"
Ralph's first measure after seeing his men quartered in the village
was to inquire for a boy who would carry a message to Ballyporrit, and
the offer of half a crown produced four or five lads willing to
undertake it. Ralph chose one of them, an active-looking lad of about
fifteen, tore out a leaf from his pocketbook, and wrote an account of
what had happened, and said that the detachment would be in by two
o'clock on the following day. Then directing it to Captain O'Connor or
Lieutenant Desmond, whichever might be in the village, he gave it to
the lad, who at once started at a trot along the road in the direction
from which they had come.
"He will be there in four hours," Mr. Fitzgibbon said. "It's a regular
road all the way, and he can't miss it even in the dark. It's lucky we
turned the way we did, for although it was taking us further from home
it was but two miles along the road here, while, if we had gone the
right way, it would have been six or seven before we arrived at the
next village."
"I think we are lucky all round," Ralph said. "An hour ago if any one
told us we were going to sit down at half-past four to a hot dinner of
pork and potatoes we should have slain him as a scoffer. It would have
seemed altogether too good to be true."
Ralph had no difficulty in purchasing whisky, and be ordered the
sergeant to serve out a tot to each man with his dinner and another
half an hour later, and by seven o'clock there was scarcely one of the
tired men who was not already asleep.
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