In the meantime the preparations for the chase were made with the most extraordinary energy and caution.  Woodward had other persons engaged in it, on whom he had now made up his mind to devolve the consequences of the whole proceedings.  The sheriff and the posse comitatas, together with assistance from other quarters, had all been engaged; and as some vague intelligence of Shawn-na-Midoque’s retreat had been obtained, Woodward proceeded in complete disguise before daybreak with a party, not one of whom was able to recognize him, well armed, to have what was, in those days, called a tory-hunt.

The next morning was dark and gloomy.  Gray, heavy mists lay upon the mountain-tops, from which, as the light of the rising sun fell upon them, they retreated in broken masses to the valleys and lower grounds beneath them.  A cold, chilly aspect lay upon the surface of the earth, and the white mists that had descended from the mountain-tops, or were drawn up from the ground by the influence of the sun, were, although more condensed, beginning to get a warmer look.

Notwithstanding the secrecy with which this enterprise was projected it had taken wind, and many of those who had suffered by the depredations of the tories were found joining the band of pursuers, and many others who were friendly to them, or who had relations among them, also made their appearance, but contrived to keep somewhat aloof from the main body, though not at such a distance as might seem to render them suspected; their object being to afford whatever assistance they could, with safety to themselves and without incurring any suspicion of affinity to the unfortunate tories.

The country was of intricate passage and full of thick woods.  At this distance of time, now that it is cleared and cultivated, our readers could form no conception of its appearance then.  In the fastnesses and close brakes of those woods lay the hiding-places and retreats of the tories—­“the wood kernes” of Spenser’s day.  A tory-hunt at that time, or at any time, was a pastime of no common, danger.  Those ferocious and determined banditti had little to render life desirable.  They consequently set but a slight value upon it.  The result was that the pursuits after them by foreign soldiers, and other persons but slightly acquainted with the country, generally ended in disaster and death to several of the pursuers.

On the morning in question the tory-hunters literally beat the woods as if they had been in the pursuit of game, but for a considerable time with little effect.  Not the appearance of a single tory was anywhere visible; but, notwithstanding this, it so happened that some one of their enemies occasionally dropped, either dead or wounded, by a shot from the intricacies and covers of the woods, which, upon being searched and examined, afforded no trace whatsoever of those who did the mischief.  This was harassing and provocative of vengeance to the military and such wretched police as existed in that day.  No search could discover a single trace of a tory, and many of those in the pursuit were obliged to withdraw from it—­not unreluctantly, indeed, in order to bear back the dead and wounded to the town of Rathfillan.