14/62 They had been always opposed, on other grounds, to the Irish Confederation; but in that hour of fate they were silent. They were ignorant of my absence from Cashel and determined to join me there. When I had learned this, I was thirty miles from that town and knew that they had arrived there during the night, and had, long before then, taken some decisive course. My hope was that the town was in their hands. But, before I could decide on what it became me to do, a messenger arrived from Cashel, directing me to remain where I was, and conveying an assurance that Cashel was by that time captured. |