No wonder then that Molly’s good nature and good humour were such a tonic to us. And she was brave as well as kind. She would inspire us with hope when everything looked black. She was unshaken in her conviction that no harm would come to us; that God, as she said, would save us from our enemies. She always kept a lamp burning before the image of the Sacred Heart, in intercession for our welfare, and I am sure that many a decade of her beads she said for us too. But if Molly was a brick the priest was a thousand bricks. Like Molly, he never counted the cost of “harbouring outlaws.” We were welcome to his roof and to his table as long as we cared to stay, and everything that his house held, or that he could command, was at our service. We certainly enjoyed our stay at ⸺, and would have liked to prolong it, but it was not safe to stay over-long in the same district, and we felt it was not fair to our host. Moreover, we wanted to be on the move to try what we could be doing to put more life into the cause. After a stay of a few weeks in this place we went on to Rathkeale. Here for the first time I met Sean Finn—as fine a type of brave and chivalrous Irishman as ever lived. He was then but a mere youth, but he had been elected Commandant of his Battalion. Imbued with a passionate desire to strike a blow for the old land he was brave almost to rashness. But, alas! for Ireland, he fell in his first battle with the enemy about a year and a half later. My highest tribute to the memory of this gallant soldier of Ireland! We did not stay long in Rathkeale. We were restless, and longing for action. We were anxious, too, to know how Sean Treacy and Seumas Robinson were faring in Dublin. At this time we saw the newspapers every day, and we knew that they had so far escaped. At last, we got into communication with them and arranged to meet them again. We felt that the fates would have the four of us joined hands again, and stand or fall together. So Sean Hogan and I worked our way from West Limerick back towards the eastern end of the county, to the borders of South Tipperary. Once more we found ourselves in a place where we had already received shelter and hospitality—at Lackelly, near Emly. We were thus within six or seven miles of Soloheadbeg again, and within a few miles of the spot where a few weeks later we were to have our next most exciting and dramatic adventure—Knocklong.