the market-house, waiting their arrival, until
the soldiers approached."

The night was dark; the excitement along
the quays, in the swarming "Liberty," and
below the Castle, was tremendous. There is no
excitement so wild as Irish excitement. Bands
of pikemen were marching to various points of
the city, and others were rushing, open-mouthed,
to the depôts for arms and powder. Already
drums were beating at the Castle and in the
various barrack-yards, and patches of scarlet
were moving towards the spot where rockets
were sprung and guns discharged.

That night Lord Kilwarden, chief justice of
the King's Bench, an amiable and just old
lawyer, who had never lent himself to such
ruthless severities as Lord Norbury and other
partisans, had smilingly dressed at his country-house,
and, trim, powdered, and in full evening
dress, handed his daughter, Miss Wolfe, into his
carriage, and with his nephew, a clergyman,
driven cheerful and chatty to a party at the
Castle. All the stories of this good and worthy
man redound to his credit. In 1795, when he
was attorney-general, a number of striplings
and boys were indicted for high treason. The
poor lads appeared in court wearing those open
collars and frilled tuckers made familiar to us
by Gainsborough's pictures. As Kilwarden
entered the court, the Jeffreys of that day called
out brutally:

"Well, Mr. Attorney, I suppose you are
ready to go on with the trials of these tuckered
traitors?"

Generously indignant and disgusted at hearing
such language from the representative of
divine justice, Kilwarden replied:

"No, my lord, I am not ready."

Then, stooping down to the prisoners' counsel,
he whispered:

"If I have any power to save the lives of
these boys, whose extreme youth I did not
before know, that man shall never have the
gratification of passing sentence upon a single
one of these tuckered traitors."

The large-hearted man was as good as his
word. He procured pardons for all the
prisoners on condition of their voluntarily
expatriating themselves. One lad alone obstinately
refused to accept pardon on such a condition,
and was tried, convicted, and executed.

The relatives of that unhappy boy persisted
in considering their kinsman as an especial
selected victim, and swore vengeance against
the good old judge. On this unfortunate
summer night the carriage got embedded in the
mob; the pikemen soon closed round it;
pistols and blunderbusses were held to the
head of the powdered coachman, sunk deeper
than usual into his seat with fear, and at the
heads of the footmen clustering behind. There
was a murderous cry, and a pikeman named
Shannon tore open the door of the carriage.
It was Shannon, a relation of the boy who
would be hanged.

"It is I, Kilwarden, chief justice of the King's
Bench!" the old nobleman blandly cries, as he
tried to calm the fears of his frightened daughter.

"Then you're the man I want," roars Shannon,
and digs his pike into the old lord's chest.
Before it is withdrawn, half a dozen other
weapons meet in the old man's body, and he is
trampled underfoot. His daughter, alone and
unattended, breaks through the pitying crowd,
and is the first to enter the Castle, and
sobbingly relate the horrors of that cruel night.
Kilwarden's nephew was pursued and piked.

Many other murders, equally useless, equally
unjust, are perpetrated that night. The savage,
half-drunken pikemen, without commander—for
Emmet had no power over them, and they were
now split up into parties by the soldiers—
murdered every suspicious and obnoxious person
they met. A police-officer and John Hanlan,
the Tower-keeper, were two of the victims.
Colonel Brown, a man respected by all Dublin,
was also brutally assassinated as, misled by the
darkness, he was trying to join his regiment.
Ignorant of the precise movement of the rebels,
he got entangled in their chief masses, was
struck down by a shot from a blunderbuss, and
instantly chopped to pieces. All enemies and
neutrals, of whatever rank, who were not
murdered, had pikes thrust in their hands, and were
compelled to follow the cruel madmen to face
the English soldiers.

Emmet, an hour ago confident of success,
now felt his utter powerlessness to tame the
horrible Frankenstein which he had invoked.
His men were scattered; an attack on the
Castle was impossible. The people could not
be rallied to it. They were only intent on
murder in the streets, and were beset by police
and soldiers wherever they collected. A few
brave fellows, staunch as bulldogs, had flown
at them, and were holding grimly on till the
huntsmen could arrive. Mr. Edward Wilson, a
police magistrate, with only eleven constables,
had the courage to push on to Thomas-street,
where three hundred pikemen instantly
surrounded his small detachment. Undismayed,
Mr. Wilson called to the rabble to lay down
their arms, or he would fire. The rebels
wavered, and muttered together; but one villain,
savage at the threat, advanced, and stabbed
the magistrate with a pike. Mr. Wilson
instantly shot him dead, and his men fired
a volley. The undisciplined Celts are always
the same—furious in the onset, without fear
and without thought; in the retreat impatient,
fickle, and headlong. The rebels fell back
confused over their dead, and opened right and
left to let their men with fire-arms advance
to the attack. Mr. Wilson then thought it time
to retreat slowly towards the Coombe.

Lieutenant Brady was soon after equally
venturous with forty men of his regiment, the 21st
Fusiliers. He subdivided his small force, and
placed them in positions useful for keeping up a
cross-fire. The soldiers were tormented by bottles
and stones from every window, and by random,
sharpshooters from the alleys, yards, and entries,
but they kept up a rolling and incessant fire till
the pikemen at last broke, shouted, and fled.
Lieutenant Coltman, of the 9th Foot, with only
four soldiers and twenty-four yeomanry from the