such hospitality that the
speechless tenderness of the females among that class of farmers can be
appreciated. But on the occasion to which I refer, there was added to
the customary delicacy a deep anxiety for our fate. Save hushed words of
pressing and eloquent looks of sympathy, the meal passed off without
conversation; and we rose from the table to depart, as if conscious we
had exchanged our last earthly greeting. It was not so, however, and our
hostess shared much of our after fortune, and now shares our exile. Her
fate, too, is harder than ours. We are occasionally cheered by public
approval, by the sympathy and admiration of every lover of liberty,
whereas her name is never spoken. She has fallen from a position of
comparative affluence, lost her independence (I use the word in its
practical worldly sense), and is doomed to toil for her daily bread. Of
all the vicissitudes of fortune in which the attempt of which I write
resulted, there is not one that has given me more pain than that of
Margaret Quinlan, the lady (who has higher claims to that title?) to
whom I have alluded.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: The other four were Terence Bellew MacManus, John
Cavanagh, J.D. Wright (a T.C.D. student, afterwards a lawyer in
America), and D.P. Cunningham, afterwards a journalist in New
York.--Ed.]

CHAPTER VIII

ARREST OF MR. O'BRIEN, OF MESSRS. MEAGHER AND O'DONOHOE.--ARREST OF
TERENCE BELLEW MACMANUS.--CLONMEL SPECIAL COMMISSION.--TRIAL,
CONVICTION, SPEECHES AND SENTENCE OF THE REBELS.--WRIT OF
ERROR.--COMMUTATION OF SENTENCE.--TRANSPORTATION OF THE HEROES.

Before proceeding further with the details of my own wanderings, I wish
to follow out to its conclusion the fate of those whom we parted with at
Ballingarry, and were destined to see no more, though, in doing so, I
must anticipate the order of time, in which the events took place. My
task here is more difficult and painful than any detail of facts,
however gloomy. There are always in the reverses of the brave, some
glimpses of glory to reconcile us to the dark disasters on our way; but
when calumny pursues their path, gnawing, with ceaseless tooth, the
priceless jewel of their character, the historian must shudder to find
his labour beset by the filth and rubbish the viper has left behind. In
this instance, that lesson of Mr. O'Connell's which was the most fatal
in its influence, found many believers. It was said, and said
unscrupulously, that Mr. O'Bri