State were now the chief proofs that the
conspiracy still existed, and the very means wisely
adopted to obviate or anticipate danger gave
birth to apprehension.

A hot pursuit was set on foot after James
Fitzpatrick, but in vain. He had timed his
flight cleverly, and taken the railway to Dublin
at a station nine miles off, although there were
two stations nearer. My ponies were brought
back next day, and gave proofs of having been
ridden desperately hard. Who accompanied
Fitzpatrick we never knew. It was supposed
he had made for Liverpool, and had hidden
himself amongst the dockyard labourers for
a time, and then started for New York.
The constabulary gathered up and carefully
recorded all the evidence they could collect
concerning him to little purpose, as I
imagined. But they said, if ever a rising should
actually take place, "Fitzpatrick would surely
be in the thick of it." He would dare
anything, they believed, and could not settle
down.

During the interval between the flight of
Fitzpatrick and the rising at Tallaght, we heard
occasionally vague rumours concerning him.
"He had become a great man, entirely;" "He
was full of money," and "would soon be back
in Ireland with the States army." But we
gathered some decided information from the
New York papers, which, in their reports of
Fenian meetings, recorded his name as that of
an accredited agent of "the Irish republic,"
regularly commissioned to explain the position
of the conspiracy in Ireland. He was named in
small capitals as "Head Centre" and "District
Organiser of the I.R.B." His story harmonised
with that told by all the rest who had fled from
Ireland, and appeared as "agents" in the cities
of the United States. "There were thousands
of men, wholly or partly drilled and disciplined,
ready to rise, if they had but arms." Arms, or
money to buy arms, would enable "the men in
the gap" to liberate Ireland from the British
yoke. He openly announced his determination
to return to "the front," and to join in striking
"the final blow" against British tyranny. All
this was considered as a device to induce the
Celtic element in the United States to subscribe
once more to the Fenian treasury. We believed
Fitzpatrick to be but a type of a numerous
class, Irish in nothing but their birth.
Habituated to violence and rapine during the
American civil war, the return of peace found
them unfitted for industrial employment, and,
ready to become the instruments of any American
intrigue which promised them congenial
occupation, Whiteboyism, Terry-altism,
Ribbonism, the Phœnix mystery, had been carried
to America by a million of emigrants, and there
developed into secret societies of vast extent
and considerable political influence. The Irish
element in these societies was believed to have
combined to a man in Fenianism, and to be
wielded by clever and unscrupulous leaders for
political objects or pecuniary advantage. As a
theoretical organisation on paper, the Fenian
scheme was remarkably complete; but, as the
emissaries of the conspiracy must have known,
that not one person worthy to be called, by
the most liberal application of the term, a
citizen—not one in decent position or
respectable employment, could be induced to
take part in the scheme from first to last, it
was not generally believed they would ever
oppose to the enormous power of the government
the loose and hungry waifs and strays,
the debauched and dissolute idler of the
towns, and the weak-minded and feeble-bodied
youths, who constituted in Ireland the Fenian
army.

When this army had melted away at the first
touch of the constabulary on Tallaght Hill,
Fitzpatrick was diligently sought for. The
authorities were aware that he had acted as one
of the leaders in the affray, and it was supposed,
rightly or wrongly, that he would willingly
purchase his own safety by supplying information.
"Generals," "captains," "head centres,"
strove who should be the first to betray those
whom they had led, but there was good reason
to suspect that Fitzpatrick knew more of the
American side of the conspiracy than the rest.
He was one whose appearance could not be
mistaken. He was not amongst the miserable
rabble paraded in the Castle-yard the day
succeeding the rising; he was not found among
the straying fugitives picked up by the police;
he certainly had not succeeded in getting
through the Wicklow mountains, or making
"for the south." We concluded that he had
slipped back to Dublin someway, and hidden
himself amidst the crowd.

In the wards of an hospital he lay powerless
and moribund when I recognised him. A ball
had struck him right on the breast-bone, and,
glancing off, ran in a semicircle to the shoulder,
and there, breaking the clavicle, passed out. A
thick blue welt, tight as a rope, marked the
track of the ball. The blood oozed drop by
drop from the narrow puncture, and would not
be stanched. The stars in their courses had
fought against the Fenians. Never was there
known in Ireland so bitter a month as the March
which the conspirators madly chose for their
attempt. For two endless nights and two
inclement days Fitzpatrick had lain in a furrow
freezing to death. Then the gathering of a
flock of crows around his hiding-place led to
his discovery. He was carefully lifted up and
borne away, no longer an enemy. He could not
have been more kindly tended. He could only
look his thanks. This only I gathered from his
whispered words, spoken at long intervals:—
that he had been treacherously shot by one of
his American confederates because he knew too
much.

All that he knew, lies buried with him. We
buried him among "his own people," in a sunny
graveyard. He was the last of his kin in
Ireland. I see his grave every Sunday, and the
children have made it bloom with daffodils and
primroses. There is often a little group gathered
around the place. They know as yet nothing