick O'Donohoe, now sharing the doom
of his chief. As an episode in this history, the fate of Mr. O'Donohoe
is singular and startling. He was much relied on by his friends in the
Confederation, and was entrusted with the dispatches to Mr. O'Brien. He
proceeded on his mission to Kilkenny, and there applied to one of the
clubs. He was known to none of the members, and became at once the
object of suspicion. It was, accordingly, determined to send him for
the rest of the journey, under arrest, and Stephens and another member
were appointed to that duty. They proceeded in execution of their
mission to Cashel, where Mr. O'Donohoe was warmly welcomed by Mr.
O'Brien, whose fate he thenceforth determined to share. Mr. Stephens
came to the same resolution; but the other guard of Mr. O'Donohoe,
refused to commit himself to fortunes which appeared so desperate. With
Messrs. Stephens and O'Donohoe, their very desperation acted as the most
ennobling and irresistible inducement. They clung to him to the last
with a fidelity the more untiring in proportion as his circumstances
portended imminent disaster and ruin.

Their departure from Cashel compelled a feeling of gloomier forebodings
and deeper despair than they had yet experienced. The darkest
consciousness that ever clouded the hopes of man began to darken upon
them. Where they expected that every man would make a fortress for them
in his very heart, they were almost abandoned. But their resolution
remained unchanged. They, therefore, resolved as a final resource to
take up their position in the most inaccessible part of the country. As
they proceeded through the hilly grounds, skirting the Tipperary
collieries, a crowd began to gather around them, and they saw what they
hoped would form the nucleus of an army. Braver hearts never beat
beneath a cuirass, but they were not armed, disciplined or even taught.
On that day they took the road to the village of Mullinahone, situate
about seventeen miles south-east of Cashel. As they entered Mullinahone,
the chapel bell was rung, and a crowd of some thousands collected.

Mr. O'Brien addressed them with the same brevity and force as at
Carrick-on-Suir, where h