Page:Surprising life and adventures of the gentleman-robber, Redmond O'Hanlon (1).pdf/20

20 This last action of Redmond's incensed the go- vernment to the highest degree, and a fresh procla- mation was issued out offering a reward of 400l. or more, for his head dead or alive, and 40l. apiece for the eighteen men that were with him. The family of the Cootes at Coote hill were very active and successful in taking his comrades; as likewise the Johnstons of the Fews; and in a few years, the most of his chief men were executed, except Reilly, who fled for his life to France, where the same Coote having killed a man, was tried and found guilty. Reilly came to him, and told him he was then come to render good for evil; and accordingly helped him to make his escape to Ireland again. When Coote got home he enquired for Reilly's family, and having found his father only in pos- session of a small potato garden, one cow, and a little cabin, on the mountain, he made him a free- hold lease of a small piece of land, in the county of Monaghan, which the Reilly family still enjoy to this day, and is now of very considerable value and importance. Brien Kelly was the most active servant that Redmond had, and merits a place in history (if a rogue can have merit) almost as well as his master, having been in company with him in most of his daring enterprises, as well as in several more pri- vate : but as the particulars have not been told me I shall only relate one, and let the rest lie in obli- vion. While Redmond resided near Allen, Kelly, with two or three green-horn raparees, beset a house in the county of Kildare, and having a hole made in the wall, through which the whey was usually conveyed into the swine trough, the servant maid had occasion to go into the dairy, and obser- ving that the hole was somewhat wider than before, mistrusted that all was not right. Upon this, she took a large cleaver, and conveyed herself to the