you tell me. You may take my word for that. You can
pick them up there yourselves and take them back with you when you're
going home in the evening--those of you that'll be left alive to go
home. For we'll be ready for you, Jimmy, and Dicky's Brae will suit us
just as well as any other place."

The Wolfe Tone Republicans are honourable men. Their band marched at the
head of the procession through the streets of the village. They played
all the most seditious tunes there are, and went on playing for half
a mile outside the village. The police, headed by Mr. Hinde, followed
them. At the cross-roads there was a halt. The bandsmen laid down the
instruments very carefully on a pile of stones beside the road. Then
they took the fork of the road which leads southwards.

The direct route to Dicky's Brae lies northwest along the other fork of
the road. Cornelius O'Farrelly had the instinct of a military commander.
His idea was to make a wide detour, march by a cross-road and take the
Dicky Brae position in the rear. This would require some time; but the
demonstrators had a long day before them, and if the speeches were cut a
little short no one would be any the worse.

Jimmy McLoughlin and the members of the Loyal True-Blue Invincibles sat
on the roadside at the foot of Dicky's Brae and waited. They expected
that the Wolfe Tone Republicans would reach the place about noon. At a
quarter to twelve Mr. Hinde and five police arrived. They had with them
a cart carefully covered with sacking. No one was in the least disturbed
by their appearance. Five police, even with an officer at their head,
cannot do much to annoy two armies of sixty and seventy men.

The police halted in the middle of the road. They made no attempt to
unload their cart.

At 1.30 Jimmy McLoughlin took council with some of the leading members
of the Loyal True-Blue Invincible Lodge. It seemed likely that the Wolfe
Tone Republicans had gone off to demonstrate in some other direction,
deliberately shirking the fight which had been promised them.

"I'd never have thought it of Cornelius O'Farrelly," said Jimmy sadly.
"I had a better opinion of him, so I had. I knew he was a Papist and a
rebel and every kind of a blackguard, but I'd never have thought he was
a coward."

While he spoke, a small boy came running down the hill. He brought the
surprising intelligence that the Wolfe Tone Republicans were advancing
in good order from a totally unexpected direction. Ji