Around O'Brien there clustered on that miserable noontide, about four hundred human beings--a weak, hungry, and emaciated looking throng for the most part; their half naked forms, browned by the sun, and hardened by the winter winds--a motley gathering; amongst whom there were scores of fasting men, and hundreds through whose wretched dwellings the, wind and rain found free ingress. They were poor, they were weak, they were ignorant, they were unarmed! but there was one, thing at least which they possessed--that quality which Heaven bestowed on the Irish race, to gild and redeem their misfortunes. Of courage and resolution they had plenty: they understood little of the causes which led to the outbreak in which they participated; of Smith O'Brien or his associates few of them had heard up to their appearance at Ballingarry; but they knew that it was against the forces of the British government and on behalf of Ireland's independence they were called on to fight, and in this cause they were ready to shed their blood. Such was the party whom O'Brien gazed upon with a troubled mind on that eventful day. Even the attached companions who had so far attended him were no longer by his side; M'Manus, O'Donoghue, and Stephens were still there; but Meagher, Dillon, Doheny and O'Gorman had left at break of day to raise the standard of insurrection in other quarters. Of the men around him not more than twenty possessed firearms, about twice that number were armed with pikes and pitchforks; the remainder had but their naked hands and the stones they could gather by the wayside.