after the Rising, and it took us all
our time to find employment for them, or to get them away to America. We
had then in Liverpool a corps of volunteers known as "The Irish
Brigade." Whatever Nationalist organisation might exist in the town
always strongly condemned young Irishmen for joining the corps. All we
could urge against it, however, could not prevent our young men who were
coming over from Ireland at this time from joining the "Brigade" for the
purpose, they said, of learning and perfecting themselves in the use of
arms. Colonel Bidwell and the officers must have had a shrewd suspicion
of the truth, and there was a common remark in the town upon the
improved physical appearance of the "Brigade." This was, of course,
owing to the number of fine soldier-like young Irishmen who at this time
filled its ranks.

During the two years that followed the escape of Stephens, I met Colonel
Kelly several times in Liverpool. When I first saw him he would be about
thirty years of age. This is my remembrance of his personal appearance:
His forehead was broad and square, with the thick dark hair carefully
disposed about it. He had somewhat high cheek bones, and wore a pointed
moustache over a tolerably full beard. The general impression of his
face seemed to me slightly cynical, and he had a constant smile that
betokened self-possession and confidence. He sometimes wore a frock
coat, a light waistcoat buttoned high up, a black fashionable necktie,
and light well-made trousers. After surveying him in detail, you would
come to the conclusion that he was a man of daring enough to involve
himself in danger of life, and with sufficient address to extricate
himself from the peril. He was undoubtedly a man capable of winning the
confidence and even devotion of others, as was shown when, falling into
the hands of the Government, he was snatched from their grasp in the
open day on the streets of Manchester.

I met him some weeks after the Rising. The place of meeting reminded me
of the incident in one of Samuel Lover's stories--"Rory O'More"--to
which I have already alluded, for, in our later revolutionary movements,
as in 1798, projects of great importance had sometimes to be discussed
in public houses.

A few of the Liverpool men came to meet the leaders in a very humble
beer shop, kept by a decent County Down man, Owen McGrady, in one of the
poorer streets off Scotland Road. Here were met on this particular night
a notable compa