The Felon's Track; Or, History of the Attempted Outbreak in Ireland: Embracing the Leading Events in the Irish Struggle From the Year 1843 to the Close of 1848Doheny, Michael
History
The Felon's Track; Or, History of the Attempted Outbreak in Ireland: Embracing the Leading Events in the Irish Struggle From the Year 1843 to the Close of 1848
Doheny, Michael
Ireland -- History -- Rising of 1848; Young Ireland Party -- History; Young Ireland movement
some at least of its people were prepared to vindicate her liberty, or
die nobly in its assertion. They acquiesced, and the vessel was allowed
to sail. I insisted, however, that after nightfall I should leave the
house and take up my quarters in some obscure lodging house. Meantime it
was arranged that if the next mail confirmed the accounts from
Tipperary, I should be provided with a horse and car, and be able to
leave Cork as I entered it. When night came, the lady of the house
sternly and resolutely opposed my leaving it. She would not consent to
free herself from a risk she took so much honest pleasure in
encountering. Another day and night left us in the same uncertainty. The
reports were still more unsatisfactory and contradictory. But that there
should be reports at all, satisfied my mind, and I finally prepared to
start for Tipperary on the morning of the 29th of September.
Information at length reached me that the party under O'Mahony were
dispersed and himself fled. The difficulty of my position, with respect
to my protectors, left me no alternative. Any chance that presented
itself should be embraced. The Bristol boat was in the river, panting to
escape her anchorage; and following the horse, which was to bear me to
Tipperary, to the quay, I walked on board the _Juverna_, just as she was
loosing her cables. My baggage, made up in a small box, was put on board
as a parcel addressed to a young friend of mine in London. The few
moments that intervened were fraught with most intense suspense. I stood
on the fore deck among cattle, covered with rags and dirt, my eyes fixed
on two detectives who stood at the cabin entrance, scrutinising narrowly
the figure and features of every cabin passenger. The bell rang, the
detectives stepped on shore, one of my friends who watched my movements
from a distance, waved a kind adieu, the _Juverna_ slipped her cables,
and by one bound was out in the river. The first motion of her paddles
sounded to me like the assurance of fate, and I looked on the curling
foam with measureless exultation. The _Juverna_ made a momentary halt at
Passage, and then glanced gaily through Cove harbour out into the sea.
As she cleared the road I turned back to look for the last time upon my
fatherland. Her prospects, her promise, her strength, her hopes, her
failure and her fall rushed in burning memory through my brain. I
endeavoured to embody in the following verses the feelings that agitated
and almost paralysed my every faculty of body and mind. I wrote them on
a piece of paper that had been wrapped round some cheese:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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