There's
no time to tell you all that happened; but I tell you it was the day
of my life. A triumph like a torchlight procession, with torchlights
that might have been firebrands. The mutinies simmered down; the men
of Somerset and the western counties came pouring into the market
places; the men who died with Arthur and stood firm with Alfred. The
Irish regiments rallied to them, after a scene like a riot, and
marched eastward out of the town singing Fenian songs. There was all
that is not understood, about the dark laughter of that people, in
the delight with which, even when marching with the English to the
defense of England, they shouted at the top of their voices, 'High
upon the gallows tree stood the noble-hearted three . . . With
England's cruel cord about them cast.' However, the chorus was 'God
save Ireland,' and we could all have sung that just then, in one
sense or another.
"But there was another side to my mission. I carried the plans of
the defense; and to a great extent, luckily, the plans of the
invasion also. I won't worry you with strategics; but we knew where
the enemy had pushed forward the great battery that covered all his
movements; and though our friends from the West could hardly arrive
in time to intercept the main movement, they might get within long
artillery range of the battery and shell it, if they only knew
exactly where it was.
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