down, the adjacent town of Enniscorthy, and piked, without mercy, every obnoxious person that fell into their power. And recollecting the feelings formerly noticed in Sir William, with reference to the question of the probable success of the insurgents in an attack upon the town, his newly-acquired hopes, derived even from his general conclusions of the position of affairs, may easily be imaged by the reader.

The progress of events, which he could not follow, we are obliged to trace for him.

Few of the inhabitants of Wexford retired to repose upon the night of his arrest. The whole garrison remained under arms; but as the watchword of continued safety passed from sentinel to sentinel, it often changed, notwithstanding its literal import, into a cadence which well might seem to argue the approach of the enemy.

Yet hope had not yet quite fled the breasts of the military and citizens. An express, promising succour to Wexford, arrived during the evening, from a general officer, who, at the first intelligence of the sudden cry to war in the County of Wexford, had set off from the Fort of Duncannon, in the contiguous County of

Waterford and it was not till daybreak that the friends to whom he had pledged his services, learned how incompetent to redeem the pledge this commander proved to be.

Either insensible of the now formidable foe he had to encounter, or incapable of judicious measures, he had left Duncannon almost alone, purposing to meet, at a village eight miles distant from the threatened town, some militia and cannon, while his main force was to follow in his route. Upon the night previous to the attack of Wexford, he gained the point of rendezvous; the militia had not come up, and he retired to rest. But while he enjoyed his sleep, they arrived; and unconscious of his presence in the hamlet, and supposing him in advance, pushed on. Some time after day-dawn, they were espied by the insurgents winding down a hilly road to the left of their position; overwhelming numbers poured down from the rocky eminence; one officer and a score of privates of the military became prisoners; the rest were slain almost before they could be aware of their danger; the ammunition they guarded accidentally blew up during the contest; but, besides the arms of the killed and the captive, the

shouting victors now dragged up to their high encampment two small pieces of cannon.

The general, thus taken napping, learned, when he awoke, the fate of this detachment; his main force had, however, come up, and in time perhaps to revenge their comrades, and still assist Wexford; but, ordering them to retreat, he left Wexford to assist itself, and fled precipitately the way he had advanced.

A force destined to co-operate with this injudicious or unhappy commander, supposed to be still advancing, marched out of Wexford to make a diversion in his favour. One of its officers, pushing on to reconnoitre, was shot at a long distance by a shelmalier, and upon his death ensued the rapid retreat into garrison of the body he had in part commanded.

Two

It was resolved to evacuate Wexford. fresh negotiators were sent out to make terms with the dreaded foe. Full and unmolested possession of the town was tendered, provided the insurgents would stipulate to spare life and property. This condition the leaders haughtily refused, unless, after the departure of the garrison, their arms, ammunition, and accoutrements, should be found in the barracks by the

besiegers; and while the ambassadors went back with this answer, the insurgents hotly followed in their footsteps.

In about an hour afterwards, Sir William Judkin, listening, along with his brother captives, to every sound, great and little, that could reach them from abroad, heard a shout, so faint it must have come from a distance, and yet its character was that of one emitted continuously by thousands of human throats. Appalled silence only at first answered it in the town; but anon, shrieks, shrill and despairing, mixed with all the gradually rising clamour of precipitate flight and confusion, responded to its repeated challenge. As the invaders came near, the two previously distinct uproars merged into one; then, by degrees, intense cheers of mad exultation began to rise over every other sound-gained at length sole and tremendous mastery, rang nearer and nearer to Sir William's prison-walls, burst around them and above them, like-if it could be-shrill thunder; and amid the clang of shivered bolt and bar, of answering shouts under the same roof with him, of stamping and rushing, and roaring along vaulted passages and through echoing

dungeons-Sir William, his own lungs almost frantically adding to the terrible diapase, and his own rush and bound not less uncontrolled than that of any ecstatic insurgent or liberated captive around him-Sir William was again free!

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY, DORSET-STREeet.