h STORY DF THE IRISH REBELLION ESTABLISHED 1851. BIRKBECR BANK Southampton Buildings, Ciiancery Lane, London, W.C. Invested Funds - £10,000,000 Number of Accounts, 85,094 TWO-AND-A-HALF per CENT. INTEREST allowed on DEPOSITS, repayable on demand. TWO per CENT on CURRENT ACCOUNTS, on the minimum monthly balances, when not drawn below £100. STOCKS, SHARES, and ANNUITIES pur- chased and sold for customers. SAVINGS DEPARTMENT. Small deposits received, and Interest allowed monthly on each completed £1. The BIRKBECK ALMANACK, with particulars, post free. FRANCIS RAYENSCROFT, Manager. Telephone No. S. HOLBORN. Telegraphic Address: " BiRKBECK, LONDON.' EXHAUSTED IRED PEOPLE Find a refreshing, invigorating restorative in the life- giving, blood-puritying properties of PHOSF£RINB. It nourishes the whole body, feeds the tired brain, induces sleep and improves the appetite. By its aid the depleted blood of pale anssmic women and children is enriched and the impurities eliminated, thus imparting health and cheerfulness and vanquishing that miserable "all gone feeling," the natural result of poor thin blood or deficient vitality. HOSFERIHE TRADE MARK Has renewed the health of an almost countless number of broken down overworked men and women and restored rickety children to strength and activity. The exhausted student and all who have brain work or mental worry find it an excellent reviver. It is the only safe and certain remedy for general debility, spinal exhaustion, physical decay, loss of memory and nerve power. A short course of treatment promptly restores the energy of manhood and renews the vigour of youth, sleepless nights are prevented and the body regains its natural elasticity and buoyancy. "THE FAMILY DOCTOR," speaking «/PHOSFERINE in the issue of February I'^tti, 1897, says:— " This preparation maybe safely recommended as a good tonic in debilitated states of the system. For those who suffer from loss of appetite it will be found an excellent stomachic, and for nervous conditions it will serve as an excellent nerve tonic and sedative. In cases of mental exhaustion, melancholia, and sleep­ lessness especially, it will be found valuable. The compound is put up in convenient quantities and in popular form, full directions as to its use being enclosed." Price (in Great Britain), Battles, 1/1), 2/9, and 4/6; Poot Free, 1/3, 3/-, and 4/9. Proprietors: ASHTON «& PARSONS, Ltd. 17, FARRINGDON ROAD. LONDON, E.G. "NINETY-EIGHT" A STORY OF THE IRISH REBELLION BY JOHN HILL A NEiy EDITION DOWNEY & CO. LD. 12 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON 1898 ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF "NINETY-EIGHT" • Crown Svo, cloth git, Gs. With Twelve images of Illustrations by A. D. i CONTENTS. -•- INTEODUCTIOX. pvca THE PIKE-IIEAD ....,..., 1 CHAPTER 1. WHO I WAS 11 CHAPTER II. I SET EYES ON THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIUL I.V THE WOULD t^l CHAPTER IH. MOSTLY ABOUT MISS DOYLE 3.5 CHAPTER lY. EFFECTS OF THE CONXAUGHT AIH , . , . .44 CHAPTER Y. FURTHER, AND STRIKING, EFFECTS OF THE CONNAUGHT AIR 68 CHAPTER YI. I FIND MYSELF IN A HOLE ..,..., 65 CHAPTER YII. A NEST OF STOEM-PETEELS 77 CHAPTER YIII. HOW CAPTAIN FALT STEUCK BACK 88 vi CONTENTS CII.IPTER IX. FoREWARNrD ' 1^*J CHAPTER X. .\N .\NXIOUS XIGIIT Ill CHAPTER XT. BITS OF OLD PUBLIN 123 CHAPTER Xn. I AM PUZZLED 136 CHAPTER Xni. THE EERAND OF FATIIEK O'COIGLY 148 CHAPTER xn-. .\ DANGEE AND A DELIVEEANCE l'>7 CHAPTEll XY. THE l.idx ROARS, BUT IS I'ISSI'ADKI) VHOM l^rnxc THE SNAKK . .171 CHAPTER XVI. \i;i A I.ITTI.E Wiiit.i-: 1; 0 CHAPTEIi XVli. TI:E Till.HEN HANU ISO CIIAPTI;R XVIH. DUBLIN GETS A LITTLE TOO WAEM FOE I'S . L'(/0 CHAPTER XIX. THE RISING MOON 206 CONTENTS \ii CHAPTER XX. FJLGH THE SLEEPY HOUSE AWAKES ...... 220 CHAPTER XXI. CAPTAIN FALY HOLDS A COUET OF JITSTICE .... 229 CHAPTER XXII. WHILE SOFT WINDS SHOOK THE BAELEY .... 237 CHAPTER XXIH. OcH! DAE-A-CHEIST ! 'TIS SHE THAT STILL COULD STEIKE THE DEADLY BLOW 245 CHAPTER XXIY. SUSPENSE 256 CHAPTER XXV. THE TIDE RISES 267 CHAPTER XXYI. THBEB ROCK HILL 274 CHAPTER XXYII. THE TIDE IS WITH US STILL 287 CHAPTER XXVIII. NEW ROSS 293 CHAPTER XXIX, THE RACES OF CASTLEBAB .,•••<« S05 ii NINETY-EIGHT" INTEODUCTION. THE PIKE-HEAD. 1 FIRST saw my grandfather in the early part of the year 1868, and thought him a dreadful old man. He has since then become an angel—at least we hope so—and left me the task of deciphering and copying out his memoir of what was to him the most important and eventful part of his long and, for the most part, violently diversified career. There was little else that he did leave me, except one object which was more dear and sacred to him than the wealth of the world. At the date above mentioned, we—that is, my mother, my sister, my young brother and myself—had just come over from • America to join my father in partaking of the hospitality of my grandfather's roof for a while until better times should come, and we were living in restricted comfort, and what some people might call excessive numbers, in his small apartment in the Eue Medicis, in Paris, which is conveniently near to the pleasant gardens of the Luxembourg, where the old man would take his bit of au airing on fine days. 2 " NiNETY-ElGHT " At this time I was a mere lad, having been born in Ireland in the troublous year of 1848, wliile my father, Denis Cahir O'Connor Faly, was on the seaciiran—that is, wandering and hiding in the Tipperary mountains—after the unfortunate affair of Ballingary, and I Avas baptized Patrick Cahir O'Connor Faly (We all keep the Cahir in our names in memory and in proof of our descent from Cathair Mor, King of Leinster and Ard-righ, or monarch, of all Ireland,) IMy father found his way in due course, vhi Tasmania, to the United States, being provided with a passage for the first and colonial stage of his pilgrimage by the English Government, like I\reagher of the Sword. Now, at the ripe but vigorous prime of fifty-five, a Major in the armv of tlie United States and Brio-adier-General in the army of the Irish republic, who had been wounded at Fredericksburg while in Meaglier's Brigade, and taken jiart in the first invasion of Canada (which onlv failed tlirough the treachery of a salaried informer in shakina" British rule in North America from the summit to the base), my fatlu-r was once more a refugee from the English (Jovernment in consequence of the active movement in Ireland in the early part of '67, and the Chester Piaid, in which he was one of the numerous leaders wlio had gained their experience in tlie great American Civil War, He had many friends in Paris of like sympathies to his own, wlio were at that period still indulging in hopes of anotlier and more successful Fenian war in Ireland, thoueh, as it turned out, Canada again became the actual scene of conflict a year or two later, and he was naturally very busy with organization, correspondence, and arrangements for the escape of suspects from Great Britain and Ireland. Ij uaturally, was not taken into his confidence on all THE PIKE-HEAD ,3 these matters, though I had a fair general notion of what was going on, being considered at present too young to be admitted regularly and responsibly as a Fenian; and to tell the truth, I was more interested in the splendour and novelty and bewilderment of Paris, which was just then in all the glory of that Second Empire wliich people little thought was destined so soon to fall, than in politics. The great Exhibition had taken place, Madame Schneider was delighting the world with the Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein, and the Jardin Mabille in the Avenue Mon­ taigne was in full swing. Can you be surprised if a lad of twenty found Paris more attractive for awhile than the purchase and storing of revolvers and rifles, especially if that lad's life had been hitherto spent, since early childhood, at Buffalo, N.Y. ? It might be a very praiseworthy and desirable thing to go and get hung or be sent to penal servitude for Ireland, and it would probably happen to nie in due course if all went well, but I did not want; to begin yet, I thought, but to try, so far as my very modest and limited resources went, to enjoy myself and study this marvellous Paris now being revealed to my astonished gaze for the first time. But my serious attention was brought again to bear on the affairs of my unhappy native land by the singular conduct of my grandfather, Colonel Cormac Cahir O'Connor l^aly—Colonel Fally the French called him, in whose armies he had served, long years ago, when another Napoleon reigned. Until I came to Paris I knew little of my grandfather save that he existed, that he had been an officer in the French service, and that my father had been born in Paris in 1813, at which time my grandfather was taking part in the great and terrible Armageddon of r , 4 " NINETY-EIGHT " Leipzig, where the nations were gathered together for slaughter for three whole days. And of late years, during which I was turning from a boy into a man, my father was so taken up with war, and then with schemes for making war, that I had not much opportunity for asking questions about my ancestor, so that he came upon me rather as a surprise.