“It might have been done, six or eight months ago,” Mr. O’Brian said; “but the spirit of the people here has been very much broken, as well as their numbers diminished.  But you can rely upon it, that if anything like a general rising can be got up, we will do our share here.  With but a thousand men I can rely on, I feel that any open insurrection would be hopeless; but we could fire the city at a score of points, night after night, and so alarm the citizens that they would insist on a considerable force being kept here for their protection, and this would aid our friends outside.  I know nothing as to what is being done there, I have only charge of the matter inside the city.”

“I am well aware of that, sir, and have to call upon those who have the threads of the movement, throughout the country, in their hands.  I only arrived today, and came to you first, in order that I might know how matters stand here before I see the others.  I shall, of course, call again upon you before I leave.”

After leaving Mr. O’Brian, Walter visited the houses of several others to whom he bore letters.  The accounts of the feeling throughout the country were more encouraging than those which he had received from Mr. O’Brian.  The hatred of the invaders was greater than ever, and the peasantry in all parts were in a state of sullen desperation.  Indeed, the enemy could nowhere move, in small parties, without the certainty of being attacked.  The pressing need was arms.  A great part of the peasants who owned guns had already joined the army, and the rest possessed no weapons beyond roughly-made pikes, and scythes fixed on long handles.  These were formidable weapons in a sudden attack on any small party, but they would not enable the peasants to cope, with any chance of success, against considerable bodies of troops, especially if provided with artillery.

The persons whom Walter saw were in communication with the disaffected in all parts of the country, and agreed in the opinion that a general rising should be delayed, until some striking success was obtained by the Irish army, when the whole country would rise and fall upon the enemy wherever met with.  The plans for a rising having been discussed and arranged, after several interviews, at some of which most of the leaders of the movement were present, Walter prepared to start again for the camp, with the news that the first Irish victory would be followed by a rising throughout the country, aided by great conflagrations, if not by a serious movement in Dublin.

The negotiations had occupied over a fortnight.  During the first ten days, Larry, who always kept watch outside the house Walter was visiting, reported that nothing whatever had occurred that was in the slightest degree suspicious.  Then he told Walter, on his retiring to their lodgings, that he fancied their footsteps were followed.

“Do you think so, Larry?”

“I do, yer honour,” Larry replied earnestly.  “Three times, when you were in the house, the same man came along the street, and each time I saw him look up at the windows, and somehow I felt that he was following us on our way back.  I looked round several times, and each time I fancied I saw a fellow slip into a doorway.”