the meadow, or scouring the country far and wide. A grave break, however,
came in our mirth. The Fenian troubles were then at their height. On
September 11th, Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasy, two Fenian leaders, were
arrested in Manchester, and the Irish population was at once thrown into
a terrible ferment. On the 18th, the police van containing them was
returning from the Court to the County Gaol at Salford, and as it reached
the railway arch which crosses the Hyde Road at Bellevue, a man sprang
out, shot one of the horses, and thus stopped the van. In a moment it was
surrounded by a small band, armed with revolvers and with crowbars, and
the crowbars were wrenching at the locked door. A reinforcement of police
was approaching, and there was no time to be lost. The rescuers called to
Brett, a sergeant of police who was in charge inside the van, to pass the
keys out, and, on his refusal, there was a cry: "Blow off the lock!". The
muzzle of a revolver was placed against the lock, and the revolver was
discharged. Unhappily, poor Brett had stooped down to try and see through
the keyhole what was going on outside, and the bullet, fired to blow open
the lock, entered his head, and he fell dying on the floor. The rescuers
rushed in, and one Allen, a lad of seventeen, opened the doors of the
compartments in which were Kelly and Deasy, and hurriedly pulled them
out. Two or three of the band, gathering round them, carried them off
across the fields to a place of safety, while the rest gallantly threw
themselves between their rescued friends and the strong body of police
which charged down after the fugitives. With their revolvers pointed,
they kept back the police, until they saw that the two Fenian leaders
were beyond all chance of capture, and then they scattered, flying in all
directions. Young William Allen, whose one thought had been for his
chiefs, was the earliest victim. As he fled, he raised his hand and fired
his revolver straight in the air; he had been ready to use it in defence
of others, he would not shed blood for himself. Disarmed by his own act,
he was set upon by the police, brutally struck down, kicked and stoned by