[Sidenote: Perrott's personal behaviour.]
The hardships of such warfare must have been very great, Ormonde recommending Captain Warde and his men to special consideration for doing such winter service as was never done by soldiers; service from which they returned bare-footed and bare-bodied. Their sad plight grieved him to the heart, but he could do nothing for them. The Lord President did not spare himself. On one occasion his foot hurt him as he was struggling through a bog in pursuit of the rebels. 'My Lord,' said an officer, 'you have lost your shoe.' 'It matters not,' said Perrott, 'as long as the legs last we shall find shoes'; and he called for another pair, and trudged on again. Another day some gallowglasses roasted a hog whole with the hair on, 'and in great kindness did reach a piece of it to one of the Lord President's servants, being a gentleman of good sort, and a justice of the peace in his county.' Perrott made a jocular remark about the quality of the meat. 'An' it please you, sir,' said the other, 'it is good meat here among these men, but if it were at home I would scarce give it to my dogs.'[193]
Want of provisions was the great difficulty: all peaceable men having been robbed of their cows and horses. The MacSheehy and MacSwiney kerne swarmed everywhere, and just as Fitzmaurice appeared to be at his last gasp, he managed suddenly to collect a strong force of these idlemen, obliging the Geraldines to provide for their maintenance. Many of the native lords sympathised with him, being afraid of losing their captainries, and they gave him information. Perrott was never strong enough to divide his own force, and his light-heeled adversary roamed at will from Aherlow to Castlemaine, and from Glenflesk to Baltimore. No one was safe for a moment. Thus Miler Magrath, the Queen's Archbishop of Cashel, having ventured to arrest two friars for preaching against the Queen's policy, Fitzmaurice ordered their release. The poor friars, he said, preached the Word of God to people blinded with ignorance for years for want of good pastors, and the light of salvation, by reason of long obscurity, was much needed in Ireland. If they were not released all houses and buildings belonging to the Archbishop should be burned to ashes. The letter which contained this wise and sober advice, as the Geraldine leader called it, finished with an invocation of the Blessed Virgin, and there could be no doubt about the danger of the Church as established by law. Edward Butler rescued the friars to show his power, and perhaps to establish communications with the Archbishop, and then offered to pursue Fitzmaurice with all his might upon condition of pardon. Magrath and the Dublin officials advised that, though Butler deserved ten deaths, it would nevertheless be better to accept his offer.[194]