The melancholy convoy started for Fort George. Women, children, and strong men crowded to the quay, and wept as the martyrs were wafted to their prison. Young Robert Emmett was seen to wave his hand from a window towards Tom, who stood at the ship's bows to take his last look at Erin. So soon as the vessel was out of sight, the young man kneeled down by the open casement with both arms aloft, and swore an oath there to repel the Sassenagh yet, or perish in the attempt. Many of those who were wearily plodding homeward recognised his figure and his action, and, kneeling too, registered their vows in concert. All the first leaders of the United Irishmen who were not dead were on board that transport; and Robert, left alone, set to work with a will (as Castlereagh graphically put it) to batter his head against a wall. He engaged mysterious premises, decayed warehouses in back slums, from out of which came by-and-by the hum of many voices, the clang of many anvils. The Battalion of Testimony peeped through the keyholes, and were mightily amused. This infantile echo of the preparations of '96 and '97 was diverting--a right jovial jest--a jolly jape! They related to Major Sirr and his crony, Cassidy, all they had seen and heard, and those worthies roared too, till tears of exhausted merriment ran down their cheeks. The young enthusiast's guileless arrangements for driving the Englishry into the sea were ridiculous, no doubt. He kept the details of them to himself, never telling those who loved him of them. As they were not in the habit of looking through keyholes, they knew not that he was working in earnest; that he had determined in his own mind, should the union pass, to make the first shaking out of the united flag upon the Castle his signal for attack; when a handful of scatter-brains, as unpractical as himself, should storm the Castle, kill the Viceroy, proclaim Ireland free, and the Act of Union a valueless piece of dirty parchment. Jack Cade's rabblement was no whit more laughable an assemblage than the army which Robert proposed to lead to victory. The authorities consulted as to what should be done with him, and decided that it would be safer to allow him to stir up a little dust in the metropolis than to drive him into the provinces, where he really might give serious trouble. It would be better to let the affair come to a head at once, while the English militia and my Lord Cornwallis were still at hand. It was fortunate for Government that Robert kept his secret so well; for if his friends had been aware of his guileless plots, they would have applied at once to the Viceroy, who would have had no alternative but to lock up the firebrand and allow the coals to smoulder. Not even to Sara did he speak openly; though he certainly did let out vague hints which frightened the damsel not a little; not even to Terence did he speak at all--to Terence, who remained quietly in seclusion at the Abbey for