Up to about 7.30 o’clock, tradition says, the morning remained beautifully clear, and the Irish camp, on the rising ground, was plainly visible to the enemy. St. Ruth’s army, except the officers and men on duty and the few non-Catholic Jacobites who followed its fortunes, was observed to be assisting at mass—altars having been erected by the chaplains at the head of every regiment. It was, according to the imposing French custom, which St. Ruth closely followed, military High Mass, during which, at the elevation of the Host, there was rolling of the drums and blare of trumpets, instead of the pealing of cathedral bells. The horses of the Irish cavalry were “on herd” along the grassy hillside, under guard; but, when the English advance was sighted, the bugles sounded “To Horse,” and there was “mounting in hot haste” of Sarsfield’s and Galmoy’s and Kilmallock’s bronzed and bearded troopers—the paladins of the Boyne and Ballyneety. Divine service over, the Irish army at once occupied the positions assigned to the several corps by their general on the preceding day. Story and some other English writers claim that, on that day, also, St. Ruth addressed to his army a pompous, vainglorious, and rather insulting speech, which he caused to be translated into English and Irish, by his interpreters, for the benefit of those to whom it was directed. But Irish chroniclers aver that he spoke to the troops with paternal consideration, reminded them of their country’s sufferings, and their own duty, and called upon them, in words of nervous eloquence, in the name of honor, religion, and liberty, and for Ireland’s military glory, to conquer or die. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER V Decisive Battle of Aughrim—It Opens Favorably for the Irish—Desperate Fighting in the Centre and at Urachree—Fortune or Treason Favors De Ginkel BUT the fog, “arising from the moist valley of the Suck,” had, meanwhile, gathered so densely that the rival armies, for a time, lost sight of each other, and De Ginkel’s forward movement was suspended; but his soldiers rested in the positions previously determined on, although the formation had to be somewhat modified later in the day. It was about noon when the fog finally rolled away, and Ginkel’s line of battle moved slowly onward, until, at last, to use the graphic words of Lord Macaulay, the rival armies “confronted each other, with nothing but the bog and the breastwork between them.” The Irish historian, John Boyle, states, in his fine account of the conflict at Aughrim, that, at sight of the Williamite array, on the other side of the morass, the Irish army broke into loud shouts of defiance, which were vigorously responded to by their foes. There was a mutual mortal hatred expressed in those cheers. It meant “war to the knife,” and, as at our own Buena Vista,