CHAPTER I

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Peg O' My Heart

by

J. Hartley Manners

To

"LAURIE"

"--in that which no waters can quench,

No time forget, nor distance wear away."

PREFACE

Up to the time of publication, December 1922, "Peg o' My Heart" has

been played as a comedy in English in the United States and Canada in

excess of 8000 times, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and

Ireland in excess of 6000 times, in India 65 times, in the Orient 20

times, in Holland 152 times, and in Scandinavia 23 times. Australia and

New Zealand have seen 701 performances while South Africa has witnessed

229.

Three companies are playing in France where the total performances

exceed 500, the Belgian figures are not yet available, Spain has two

companies, and Italy five, the total figures for these three countries

last-named running well over a thousand performances. In France and

Belgium "Peg de Mon Coeur" is the title for the French language

version, in Italy "Peg del Mio Cuore" is the name of the Italian "Peg",

while her Spanish admirers and translators have named her "Rirri."

Over 194,000 copies of the novel have been sold in the United States,

while the British Empire has bought 51,600 in novel form. In play form

3000 copies have been sold to date. The new film "Peg o' My Heart" in

nine reels is being distributed throughout the entire world, and while

innumerable companies are playing the comedy throughout the United

States, Canada and the British Empire, an internationally-known

composer, Dr. Hugo Felix, is at work upon the score of a "Peg" operetta

in collaboration with its author, so that the young lady may continue

her career in musical form.

The present work is submitted in its original form with the addition of

illustrations taken from the film recently made, through the courtesy

of the Metro Pictures Corporation, for which acknowledgment is

gratefully made.

It is believed that these statistics are unique in theatrical and

publishing history for it will now be possible in any large city to

read or witness "Peg o' My Heart" in the five phases of her career to

date, viz., novel, printed play, acted comedy, photo play and operetta.

J. Hartley Manners.

The Lotes Club, New York City, December, 1922.

CONTENTS

BOOK THE FIRST

The Romance of an Irish Agitator and an English Lady of Quality

I The Irish Agitator Makes His First Appearance

II The Panorama of a Lost Youth

III St. Kernan's Hill

IV Nathaniel Kingsnorth Visits Ireland

V Angela

VI Angela Speaks Her Mind Freely to Nathaniel

VII The Wounded Patriot

VIII Angela in Sore Distress

IX Two Letters

X O'Connell Visits Angela in London

XI Kingsnorth's Despair

XII Looking Forward

BOOK THE SECOND

The End of the Romance

I Angela's Confession

II A Communication from Nathaniel Kingsnorth

III The Birth of Peg

BOOK THE THIRD

Peg

I Peg's Childhood

II We Meet an Old Friend After Many Years

III Peg Leaves Her Father for the First Time

BOOK THE FOURTH

Peg in England

I The Chichester Family

II Christian Brent

III Peg Arrives in England

IV The Chichester Family Receive a Second Shock

V Peg Meets Her Aunt

VI Jerry

VII The Passing of the First Month

VIII The Temple of Friendship

IX The Dance and its Sequel

X Peg Intervenes

XI "The Rebellion of Peg"

XII A Room in New York

XIII The Morning After

XIV Alaric to the Rescue

XV Montgomery Hawkes

XVI The Chief Executor Appears on the Scene

XVII Peg Learns of Her Uncle's Legacy

XVIII Peg's Farewell to England

BOOK THE FIFTH

Peg Returns to Her Father

I After Many Days

II Looking Backward

III An Unexpected Visitor

Afterword

CHAPTER I

THE IRISH AGITATOR MAKES HIS FIRST APPEARANCE

"Faith, there's no man says more and knows less than yerself, I'm

thinkin'."

"About Ireland, yer riverence?"

"And everything else, Mr. O'Connell."

"Is that criticism or just temper, Father?"

"It's both, Mr. O'Connell."

"Sure it's the good judge ye must be of ignorance, Father Cahill."

"And what might that mane?"

"Ye live so much with it, Father."

"I'm lookin' at it and listenin' to it now, Frank O'Connell."

"Then it's a miracle has happened, Father."

"A miracle?"

"To see and hear one's self at the same time is indade a miracle, yer

riverence."

Father Cahill tightened his grasp on his blackthorn stick, and shaking

it in the other's face, said:

"Don't provoke the Man of God!"

"Not for the wurrld," replied the other meekly, "bein' mesef a Child of

Satan."

"And that's what ye are. And ye'd have others like yerself. But ye

won't while I've a tongue in me head and a sthrong stick in me hand."

O'Connell looked at him with a mischievous twinkle in his blue-grey

eyes:

"Yer eloquence seems to nade somethin' to back it up, I'm thinkin'."

Father Cahill breathed hard. He was a splendid type of the Irish

Parish-Priest of the old school. Gifted with a vivid power of eloquence

as a preacher, and a heart as tender as a woman's toward the poor and

the wretched, he had been for many years idolised by the whole

community of the village of M--in County Clare. But of late there was a

growing feeling of discontent among the younger generation. They lacked

the respect their elders so willingly gave. They asked questions

instead of answering them. They began to throw themselves, against

Father Cahill's express wishes and commands, into the fight for Home

Rule under the masterly statesmanship of Charles Stuart Parnell.

Already more than one prominent speaker had come into the little

village and sown the seeds of temporal and spiritual unrest. Father

Cahill opposed these men to the utmost of his power. He saw, as so many

far-sighted priests did, the legacy of bloodshed and desolation that

would follow any direct action by the Irish against the British

Government. Though the blood of the patriot beat in Father Cahill's

veins, the well-being of the people who had grown up with him was near

to his heart. He was their Priest and he could not bear to think of men

he had known as children being beaten and maimed by constabulary, and

sent to prison afterwards, in the, apparently, vain fight for

self-government.

To his horror that day he met Frank Owen O'Connell, one of the most

notorious of all the younger agitators, in the main street of the

little village.

O'Connell's back sliding had been one of Father Cahill's bitterest

regrets. He had closed O'Connell's father's eyes in death and had taken

care of the boy as well as he could. But at the age of fifteen the

youth left the village, that had so many wretched memories of hardship

and struggle, and worked his way to Dublin. It was many years before

Father Cahill heard of him again. He had developed meanwhile into one

of the most daring of all the fervid speakers in the sacred Cause of

Liberty. Many were the stories told of his narrow escapes from death

and imprisonment. He always had the people on his side, and once away

from the hunt, he would hide in caves, or in mountains, until the hue

and cry was over, and then appear in some totally unexpected town and

call on the people to act in the name of Freedom.

And that was exactly what happened on this particular day. He had

suddenly appeared in the town he was born in and called a meeting on

St. Kernan's Hill that afternoon.

It was this meeting Father Cahill was determined to stop by every means

in his power.

He could hardly believe that this tall, bronzed, powerful young man was

the Frank O'Connell he had watched about the village, as a boy--pale,

dejected, and with but little of the fire of life in him. Now as he

stood before Father Cahill and looked him straight through with his

piercing eye, shoulders thrown back, and head held high, he looked

every inch a born leader of men, and just for a moment the priest

quailed. But only for a moment.

"Not a member of my flock will attend yer meetin' to-day. Not a door

will open this day. Ye can face the constabulary yerself and the few of

the rabble that'll follow ye. But none of my God-fearin' people will

risk their lives and their liberty to listen to you."

O'Connell looked at him strangely. A far-away glint came into his eye,

and the suspicion of a tear, as he answered:

"Sure it's precious little they'd be riskin', Father Cahill; havin' NO

liberty and their lives bein' of little account to them."

O'Connell sighed as the thought of his fifteen years of withered youth

in that poor little village came up before him.

"Let my people alone, I tell ye!" cried the priest. "It's contented

they've been until the likes of you came amongst us."

"Then they must have been easily satisfied," retorted O'Connell, "to

judge by their poor little homes and their drab little lives."

"A hovel may be a palace if the Divine Word is in it," said the priest.

"Sure it's that kind of tachin' keeps Ireland the mockery of the whole

world. The Divine Word should bring Light. It's only darkness I find in

this village," argued O'Connell.

"I've given my life to spreadin' the Light!" said the priest.

A smile hovered on O'Connell's lips as he muttered:

"Faith, then, I'm thinkin' it must be a DARK-LANTERN yer usin', yer

riverence."

"Is that the son of Michael O'Connell talkin'?"

Suddenly the smile left O'Connell's lips, the sneer died on his tongue,

and with a flash of power that turned to white heat before he finished,

he attacked the priest with:

"Yes, it is! It is the son of Michael O'Connell who died on the

roadside and was buried by the charity of his neighbours. Michael

O'Connell, born in the image of God, who lived eight-and-fifty years of

torment and starvation and sickness and misery! Michael O'Connell, who

was thrown out from a bed of fever, by order of his landlord, to die in

sight of where he was born. It's his son is talkin', Father Cahill, and

it's his son WILL talk while there's breath in his body to keep his

tongue waggin'. It's a precious legacy of hatred Michael O'Connell left

his son, and there's no priest, no government, no policeman or soldier

will kape that son from spendin' his legacy."

The man trembled from head to foot with the nervous intensity of his

attack. Everything that had been outraged in him all his life came

before him.

Father Cahill began to realise as he watched him the secret of the

tremendous appeal the man had to the suffering people. Just for a

moment the priest's heart went out to O'Connell, agitator though he was.

"Your father died with all the comforts of the Holy Church," said the

priest gently, as he put his old hand the young man's shoulder.

"The comforts of the church!" scoffed O'Connell. "Praise be to heaven

for that!" He laughed a grim, derisive laugh as he went on:

"Sure it's the fine choice the Irish peasant has to-day. 'Stones and

dirt are good enough for them to eat,' sez the British government.

'Give them prayers,' say the priests. And so they die like flies in the

highways and hedges, but with 'all the comforts of the Holy Church'!"

Father Cahill's voice thrilled with indignation as he said:

"I'll not stand and listen to ye talk that way, Frank O'Connell."

"I've often noticed that those who are the first to PREACH truth are

the last to LISTEN to it," said the agitator drily.

"Where would Ireland be to-day but for the priest? Answer me that.

Where would she be? What has my a here been? I accepted the yoke of the

Church when I was scarcely your age. I've given my life to serving it.

To help the poor, and to keep faith and love for Him in their hearts.

To tache the little children and bring them up in the way of God. I've

baptised them when their eyes first looked out on this wurrld of

sorrows. I've given them in marriage, closed their eyes in death, and

read the last message to Him for their souls. And there are thousands

more like me, giving their lives to their little missions, trying to

kape the people's hearts clean and honest, so that their souls may go

to Him when their journey is ended."

Father Cahill took a deep breath as he finished. He had indeed summed

up his life's work. He had given it freely to his poor little flock.

His only happiness had been in ministering to their needs. And now to

have one to whom he had taught his first prayer, heard his first

confession and given him his first Holy Communion speak scoffingly of

the priest, hurt him as nothing else could hurt and bruise him.

The appeal was not lost on O'Connell. In his heart he loved Father

Cahill for the Christ-like life of self-denial he had passed in this

little place. But in his brain O'Connell pitied the old man for his

wasted years in the darkness of ignorance in which so many of the

villages of Ireland seemed to be buried.

O'Connell belonged to the "Young Ireland" movement. They wanted to

bring the searchlight of knowledge into the abodes of darkness in which

the poor of Ireland were submerged. To the younger men it seemed the

priests were keeping the people from enlightenment. And until the

fierce blaze of criticism could be turned on to the government of

cruelty and oppression there was small hope of freeing the people who

had suffered so long in silence. O'Connell was in the front band of men

striving to arouse the sleeping nation to a sense of its own power. And

nothing was going to stop the onward movement. It pained him to differ

from Father Cahill--the one friend of his youth. If only he could alter

the good priest's outlook--win him over to the great procession that

was marching surely and firmly to self-government, freedom of speech

and of action, and to the ultimate making of men of force out of the

crushed and the hopeless. He would try.

"Father Cahill," he began softly, as though the good priest might be

wooed by sweet reason when the declamatory force of the orator failed,

"don't ye think it would be wiser to attend a little more to the

people's BODIES than to their SOULS? to their BRAINS rather than to

their HEARTS? Don't ye?"

"No, I do NOT," hotly answered the priest.

"Well, if ye DID," said the agitator, "if more priests did, it's a

different Ireland we'd be livin' in to-day--that we would. The

Christian's heaven seems so far away when he's livin' in hell. Try to

make EARTH more like a heaven and he'll be more apt to listen to

stories of the other one. Tache them to kape their hovels clean and

their hearts and lives will have a betther chance of health. Above all

broaden their minds. Give them education and the Divine tachin' will

find a surer restin' place. Ignorance and dirt fill the hospitals and

the asylums, and it is THAT so many of the priests are fosterin'."

"I'll not listen to another wurrd," cried Father Cahill, turning away.

O'Connell strode in front of him.

"Wait. There's another thing. I've heard more than one priest boast

that there was less sin in the villages of Ireland than in any other

country. And why? What is yer great cure for vice? MARRIAGE--isn't it?"

"What are ye sayin'?"

"I'm sayin' this, Father Cahill. If a boy looks at a girl twice, what

do ye do? Engage them to be married. To you marriage is the safeguard

against sin. And what ARE such marriages? Hunger marryin' thirst!

Poverty united to misery! Men and women ignorant and stunted in mind

and body, bound together by a sacrament, givin' them the right to bring

others, equally distorted, into the wurrld. And when they're born you

baptise them, and you have more souls entered on the great register for

the Holy Church. Bodies livin' in perpetual torment, with a heaven

wavin' at them all through their lives as a reward for their suffering

here. I tell ye ye're wrong! Ye're wrong! Ye're wrong! The misery of

such marriages will reach through all the generations to come. I'd

rather see vice--vice that burns out and leaves scar-white the lives it

scorches. There is more sin in the HEARTS and MINDS of these poor,

wretched, ill-mated people than in the sinks of Europe. There is some

hope for the vicious. Intelligence and common-sense will wean them from

it. But there is no hope for the people whose lives from the cradle to

the grave are drab and empty and sordid and wretched."

As O'Connell uttered this terrible arraignment of the old order of

protecting society by early and indiscriminate marriages, it seemed as

if the mantle of some modern prophet had fallen on him. He had struck

at the real keynote of Ireland's misery to-day. The spirit of

oppression followed them into the privacy of their lives. Even their

wives were chosen for them by their teachers. Small wonder the English

government could enforce brutal and unjust laws when the very freedom

of choosing their mates and of having any voice in the control of their

own homes was denied them.

To Father Cahill such words were blasphemy. He looked at O'Connell in

horror.

"Have ye done?" he asked.

"What else I may have to say will be said on St. Kernan's Hill this

afternoon."

"There will be no meetin' there to-day," cried the priest.

"Come and listen to it," replied the agitator.

"I've forbidden my people to go."

"They'll come if I have to drag them from their homes."

"I've warned the resident-magistrate. The police will be there if ye

thry to hold a meetin'."

"We'll outnumber them ten to one."

"There'll be riotin' and death."

"Better to die in a good cause than to live in a bad one," cried

O'Connell. "It's the great dead who lead the world by their majesty.

It's the bad livin' who keep it back by their infamy."

"Don't do this, Frank O'Connell. I ask you in the name of the Church in

which ye were baptised--by me."

"I'll do it in the name of the suffering people I was born among."

"I command you! Don't do this!"

"I can hear only the voice of my dead father saying: 'Go on!'"

"I entreat you--don't!"

"My father's voice is louder than yours, Father Cahill."

"Have an old man's tears no power to move ye?"

O'Connell looked at the priest. Tears were streaming down his cheeks.

He made no effort to staunch them. O'Connell hesitated, then he said

firmly:

"My father wept in the ditch when he was dyin', dying in sight of his

home. Mine was the only hand that wiped away his tears. I can see only

HIS to-day, Father."

"I'll make my last appeal. What good can this meetin' do? Ye say the

people are ignorant and wretched. Why have them batthered and shot down

by the soldiers?"

"It has always been the martyrs who have made a cause. I am willin' to

be one. I'd be a thraitor if I passed my life without lifting my voice

and my hands against my people's oppressors."

"Ye're throwin' yer life away, Frank O'Connell."

"I wouldn't be the first and I won't be the last"

"Nothing will move ye?" cried the priest.

"One thing only," replied the agitator.

"And what is that?"

"Death!" and O'Connell strode abruptly away.

CHAPTER II

THE PANORAMA OF A LOST YOUTH

As O'Connell hurried through the streets of the little village thoughts

surged madly through his brain. It was in this barren spot he was born

and passed his youth. Youth! A period of poverty and struggle: of empty

dreams and futile hopes. It passed before him now as a panorama. There

was the doctor's house where his father hurried the night he was born.

How often had his mother told him of that night of storm when she gave

her last gleam of strength in giving him life! In storm he was born: in

strife he would live. The mark was on him.

Now he came to the little schoolhouse where he first learned to read.

Facing it Father Cahill's tiny church, where he had learned to pray.

Beyond lay the green on which he had his first fight. It was about his

father. Bruised and bleeding, he crept home that day--beaten. His

mother cried over him and washed his cuts and bathed his bruises. A

flush of shame crept across his face as he thought of that beating. The

result of our first battle stays with us through life. He watched his

conqueror, he remembered for years. He had but one ambition in those

days--to gain sufficient strength to wipe out that disgrace. He trained

his muscles, He ran on the roads at early morning until his breathing

was good. He made friends with an English soldier stationed in the

town, by doing him some slight service. The man had learned boxing in

London and could beat any one in his regiment. O'Connell asked the man

to teach him boxing. The soldier agreed. He found the boy an apt pupil.

O'Connell mastered the art of self-defence. He learned the vulnerable

points of attack. Then he waited his opportunity. One half-holiday,

when the schoolboys were playing on the green, he walked up

deliberately to his conqueror and challenged him to a return

engagement. The boys crowded around them. "Is it another batin' ye'd be

afther havin', ye beggar-man's son?" said the enemy.

O'Connell's reply was a well-timed punch on that youth's jaw, and the

second battle was on.

As O'Connell fought he remembered every blow of the first fight when,

weak and unskilful, he was an easy prey for his victor.

"That's for the one ye gave me two years ago, Martin Quinlan," cried

O'Connell, as he closed that youth's right eye, and stepped nimbly back

from a furious counter.

"And it's a bloody nose ye'll have, too," as he drove his left with

deadly precision on Quinlan's olfactory organ, staggering that amazed

youth, who, nothing daunted, ran into a series of jabs and swings that

completely dazed him and forced him to clinch to save further damage.

But the fighting blood of O'Connell was up. He beat Quinlan out of the

clinch with a well-timed upper-cut that put the youth upon his back on

the green.

"Now take back that 'beggar-man's' son!" shouted O'Connell.

"I'll not," from the grass.

"Then get up and be beaten," screamed O'Connell. The boys danced around

them. It was too good to be true. Quinlan had thrashed them all, and

here was the apparently weakest of them--white-faced

O'Connell--thrashing him. Why, if O'Connell could best him, they all

could. The reign of tyranny was over.

"Fight! Fight!" they shouted, as they crowded around the combatants.

Quinlan rose to his feet only to be put back again on the ground by a

straight right in the mouth. He felt the warm blood against his lips

and tasted the salt on his tongue. It maddened him. He staggered up and

rushed with all his force against O'Connell, who stepped aside and

caught Quinlan, as he stumbled past, full behind the ear. He pitched

forward on his face and did not move. The battle was over.

"And I'll serve just the same any that sez a word against me father!"

Not a boy said a word.

"Fighting O'Connell" he was nicknamed that day, and "Fighting

O'Connell" he was known years afterwards to Dublin Castle.

When he showed his mother his bruised knuckles that night and told her

how he came by them, she cried again as she did two years before. Only

this time they were tears of pride.

From door to door he went.

"St. Kernan's Hill at three," was all he said. Some nodded, some said

nothing, others agreed volubly. On all their faces he read that they

would be there.

On through the village he went until he reached the outskirts. He

paused and looked around. There was the spot on which the little cabin

he was born in and in which his mother died, had stood. It had long

since been pulled down for improvements. Not a sign to mark the tomb of

his youth. It was here they placed his father that bleak November

day--here by the ditch. It was here his father gave up the struggle.

The feeble pulse ebbed. The flame died out.

The years stripped back. It seemed as yesterday. And here HE stood

grown to manhood. He needed just that reminder to stir his blood and

nerve him for the ordeal of St. Kernan's Hill.

The old order was dying out in Ireland.

The days of spiritless bending to the yoke were over. It was a "Young

Ireland" he belonged to and meant to lead. A "Young Ireland" with an

inheritance of oppression and slavery to wipe out. A "Young Ireland"

that demanded to be heard: that meant to act: that would fight step by

step in the march to Westminster to compel recognition of their just

claims. And he was to be one of their leaders. He squared his shoulders

as he looked for the last time on the little spot of earth that once

meant "Home" to him.

He took in a deep breath and muttered through his clenched teeth:

"Let the march begin to-day. Forward!" and he turned toward St.

Kernan's Hill.

CHAPTER III

ST. KERNAN'S HILL

To the summit of the hill climbed up men, women and children. The men

grimy and toil-worn; a look of hopelessness in their eyes: the sob of

misery in their voices. Dragging themselves up after them came the

women--some pressing babies to their breasts, others leading little

children by the hand. The men had begged them to stay at home. There

might be bad work that day, but the women had answered:

"If WE go they won't hurt YOU!" and they pressed on after the leaders.

At three o'clock O'Connell ascended the hill and stood alone on the

great mount.

A cry of greeting went up.

He raised his hand in acknowledgment.

It was strange indeed for him to stand there looking down at the people

he had known since childhood. A thousand conflicting emotions swept

through him as he looked at the men and women whom, only a little while

ago, it seemed, he had known as children. THEN he bent to their will.

The son of a peasant, he was amongst the poorest of the poor. Now he

came amongst them to try and lift them from the depths he had risen

from himself.

"It is Frankie O'Connell himself," cried a voice.

"Him we knew as a baby," said another.

"Fightin' O'Connell! Hooray for him!" shouted a third.

"Mary's own child standin' up there tall and straight to get us freedom

and comfort," crooned an old white-haired woman.

"And broken heads," said another old woman.

"And lyin' in the county-jail himself, mebbe, this night," said a third.

"The Lord be with him," cried a fourth.

"Amen to that," and they reverently crossed themselves.

Again O'Connell raised his hand, this time to command silence.

All the murmurs died away.

O'Connell began--his rich, melodious voice ringing far beyond the

farthest limits of the crowd--the music of his Irish brogue making

cadences of entreaty and again lashing the people into fury at the

memory of Ireland's wrongs.

"Irish men and women, we are met here to-day in the sight of God and in

defiance of the English government," (groans and hisses), "to clasp

hands, to unite our thoughts and to nerve our bodies to the supreme

effort of bringing hope to despair, freedom to slavery, prosperity to

the land and happiness to our homes." (Loud applause.) "Too long have

our forefathers lived under the yoke of the oppressor. Too long have

our old been buried in paupers' graves afther lives of misery no other

counthry in the wurrld can equal. Why should it be the lot of our

people--men and women born to a birthright of freedom? Why? Are ye men

of Ireland so craven that aliens can rule ye as they once ruled the

negro?" ("No, no!") "The African slave has been emancipated and his

emancipation was through the blood and tears of the people who wronged

him. Let OUR emancipation, then, be through the blood and tears of our

oppressors. In other nations it is the Irishman who rules. It is only

in his own counthry that he is ruled. And the debt of hathred and

misery and blasted lives and dead hopes is at our door today. Shall

that debt be unpaid?" ("No, no!") "Look around you. Look at the faces

of yer brothers and sisthers, worn and starved. Look at yer women-kind,

old before they've been young. Look at the babies at their mothers'

breasts, first looking out on a wurrld in which they will never know a

happy thought, never feel a joyous impulse, never laugh with the honest

laughther of a free and contented and God-and-government-protected

people. Are yez satisfied with this?" (Angry cries of "No, no!")

"Think of yer hovels--scorched with the heat, blisthered with the wind

and drenched with the rain, to live in which you toil that their owners

may enjoy the fruits of yer slavery--IN OTHER COUNTHRIES. Think of yer

sons and daughthers lavin' this once fair land in hundhreds of

thousands to become wage-earners across the seas, with their hearts

aching for their homes and their loved ones. The fault is at our own

door. The solution is in our own hands. Isn't it betther to die, pike

in hand, fightin' as our forefathers did, than to rot in filth, and

die, lavin' a legacy of disease and pestilence and weak brains and

famished bodies?" His voice cracked and broke into a high-pitched

hysterical cry as he finished the peroration.

A flame leaped through the mob. The men muttered imprecations as a new

light flashed from their eyes. All their misery fell from them as a

shroud. They only thought of vengeance. They were men again. Their

hearts beat as their progenitors' hearts must have beaten at the Boyne.

The great upheaval that flashed star-like through Ireland from epoch to

epoch, burned like vitriol in their veins.

The women forgot their crying babies as they pressed forward, screaming

their paean of vengeance against their oppressors.

The crowd seemed to throb as some great engine of humanity. It seemed

to think with one brain, beat with one heart and call with one voice.

The cry grew into an angry roar.

Suddenly Father Cahill appeared amongst them. "Go back to your homes,"

he commanded, breathlessly.

"Stay where you are," shouted O'Connell.

"In the name of the Catholic Church, go!" said the priest.

"In the name of our down-trodden and suffering people, stay!" thundered

O'Connell.

"Don't listen to him. Listen to the voice of God!"

"God's help comes to those who help themselves," answered the agitator.

Father Cahill made his last and strongest appeal:

"My poor children, the constabulary are coming to break up the meetin'

and to arrest HIM."

"Let them come," cried O'Connell. "Show them that the spirit of Irish

manhood is not dead. Show them that we still have the power and the

courage to defy them. Tell them we'll meet when and where we think fit.

That we'll not silence our voices while there's breath in our bodies.

That we'll resist their tyranny while we've strength to shouldher a gun

or handle a pike. I appeal to you, O Irishmen, in the name of yer

broken homes; in the name of all that makes life glorious and death

divine! In the name of yer maimed and yer dead! Of yer brothers in

prison and in exile! By the listenin' earth and the watching sky I

appeal to ye to make yer stand to-day. I implore ye to join yer hearts

and yer lives with mine. Lift yer voices with me: stretch forth yer

hands with mine and by yer hopes of happiness here and peace hereafter

give an oath to heaven never to cease fightin' until freedom and light

come to this unhappy land!"

"Swear by all ye hold most dear: by the God who gave ye life: by the

memory of all ye hold most sacred: by the sorrow for yer women and

children who have died of hunger and heart-break: stretch forth yer

hands and swear to give yer lives so that the generations to come may

know happiness and peace and freedom. Swear!"

He stopped at the end of the adjuration, his right hand held high above

his head, his left--palm upward, stretched forward in an attitude of

entreaty.

It seemed as though the SOUL of the man was pleading with them to take

the oath that would bind THEIR souls to the "Cause."

Crowding around him, eyes blazing, breasts heaving, as if impelled by

one common thought, the men and women clamoured with outstretched hands:

"We swear!"

In that moment of exaltation it seemed as if the old Saint-Martyrs'

halo glowed over each, as they took the oath that pledged them to the

"CAUSE,"--the Cause that meant the lifting of oppression and tyranny:

immunity from "buckshot" and the prison-cell: from famine and murder

and coercion--all the component parts of Ireland's torture in her

struggle for her right to self-government.

A moment later the crowd was hushed. A tremour ran through it. The

sounds of marching troops: the unintelligible words of command, broke

in on them.

Father Cahill plunged in amongst them. "The constabulary," he cried.

"Back to your homes."

"Stay where you are," shouted O'Connell.

"I beg you, my children! I command you! I entreat you! Don't have

bloodshed here to-day!" Father Cahill turned distractedly to O'Connell,

crying out to him:

"Tell them to go back! My poor people! Tell them to go back to their

homes while there's time."

Turning his back on the priest, O'Connell faced the crowd:

"You have taken your oath. Would you perjure yourselves at this old

man's bidding? See where the soldiers come. Look--and look well at

them. Their uniforms stand for the badge of tyranny. The glint of their

muskets is the message from their illustrious sovereign of her feeling

to this part of her kingdom. We ask for JUSTICE and they send us

BULLETS. We cry for 'LIBERTY' and the answer is 'DEATH' at the hands of

her soldiers. We accept the challenge. Put yer women and childhren

behind you. Let no man move."

The men hurriedly placed the women and children so that they were

protected from the first onslaught of the soldiery.

Then the men of St. Kernan's Hill, armed with huge stones and sticks,

turned to meet the troops.

Mr. Roche, the resident-magistrate, rode at their head.

"Arrest that man," he cried, pointing to O'Connell.

An angry growl went up from the mob.

Father Cahill hurried to him:

"Don't interfere with them, Mr. Roche. For the love of heaven, don't.

There'll be murder here to-day if ye do."

"I have my instructions, Father Cahill, and it's sorry I am to have to

act under them to-day."

"It isn't the people's fault," pleaded the priest; "indeed it isn't."

"We don't wish to hurt them. We want that man O'Connell."

"They'll never give him up. Wait till to-night and take him quietly."

"No, we'll take him here. He's given the police the slip in many parts

of the country. He won't to-day." The magistrate pushed forward on his

horse through the fringe on the front part of the crowd and reined up

at the foot of the mount.

"Frank Owen O'Connell, I arrest you in the Queen's name for inciting

peaceable citizens to violence," he called up to the agitator.

"Arrest me yerself, Mr. Magistrate Roche," replied O'Connell.

Turning to an officer Roche motioned him to seize O'Connell.

As the officer pressed forward he was felled by a blow from a heavy

stick.

In a second the fight was on.

The magistrate read the riot-act.

He, together with Father Cahill, called to the mob to stop. They

shouted to O'Connell to surrender and disperse the people.

Too late.

The soldiers formed into open formation and marched on the mob.

Maddened and reeling, with no order, no discipline, with only blind

fury and the rushing, pulsing blood--that has won many a battle for

England against a common foe--the men of Ireland hurled themselves upon

the soldiers. They threw their missiles: they struck them with their

gnarled sticks: they beat them with their clenched fists.

The order to "Fire" was given as the soldiers fell back from the

onslaught.

When the smoke cleared away the ranks of the mob were broken. Some lay

dead on the turf; some groaned in the agony of shattered limbs. The

women threw themselves moaning on the bodies. Silence fell like a pall

over the mob. Out of the silence a low angry growl went up. O'Connell

had fallen too.

The soldiers surrounded his prostrate body.

The mob made a rush forward to rescue him. O'Connell stopped them with

a cry:

"Enough for to-day, my men." He pointed to the wounded and dying: "Live

to avenge them. Wait until 'The Day'!" His voice failed. He fell back

unconscious.

Into the midst of the crowd and through the ranks of the soldiers

suddenly rode a young girl, barely twenty years old. Beside her was a

terrified groom. She guided her horse straight to the magistrate. He

raised his hat and muttered a greeting, with a glance of recognition.

"Have him taken to 'The Gap,'" she said imperatively, pointing to the

motionless body of O'Connell.

"He is under arrest," replied the magistrate.

"Do you want another death on your hands? Haven't you done enough in

killing and maiming those unfortunate people?" She looked with pity on

the moaning women: and then with contempt on the officer who gave the

order to fire.

"You ought to be proud of your work to-day!" she said.

"I only carried out my orders," replied the man humbly.

"Have that man taken to my brother's house. He will surrender him or go

bail for him until he has been attended to. First let us SAVE him." The

girl dismounted and made a litter of some fallen branches, assisted by

the groom.

"Order some of your men to carry him."

There was a note of command in her tone that awed both the officer and

the magistrate.

Four men were detailed to carry the body on the litter. The girl

remounted. Turning to the magistrate, she said:

"Tell your government, Mr. Roche, that their soldiers shot down these

unarmed people." Then she wheeled round to the mob:

"Go back to your homes." She pointed to the dead and wounded: "THEY

have died or been maimed for their Cause. Do as HE said," pointing to

the unconscious O'Connell, "LIVE for it!"

She started down through the valley, followed by the litter-bearers and

the magistrate.

The officer gave the word of command, and, with some of the ringleaders

in their midst, the soldiers marched away.

Left alone with their dying and their dead, all the ferocity left the

poor, crushed peasants.

They knelt down sobbing over the motionless bodies. For the time being

the Law and its officers were triumphant.

This was the act of the representatives of the English government in

the year of civilisation 18--, and in the reign of her late Gracious

Majesty, Queen Victoria, by the grace of God, Empress of India.

CHAPTER IV

NATHANIEL KINGSNORTH VISITS IRELAND

While the incidents of the foregoing chapters were taking place, the

gentleman whose ownership shaped the destinies of many of the agitators

of St. Kernan's Hill, was confronting almost as difficult a problem as

O'Connell was facing on the mount.

Whilst O'Connell was pleading for the right of Ireland to govern

herself, Mr. Nathaniel Kingsnorth was endeavouring to understand how to

manage so unwieldy and so troublesome an estate.

The death of his father placed a somewhat extensive--and so far

entirely unprofitable--portion of the village in his care. His late

father had complained all his life of the depreciation of values; the

growing reluctance to pay rents; and the general dying-out of the worth

of an estate that had passed into the hands of a Kingsnorth many

generations before in the ordinary course of business, for notes that

had not been taken up, and mortgages that had been foreclosed.

It was the open boast of the old gentleman that he had never seen the

village, and it was one of his dying gratifications that he would never

have to.

He had all the racial antipathy of a certain type of Englishmen to

anything IRISH. The word itself was unpleasant to his ears. He never

heard it without a shudder, and his intimates, at his request,

refrained from using it in his presence. The word represented to him

all that was unsavoury, unpatriotic and unprincipled.

One phrase of his, in speaking of Ireland at a banquet, achieved the

dignity of being printed in all the great London daily papers and was

followed by a splenetic attack in the "Irish Nation." Both incidents

pleased the old gentleman beyond measure. It was an unfailing source of

gratification to him that he had coined the historical utterance. He

quoted it with a grim chuckle on the few occasions when some guest,

unfamiliar with his prejudice, would mention in his presence the hated

word "Ireland."

It appears that one particularly hard winter, when, for some

unnecessary and wholly unwarrantable reason, the potato crop had

failed, and the little Irish village was in a condition of desperate

distress, it was found impossible to collect more than a tithe of Mr.

Kingsnorth's just dues. No persuasion could make the obstinate tenants

pay their rents. Threats, law-proceedings, evictions--all were useless.

They simply would not pay. His agent finally admitted himself beaten.

Mr. Kingsnorth must wait for better times.

Furious at his diminished income and hating, with a bitter hatred, the

disloyal and cheating tenantry, he rose at a Guildhall banquet to reply

to the toast of "The Colonies."

He drew vivid pictures of the splendour of the British possessions: of

India--that golden and loyal Empire; Australia with its hidden mines of

wealth, whose soil had scarce been scratched, peopled by patriotic,

zealous and toiling millions, honestly paying their way through life by

the sweat of their God-and-Queen-fearing brows. What an example to the

world! A country where the wage-earner hurried, with eager footsteps,

to place the honestly earned tolls at the feet of generous and trusting

landlords!

Then, on the other hand, he pointed to that small portion of the

British Isles, where to pay rent was a crime: where landlords were but

targets for insult and vituperation--yes, and indeed for BULLETS from

the hidden assassin whenever they were indiscreet enough to visit a

country where laws existed but that they might be broken, and crime

stalked fearlessly through the land. Such a condition was a reproach to

the English government.

"Why," he asked the astonished gathering of dignitaries, "why should

such a condition exist when three hundred and sixty-five men sat in the

House of Commons, sent there by electors to administer the just and

wise laws of a just and wise country? Why?"

As he paused and glared around the table for the reply that was not

forthcoming, the undying phrase sprang new-born from his lips:

"Oh," he cried; "oh! that for one brief hour Providence would immerse

that island of discontent beneath the waters of the Atlantic and

destroy a people who seemed bent on destroying themselves and on

disintegrating the majesty and dignity and honour of our great Empire!"

Feeling that no words of his could follow so marvellous a climax, he

sat down, amid a silence that seemed to him to be fraught with

eloquence, so impressive and significant was--to him--its full meaning.

Some speeches are cheered vulgarly. It was the outward sign of coarse

approval. Others are enjoyed and sympathised with inwardly, and the

outward tribute to which was silence--and that was the tribute of that

particular Guildhall gathering on that great night.

It seemed to Wilberforce Kingsnorth, hardened after-dinner speaker

though he was, that never had a body of men such as he confronted and

who met his gaze by dropping their eyes modestly to their glasses, been

so genuinely thrilled by so original, so comprehensive and so dramatic

a conclusion to a powerful appeal.

Kingsnorth felt, as he sat down, that it was indeed a red-letter night

for him--and for England.

The Times, in reviewing the speeches the following morning,

significantly commented that:

"Mr. Kingsnorth had solved, in a moment of entreaty, to a hitherto

indifferent Providence, the entire Irish difficulty."

When Nathaniel Kingsnorth found himself the fortunate possessor of this

tract of land peopled by so lawless a race, he determined to see for

himself what the conditions really were, so for the first time since

they owned a portion of it, a Kingsnorth set foot on Irish soil.

Accompanied by his two sisters he arrived quietly some few weeks before

and addressed himself at once to the task of understanding the people

and the circumstances in which they lived.

On this particular afternoon he was occupied with his agent, going

systematically through the details of the management of the estate.

It was indeed a discouraging prospect. Such a condition of pauperism

seemed incredible in a village within a few hours of his own England.

Except for a few moderately thriving tradesmen, the whole population

seemed to live from hand to mouth. The entire village was in debt. They

owed the landlords, the tradesmen, they even owed each other money and

goods. It seemed to be a community cut off from the rest of the world,

in which nothing from the outside ever entered. No money was ever put

into the village. On the contrary there was a continuous withdrawal. By

present standards a day would come when the last coin would depart and

the favoured spot would be as independent of money as many of the

poorer people were of clothing.

It came as a shock to Nathaniel Kingsnorth. For the first time it began

to dawn on him that, after all, the agitators might really have some

cause to agitate: that their attitude was not one of merely fighting

for the sake of the fight. Yet a lingering suspicion, borne of his

early training, and his father's doctrines about Ireland, that Pat was

really a scheming, dishonest fellow, obtruded itself on his mind, even

as he became more than half convinced of the little village's desperate

plight.

Nathaniel loathed injustice. As the magistrate of his county he

punished dishonesty. Was the condition he saw due to English injustice

or Irish dishonesty? That was the problem that he was endeavouring to

solve.

"There doesn't seem to be a sixpence circulating through the whole

place," he remarked to the agent when that gentleman had concluded his

statement of the position of matters.

"And there never will be, until some one puts money into the village

instead of taking it out of it," said the agent.

"You refer to the land-owners?"

"I do. And it's many's the time I wrote your father them same words."

"It is surely not unnatural for owners to expect to be paid for the use

of houses and land, is it? We expect it in England," said Kingsnorth

drily.

"In England the landlord usually lives on his estate and takes some

pride in it."

"Small pride anyone could take in such an estate as this," Kingsnorth

laughed bitterly. Then he went on: "And as for living on it--," and he

shrugged his shoulders in disgust. "Before the Kingsnorths came into

possession the MacMahons lived on it, and proud the people were of them

and they of the people, sir."

"I wish to God they'd continued to," said Kingsnorth wrathfully.

"They beggared themselves for the people--that's what they did, sir.

Improvements here--a road there. A quarry cut to give men work and a

breakwater built to keep the sea from washing away the poor fishermen's

homes. And when famine came not a penny rent asked--and their

women-kind feedin' and nursin' the starvin' and the sick. An' all the

time raisin' money to do it. A mortgage on this and a note of hand for

that--until the whole place was plastered with debt. Then out they were

turned."

The agent moved away and looked out across the well-trimmed lawn to

conceal his emotion.

"Ill-timed charity and business principles scarcely go together, my

good Burke," said Kingsnorth, with ill-concealed impatience. He did not

like this man's tone. It suggested a glorification of the former

BANKRUPT landlord and a lack of appreciation of the present SOLVENT one.

"So the English think," Burke answered.

Kingsnorth went on: "If we knew the whole truth we would probably find

the very methods these people used were the cause of the sorry

condition this village is in now. No landlord has the right to

pauperise his tenantry by giving them money and their homes rent-free.

It is a man's duty and privilege to WORK. INDEPENDENCE--that is what a

man should aim at. The Irish are always CRYING for it. They never seem

to PRACTISE it."

"Ye can't draw the water out of a kettle and expect it to boil, sir,

and by the same token independence is a fine thing to tache to men who

are dependent on all."

"Your sympathies appear to be entirely with the people," said

Kingsnorth, looking shrewdly and suspiciously at the agent.

"No one could live here man and boy and not give it to them," answered

Burke.

"You're frank, anyway."

"Pity there are not more like me, sir."

"I'll see what it is possible to do in the matter of improving

conditions. Mind--I promise nothing. I put my tenants on probation. It

seems hopeless. I'll start works for the really needy. If they show a

desire to take advantage of my interest in them I'll extend my

operations. If they do NOT I'll stop everything and put the estate on

the market."

Burke looked at him and smiled a dry, cracked smile.

He was a thin, active, grizzled man, well past fifty, with keen, shrewd

eyes that twinkled with humour, or sparkled with ferocity, or melted

with sorrow as the mood seized him. As he answered Kingsnorth the eyes

twinkled.

"I'm sure it's grateful the poor people 'ull be when they hear the good

news of yer honour's interest in them."

"I hope so. Although history teaches us that gratitude is not a common

quality in Ireland. 'If an Irishman is being roasted you will always

find another Irishman to turn the spit,' a statesman quoted in the

House of Commons a few nights ago."

"That must be why the same statesman puts them in prison for standin'

by each other, I suppose," said Burke, with a faint smile.

"You are now speaking of the curses of this country--the agitators.

They are the real cause of this deplorable misery. Who will put money

into a country that is ridden by these scoundrels? Rid Ireland of

agitators and you advance her prosperity a hundred years. They are the

clogs on the wheel of a nation's progress." He picked up a copy of the

local newspaper and read a headline from one of the columns:

"I see you have agitators even here?"

"We have, sir."

"Drive them out of the town. Let the people live their own lives

without such disturbing elements in them. Tell them distinctly that

from the moment they begin to work for me I'll have no 'meetings' on my

property. Any of my tenants or workmen found attending them elsewhere

will be evicted and discharged."

"I'll tell them, sir."

"I mean to put that kind of lawlessness down with a firm hand."

"If ye DO ye'll be the first, Mr. Kingsnorth."

"There is one I see to-day," glancing again at the paper.

"There is, sir."

"Who is this man O'Connell?"

"A native of the village, sir."

"What is he--a paid agitator?"

"Faith there's little pay he gets, I'm thinkin'."

"Why don't the police arrest him?"

"Mebbe they will, sir."

"I'll see that they do."

Burke smiled.

"And what do you find so amusing, Mr. Burke?"

"It's a wondher the English government doesn't get tired of arrestin'

them. As fast as they DO others take their place. It's the persecution

brings fresh converts to the 'Cause.' Put one man in jail and there'll

be a hundred new followers the next day."

"We'll see," said Kingsnorth firmly. "Here is one district where the

law will be enforced. These meetings and their frequent bloodshed are a

disgrace to a civilised people."

"Ye may well say that, yer honour," replied Burke.

"Before I invest one penny to better the condition of the people I must

have their pledge to abandon such disgraceful methods of trying to

enlist sympathy. I'll begin with this man O'Connell. Have him brought

to me to-morrow. I'll manage this estate my own way or I'll wash my

hands of it. My father was often tempted to."

"He resisted the temptation though, sir."

"I'm sorry he did. That will do for to-day. Leave these statements.

I'll go over them again. It's hard to make head or tail of the whole

business. Be here tomorrow at ten. Bring that fellow O'Connell with

you. Also give me a list of some of the more intelligent and

trustworthy of the people and I'll sound them as to the prospects of

opening up work here. Drop them a hint that my interest is solely on

the understanding that this senseless agitation stops."

"I will, sir. To-morrow morning at ten," and Burke started for the door.

"Oh, and--Burke--I hope you are more discreet with my tenants than you

have been with me?"

"In what way, Mr. Kingsnorth?"

"I trust that you confine your sympathy with them to your FEELINGS and

not give expression to them in words."

"I can't say that I do, Mr. Kingsnorth."

"It would be wiser to in future, Mr. Burke."

"Well, ye see, sir, I'm a MAN first and an AGENT afterwards."

"Indeed?"

"Yes, sir. It's many's the ugly thing I've had to do for your father,

and if a kind word of mine hadn't gone with it, it's precious little of

the estate would be fit to look at to-day, Mr. Kingsnorth."

"And why not?"

"Do ye remember when Kilkee's Scotch steward evicted two hundred in one

day, sir?"

"I do not."

"Rade about it. It's very enlightenin'."

"What happened?"

"The poor wretched, evicted people burnt down every dwellin' and tree

on the place, sir."

"I would know how to handle such ruffians."

"That's what Kilkee thought. 'Tache them a lesson,' said he. 'Turn them

into the ditches!' And he DID. HE thought he KNEW how to handle them.

He woke up with a jump one mornin' when he found a letter from the

under-steward tellin' him his Scotch master was in the hospital with a

bullet in his spleen, and the beautiful house and grounds were just so

much blackened ashes."

"It seems to me, my good man, there is a note of agreement with such

methods, in your tone."

"Manin' the evictin' or the burnin', yer honour?"

"You know what I mean," and Kingsnorth's voice rose angrily.

"I think I do," answered Burke quietly.

"I want an agent who is devoted to my interests and to whom the people

are secondary."

"Then ye'd betther send to England for one, sir. The men devoted to

landlords and against the people are precious few in this part of

Ireland, sir."

"Do you intend that I should act on that?"

"If ye wish. Ye can have my TIME at a price, but ye won't have my

INDEPENDENCE for any sum ye like to offer."

"Very well. Send me your resignation, to take effect one month from

to-day."

"It's grateful I am, Mr. Kingsnorth," and he went out.

In through the open window came the sound of the tramping of many feet

and the whisper of subdued voices.

Kingsnorth hurried out on to the path and saw a number of men and women

walking slowly down the drive, in the centre of which the soldiers were

carrying a body on some branches. Riding beside them was his sister

Angela with her groom.

"What new horror is this?" he thought, as he hurried down the path to

meet the procession.

CHAPTER V

ANGELA

Wilberforce Kingsnorth left three children: Nathaniel--whose

acquaintance we have already made, and who in a large measure inherited

much of his father's dominant will and hardheadedness--Monica, the

elder daughter, and Angela the younger.

Nathaniel was the old man's favourite.

While still a youth he inculcated into the boy all the tenets of

business, morality and politics that had made Wilberforce prosperous.

Pride in his name: a sturdy grasp of life: an unbending attitude toward

those beneath him, and an abiding reverence for law and order and

fealty to the throne--these were the foundations on which the father

built Nathaniel's character.

Next in point of regard came the elder daughter Monica. Patrician of

feature, haughty in manner, exclusive by nature she had the true

Kingsnorth air. She had no disturbing "ideas": no yearning for things

not of her station. She was contented with the world as it had been

made for her and seemed duly proud and grateful to have been born a

Kingsnorth.

She was an excellent musician: rode fairly to hounds: bestowed prizes

at the local charities with grace and distinction--as became a

Kingsnorth--and looked coldly out at the world from behind the

impenetrable barriers of an old name.

When she married Frederick Chichester, the rising barrister, connected

with six county families, it was a proud day for old Kingsnorth.

His family had originally made their money in trade. The Chichesters

had accumulated a fortune by professions. The distinction in England is

marked.

One hesitates to acknowledge the salutation of the man who provides one

with the necessities of life: a hearty handshake is occasionally

extended to those who minister to one's luxuries.

In England the law is one of the most expensive of luxuries and its

devotees command the highest regard.

Frederick Chichester came of a long line of illustrious lawyers--one

had even reached the distinction of being made a judge. He belonged to

an honourable profession.

Chichesters had made the laws of the country in the House of Commons as

well as administered them in the Courts.

The old man was overjoyed.

He made a handsome settlement on his eldest daughter on her marriage

and felt he had done well by her, even as she had by him.

His son and elder daughter were distinctly a credit to him.

Five years after Monica's birth Angela unexpectedly was born to the

Kingsnorths.

A delicate, sickly infant, it seemed as if the splendid blood of the

family had expended its vigour on the elder children.

Angela needed constant attention to keep her alive. From tremulous

infancy she grew into delicate youth. None of the strict standards

Kingsnorth had used so effectually with his other children applied to

her. She seemed a child apart.

Not needing her, Kingsnorth did not love her. He gave her a form of

tolerant affection. Too fragile to mix with others, she was brought up

at home. Tutors furnished her education. The winters she passed abroad

with her mother. When her mother died she spent them with relations or

friends. The grim dampness of the English climate was too rigorous for

a life that needed sunshine.

Angela had nothing in common with either her brother or her sister. She

avoided them and they her. They did not understand her: she understood

them only too well!

A nature that craved for sympathy and affection--as the frail so often

do--was repulsed by those to whom affection was but a form, and

sympathy a term of reproach.

She loved all that was beautiful, and, as so frequently happens in such

natures as Angela's, she had an overwhelming pity for all that were

unhappy. To her God made the world beautiful: man was responsible for

its hideousness. From her heart she pitied mankind for abusing the

gifts God had showered on them.

It was on her first home-coming since her mother's death that her

attention was really drawn to her father's Irish possessions.

By a curious coincidence she returned home the clay following

Wilberforce Kingsnorth's electrical speech, invoking Providence to

interpose in the settlement of the Irish difficulty. It was the one

topic of conversation throughout dinner. And it was during that dinner

that Angela for the first time really angered her father and raised a

barrier between them that lasted until the day of his death.

The old man had laughed coarsely at the remembrance of his speech on

the previous night, and licked his lips at the thought of it.

Monica, who was visiting her father for a few days smiled in agreeable

sympathy.

Nathaniel nodded cheerfully.

From her father's side Angela asked quietly:

"Have you ever been in Ireland, father?"

"No, I have not," answered the old man sharply: "And, what is more, I

never intend to go there."

"Do you know anything about, the Irish?" persisted Angela.

"Do I? More than the English government does. Don't I own land there?"

"I mean do you know anything about the people?" insisted Angela.

"I know them to be a lot of thieving, rascally scoundrels, too lazy to

work, and too dishonest to pay their way, even when they have the

money."

"Is that all you know?"

"All!" He stopped eating to look angrily at his daughter. The

cross-examination was not to his liking.

Angela went on

"Yes, father; is that all you know about the Irish?"

"Isn't it enough?" His voice rose shrilly. It was the first time for

years anyone had dared use those two hated words "Ireland" and "Irish"

at his table. Angela must be checked and at once.

Before he could begin to check her, however, Angela answered his

question:

"It wouldn't be enough for me if I had the responsibilities and duties

of a landlord. To be the owner of an estate should be to act as the

people's friend, their father, their adviser in times of plenty and

their comrade in times of sorrow."

"Indeed? And pray where did you learn all that, Miss?" asked the

astonished parent.

Without noticing the interruption or the question, Angela went on:

"Why deny a country its own government when England is practically

governed by its countrymen? Is there any position of prominence today

in England that isn't filled by Irishmen? Think. Our Commander-in-Chief

is Irish: our Lord High Admiral is Irish: there are the defences of the

English in the hands of two Irishmen and yet you call them thieving and

rascally scoundrels."

Kingsnorth tried to speak; Angela raised her voice:

"Turn to your judges--the Lord Chief is an Irishman. Look at the House

of Commons. Our laws are passed or defeated by the Irish vote, and yet

so blindly ignorant and obstinate is our insular prejudice that we

refuse them the favours they do us--governing THEMSELVES as well as

England."

Kingsnorth looked at his daughter aghast. Treason in his own house! His

child speaking the two most hated of all words at his own dinner table

and in laudatory terms. He could scarcely believe it. He looked at her

a moment and then thundered:

"How dare you! How dare you!"

Angela smiled a little amusedly-tolerant smile as she looked frankly at

her father and answered:

"This is exactly the old-fashioned tone we English take to anything we

don't understand. And that is why other countries are leaving us in the

race. There is a nation living within a few hours' journey from our

doors, yet millions of English people are as ignorant of them as if

they lived in Senegambia." She paused, looked once more straight into

her father's eyes and said: "And you, father, seem to be as ignorant as

the worst of them!"

"Angela!" cried her sister in horror.

Nathaniel laughed good-naturedly, leaned across to Angela and said:

"I see our little sister has been reading the sensational magazines.

Yes?"

"I've done more than that," replied Angela. "In Nice a month ago were

two English members of Parliament who had taken the trouble to visit

the country they were supposed to assist in governing. They told me

that a condition of misery existed throughout the whole of Ireland that

was incredible under a civilised government."

"Radicals, eh?" snapped her father.

"No. Conservatives. One of them had once held the office of Chief

Secretary for Ireland and was Ireland's most bitter persecutor, until

he visited the country. When he saw the wretchedness of her people he

stopped his stringent methods and began casting about for some ways of

lessening the poor people's torment."

"The more shame to him to talk like that to a girl. And what's more you

had no right to listen to him. A Conservative indeed! A fine one he

must be!"

"He is. I don't see why the Liberal party should have all the

enlightenment and the Conservative party all the bigotry."

"Don't anger your father," pleaded Monica.

"Why, little Angela has come back to us quite a revolutionary," said

Nathaniel.

"Leave the table," shouted her father.

Without a word Angela got up quietly and left the room. Her manner was

entirely unmoved. She had spoken from her inmost convictions. The fact

that they were opposed to her father was immaterial. She loathed

tyranny and his method of shutting the mouths of those who disagreed

with him was particularly obnoxious to her. It was also most

ineffectual with her. From childhood she had always spoken as she felt.

No discipline checked her. Freedom of speech as well as freedom of

thought were as natural and essential to her as breathing was.

From that time she saw but little of her father. When he died he left

her to her brother's care. Kingsnorth made no absolute provision for

her. She was to be dependent on Nathaniel. When the time came that she

seemed to wish to marry, if her brother approved of the match, he

should make a handsome settlement on her.

In response to her request Nathaniel allowed her to go with him to

Ireland on his tour of inspection.

Mr. Chichester was actively engaged at the Old Bailey on an important

criminal case, so Monica also joined them.

Everything Angela saw in Ireland appealed to her quick sympathy and

gentle heart. It was just as she had thought and read and listened to.

On every side she saw a kindly people borne down by the weight of

poverty. Lives ruined by sickness and the lack of nourishment. A

splendid race perishing through misgovernment and intolerant ignorance.

Angela went about amongst the people and made friends with them. They

were chary at first of taking her to their hearts. She was of the hated

Saxon race. What was she doing there, she, the sister of their, till

now, absentee landlord? She soon won them over by her appealing voice

and kindly interest.

All this Angela did in direct opposition to her brother's wishes and

her sister's exhortations.

The morning of the meeting she had ridden some mile to visit a poor.

family. Out of five three were in bed with low fever. She got a doctor

for them, gave them money to buy necessities and, with a promise to

return the next day, she rode away. When within some little distance of

her brother's house she saw a steady, irregular stream of people

climbing a great hill. She rode toward it, and, screened by a clump of

trees, saw and heard the meeting.

When O'Connell first spoke his voice thrilled her. Gradually the

excitement of the people under the mastery of his power, communicated

itself to her. It pulsed in her blood, and throbbed in her brain. For

the first time she realised what a marvellous force was the Call of the

Patriot. To listen and watch a man risking life and liberty in the

cause of his country. Her heart, and her mind and her soul went out to

him.

When the soldiers marched on to the scene she was paralysed with fear.

When the order to fire was gives she wanted to ride into their midst

and cry out to them to stop. But she was unable to move hand or foot.

When the smoke had thinned and she saw the bodies lying motionless on

the ground of men who a moment before had been full of life and

strength: when was added to that the horror of the wounded crying out

with pain, her first impulse was to fly from the sight of the carnage.

She mastered that moment of fear and plunged forward, calling to the

groom to follow her.

What immediately followed has already been told.

The long, slow, tortuous journey home: the men slowly following with

the ghastly mute-body on the rude litter, became a living memory to her

for all the remainder of her life.

She glanced down every little while at the stone-white face and

shuddered as she found herself wondering if eke would ever hear his

voice again or see those great blue-grey eyes flash with his fierce

courage and devotion.

Once only did the lips of the wounded man move. In a moment Angela had

dismounted and halted the soldiers. As she bent down over him O'Connell

swooned again from pain.

The procession went on.

As they neared her brother's house, stragglers began to follow

curiously. Sad looking men and weary women joined the procession

wonderingly. All guessed it was some fresh outrage of the soldiers.

Little, ragged, old-young children peered down at the body on the

litter and either ran away crying or joined in listlessly with the

others.

It was an old story carrying back mutilated men to the village. None

was surprised. It seemed to Angela that an infinity of time had passed

before they entered the grounds attached to the Kingsnorth house.

She sent a man on ahead to order a room to be prepared and a doctor

sent for.

As she saw her brother coming forward to meet her with knit brows and

stern eyes she nerved herself to greet him.

"What is this, Angela?" he asked, looking in amazement at the strange

procession.

"Another martyr to our ignorant government, Nathaniel," and she pressed

on through the drive to the house.

CHAPTER VI

ANGELA SPEAKS HER MIND FREELY TO NATHANIEL

Nathaniel's indignation at his sister's conduct was beyond bounds when

he learnt who the wounded man was. He ordered the soldiers to take the

man and themselves away.

The magistrate interposed and begged him to at least let O'Connell rest

there until a doctor could patch him up. It might be dangerous to take

him back without medical treatment. He assured Nathaniel that the

moment they could move him he would be lodged in the county-jail.

Nathaniel went back to his study as the sorry procession passed on to

the front door.

He sent immediately for his sister.

The reply came back that she would see him at dinner.

He commanded her to come to him at once.

In a few minutes Angela came into the room. She was deathly pale. Her

voice trembled as she spoke:

"What do you want?"

"Why did you bring that man here?"

"Because he is wounded."

"Such scoundrels are better dead."

"I don't think so. Nor do I think him a scoundrel."

"He came here to attack landlords--to attack ME. ME! And YOU bring him

to MY house and with that RABBLE. It's outrageous! Monstrous!"

"I couldn't leave him with those heartless wretches to die in their

hands."

"He leaves here the moment a doctor has attended him."

"Very well. Is that all?"

"No, it isn't!" Kingsnorth tried to control his anger. After a pause he

continued:

"I want no more of these foolhardy, quixotic actions of yours. I've

heard of your visiting these wretched people--going into fever dens. Is

that conduct becoming your name? Think a little of your station in life

and what it demands."

"I wish YOU did a little more."

"What?" he shouted, all his anger returned.

"There's no need to raise your voice," Angela answered quietly. "I am

only a few feet away. I repeat that I wish you thought a little more of

your obligations. If you did and others like you in the same position

you are in, there would be no such horrible scenes as I saw to-day; a

man shot down amongst his own people for speaking the truth."

"You SAW it?" Nathaniel asked in dismay.

"I did. I not only SAW, but I HEARD. I wish you had, too. I heard a man

lay bare his heart and his brain and his soul that others might knew

the light in them. I saw and heard a man offer up his life that others

might know some gleam of happiness in THEIR lives. It was wonderful! It

was heroic! It was God-like!"

"If I ever hear of you doing such a thing again, you shall go back to

London the next day."

"That sounds exactly as though my dead father were speaking."

"I'll not be made a laughing-stock by you."

"You make yourself one as your father did before you. A Kingsnorth!

What has your name meant? Because one of our forefathers cheated the

world into giving him a fortune, by buying his goods for more than they

were worth, we have tried to canonise him and put a halo around the

name of Kingsnorth. To me it stands for all that is mean and selfish

and vain and ignorant. The power of money over intellect. How did we

become owners of this miserable piece of land? A Kingsnorth swindled

its rightful owner. Lent him money on usury, bought up his bills and

his mortgages and when he couldn't pay foreclosed on him. No wander

there's a curse on the village and on us!"

Kingsnorth tried to speak, but she stopped him:

"Wait a moment. It was a good stroke of business taking this estate

away. Oh yes, it was a good stroke of business. Our name has been built

up on 'good strokes of business.' Well, I tell you it's a BAD stroke of

business when human lives are put into the hands of such creatures as

we Kingsnorths have proved ourselves!"

"Stop!" cried Nathaniel, outraged to the innermost sanctuary of his

being. "Stop! You don't speak like one of our family. It is like

listening to some heretic--some--"

"I don't feel like one of your family. YOU are a KINGSNORTH. _I_ am my

MOTHER'S child. My poor, gentle, patient mother, who lived a life of

unselfish resignation: who welcomed death, when it came to her, as a

release from tyranny. Don't call ME a Kingsnorth. I know the family too

well. I know all the name means to the people who have suffered through

YOUR FAMILY."

"After this--the best thing--the only thing--is to separate," said

Nathaniel.

"Whenever you wish."

"I'll make you an allowance."

"Don't let it be a burden."

"I've never been so shocked--so stunned--"

"I am glad. From my cradle I've been shocked and stunned--in my home.

It's some compensation to know you are capable of the feeling, too.

Frankly, I didn't think you were."

"We'll talk no more of this," and Nathaniel began to pace the room.

"I am finished," and Angela went to the door.

"It would be better we didn't meet again--in any event--not often,"

added Nathaniel.

"Thank you," said Angela, opening the door. He motioned her to close

it, that he had something more to say.

"We'll find you some suitable chaperone. You can spend your winters

abroad, as you have been doing. London for the season--until you're

suitably married. I'll follow out my father's wishes to the letter. You

shall be handsomely provided for the day you marry."

She closed the door with a snap and came back to him and looked him

steadily in the eyes.

"The man I marry shall take nothing from you. Even in his 'last will

and testament' my father proved himself a Kingsnorth. It was only a

Kingsnorth could make his youngest daughter dependent on YOU!"

"My father knew I would respect his wishes."

"He was equally responsible for me, yet he leaves me to YOUR care. A

Kingsnorth!"

"The men MASTERS and the women SLAVES!"

"That is the Kingsnorth doctrine."

"It is a pity our father didn't live a little longer. There are many

changes coming into this old grey world of ours and one of them is the

real, honourable position of woman. The day will come in England when

we will wring from our fathers and our brothers as our right what is

doled out to us now as though we were beggars."

"And they are trying to govern the country of Ireland in the same way.

The reign of the despot. Well, THAT is nearly over too--even as woman's

degrading position to-day is almost at an end."

"Have you finished?"

Once again Angela went to the door. Nathaniel said in a somewhat

changed tone:

"As it is your wish this man should be cared for, I'll do it. When he

is well enough to be moved, the magistrate will take him to jail. But,

for the little while we shall be here, I beg you not to do anything so

unseemly again."

A servant came in to tell Angela the doctor had come. Without a word.

Angela went out to see to the wounded man.

The servant followed her.

Left alone, Nathaniel sat down, shocked and stunned, to review the

interview he had just had with his youngest sister.

CHAPTER VII

THE WOUNDED PATRIOT

When Angela entered the sick-room she found Dr. McGinnis, a cheery,

bright-eyed, rotund little man of fifty, talking freely to the patient

and punctuating each speech with a hearty laugh. His good-humour was

infectious.

The wounded agitator felt the effect of it and was trying to laugh

feebly himself.

"Sure it's the fine target ye must have made with yer six feet and one

inch. How could the poor soldiers help hittin' ye? Answer me that?" and

the jovial doctor laughed again as he dexterously wound a bandage

around O'Connell's arm.

"Aisy now while I tie the bandage, me fine fellow. Ye'll live to see

the inside of an English jail yet."

He turned as he heard the door open and greeted Angela.

"Good afternoon to ye, Miss Kingsnorth. Faith, it's a blessin' ye

brought the boy here. There's no tellin' What the prison-surgeon would

have done to him. It is saltpetre, they tell me, the English doctors

rub into the Irish wounds, to kape them smartin'. And, by the like

token, they do the same too in the English House of Commons. Saltpetre

in Ireland's wounds is what they give us."

"Is he much hurt?" asked Angela.

"Well, they've broken nothin'. Just blackened his face and made a few

holes in his skin. It's buckshot they used. Buckshot! Thank the

merciful Mr. Forster for that same. 'Buckshot-Forster,' as the Irish

reverently call him."

Angela flushed with indignation as she looked at the crippled man.

"What a dastardly thing to do," she cried.

"Ye may well say that, Miss Kingsnorth," said the merry little doctor.

"But it's betther than a bullet from a Martini-Henry rifle, that's what

it is. And there's many a poor English landlord's got one of 'em in the

back for ridin' about at night on his own land. It's a fatherly

government we have, Miss Kingsnorth. 'Hurt 'em, but don't quite kill

'em,' sez they; 'and then put 'em in jail and feed them on bread and

wather. That'll take the fine talkin' and patriotism out of them,' sez

they."

"They'll never take it out of me. They may kill me, perhaps, but until

they do they'll never silence me," murmured O'Connell in a voice so

low, yet so bitter, that it startled Angela.

"Ye'll do that all in good time, me fine boy," said the busy little

doctor. "Here, take a pull at this," and he handed the patient a glass

in which he had dropped a few crystals into some water.

As O'Connell drank the mixture Dr. McGinnis said in a whisper to Angela:

"Let him have that every three hours: oftener if he wants to talk.

We've got to get his mind at rest. A good sleep'll make a new man of

him."

"There's no danger?" asked Angela in the same tone.

"None in the wurrld. He's got a fine constitution and mebbe the

buckshot was pretty clean. I've washed them out well."

"To think of men shot down like dogs for speaking of their country.

It's horrible! It's wicked! It's monstrous."

"Faith, the English don't know what else to do with them, Miss. It's no

use arguin' with the like of him. That man lyin' on that bed 'ud talk

the hind-foot off a heifer. The only way to kape the likes of him quiet

is to shoot him, and begob they have."

"I heard you, doctor," came from the bed. "If they'd killed me to-day

there would be a thousand voices would rise all over Ireland to take

the place of mine. One martyr makes countless converts."

"Faith, I'd rather kape me own life than to have a hundred thousand

spakin' for me and me dead. Where's the good that would be doin' me?

Now kape still there all through the beautiful night, and let the

blessed medicine quiet ye, and the coolin' ointment aize yer pain. I'll

come in by-and-by on the way back home. I'm goin' up beyant 'The Gap'

to some poor people with the fever. But I'll be back."

"Thank you, Dr. McGinnis."

"Is it long yer stayin' here?" and the little man picked up his hat.

"I don't know," said Angela. "I hardly think so."

"Well, it's you they'll miss when ye're gone, Miss Kingsnorth. Faith if

all the English were like you this sort of thing couldn't happen."

"We don't try to understand the people, doctor. We just govern them

blindly and ignorantly."

"Faith it's small blame to the English. We're a mighty hard race to

make head nor tail of. And that's a fact. Prayin' at Mass one minnit

and maimin' cattle the next. Cryin' salt tears at the bedside of a sick

child, and lavin' it to shoot a poor man in the ribs for darin' to ask

for his rint."

"They're not IRISHMEN," came from the sick bed.

"Faith and they are NOW. And it's small wondher the men who sit in

Whitehall in London trate them like savages."

"I've seen things since I've been here that would justify almost

anything!" cried Angela. "I've seen suffering no one in England dreamt

of. Misery, that London, with all its poverty and wretchedness, could

not compare with. Were I born in Ireland I should be proud to stake my

liberty and my life to protect my own people from such horrible

brutality."

The wounded man opened his eyes and looked full at Angela. It was a

look at once of gratitude and reverence and admiration.

Her heart leaped within her.

So far no man in the little walled-in zone she had lived in had ever

stirred her to an even momentary enthusiasm. They were all so fatuously

contented with their environment. Sheltered from birth, their anxiety

was chiefly how to make life pass the pleasantest. They occasionally

showed a spasmodic excitement over the progress of a cricket or polo

match. Their achievements were largely those of the stay-at-home

warriors who fought with the quill what others faced death with the

sword for. Their inertia disgusted her. Their self-satisfaction spurred

her to resentment.

Here was a man in the real heart of life. He was engaged in a struggle

that makes existence worth while--the effort to bring a message to his

people.

How all the conversations she was forced to listen to in her narrow

world rose up before her in their carping meannesses! Her father's

brutal diatribes against a people, unfortunate enough to be compelled,

from force of circumstance, to live on a portion of land that belonged

to him, yet in whose lives he took no interest whatsoever. His only

anxiety was to be paid his rents. How, and through what misery, his

tenants scraped the money together to do it with, mattered nothing to

him. All that DID matter was that he MUST BE PAID.

Then arose a picture of her sister Monica, with her puny social

pretensions. Recognition of those in a higher grade bread and meat and

drink to her. Adulation and gross flattery the very breath of her

nostrils.

Her brother's cheap, narrow platitudes about the rights of rank and

wealth.

To Angela wealth had no rights except to bring happiness to the world.

It seemed to bring only misery once people acquired it. Grim sorrow

seemed to stalk in the trail of the rich.

She could not recall one moment of real, unfeigned happiness among her

family. The only time she could remember her father smiling or

chuckling was at some one else's misfortune, or over some cruel thing

he had said himself.

Her sister's joy over some little social triumph--usually at the cost

of the humiliation of another.

Her brother's cheeriness over some smart stroke of business in which

another firm was involved to their cost.

Parasites all!

The memory of her mother was the only link that bound her to her

childhood. The gentle, uncomplaining spirit of her: the unselfish

abnegation of her: the soul's tragedy of her--giving up her life at the

altar of duty, at the bidding of a hardened despot.

All Angela's childhood came back in a brief illuminating flash. The

face of her one dear, dead companion--her mother--glowed before her.

How her mother would have cared for and tended, and worshipped a man

even as the one lying riddled on that bed of suffering! All the best in

Angela was from her mother. All the resolute fighting quality was from

her father. She would use both now in defence of the wounded man. She

would tend him and care for him, and see that no harm came to him.

She was roused from her self-searching thoughts by the doctor's voice

and the touch of his hand.

"Good-bye for the present, Miss Kingsnorth. Sure it's in good hands I'm

lavin' him. But for you he'd be lyin' in the black jail with old Doctor

Costello glarin' down at him with his gimlet eyes, I wouldn't wish a

dog that. Faith, I've known Costello to open a wound 'just to see if it

was healthy,' sez he, an' the patient screamin' 'Holy murther!' all the

while, and old 'Cos' leerin' down at him and sayin': 'Does it hurt? Go

on now, does it? Well, we'll thry this one and see if that does, too,'

and in 'ud go the lance again. I tell ye it's the Christian he is!" He

stopped abruptly. "How me tongue runs on. 'Talkative McGinnis' is what

the disrespectful ones call me--I'll run in after eight and mebbe I'll

bleed him a little and give him something'll make him slape like a top

till mornin'. Good-bye to yez, for the present," and the kindly, plump

little man hurried out with the faint echo of a tune whistling through

his lips.

Angela sat down at a little distance from the sickbed and watched the

wounded man. His face was drawn with pain. His eyes were closed. But he

was not sleeping. His fingers locked and unlocked. His lips moved He

opened his eyes and looked at her.

"You need not stay here," he said.

"Would you rather I didn't?" asked Angela, rising.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"To make sure your wounds were attended to."

"Your brother is a landlord--'Kingsnorth--the absentee landlord,' we

used to call your father as children. And I'm in his son's house. I'd

betther be in jail than here."

"You mustn't think that."

"You've brought me here to humiliate me--to humiliate me!"

"No. To care for you. To protect you."

"Protect me?"

"If I can."

"That's strange."

"I heard you speak to-day."

"You did?"

"I did."

"I'm glad of that."

"So am I."

"Pity your brother wasn't there too."

"It was--a great pity."

"Here's one that Dublin Castle and the English government can't

frighten. I'll serve my time in prisons when I'm well enough--it's the

first time they've caught me and they had to SHOOT me to do it--and

when I come out I'll come straight back here and take up the work just

where I'm leaving it."

"You mustn't go to prison."

"It's the lot of every Irishman to-day who says what he thinks."

"It mustn't be yours! It mustn't!" Angela's voice rose in her distress.

She repeated: "It mustn't! I'll appeal to my brother to stop it."

"If he's anything like his father it's small heed he'll pay to your

pleading. The poor wretches here appealed to old Kingsnorth in famine

and sickness--not for HELP, mind ye, just for a little time to pay

their rents--and the only answer they ever got from him was 'Pay or

go'!"

"I know! I know!" Angela replied. "And many a time when I was a child

my mother and I cried over it."

He looked at her curiously. "You and yer mother cried over US?"

"We did. Indeed we did."

"They say the heart of England is in its womenkind. But they have

nothing to do with her laws."

"They will have some day."

"It'll be a long time comin', I'm thinkin'. If they take so long to

free a whole country how long do ye suppose it'll take them to free a

whole sex--and the female one at that?"

"It will come!" she said resolutely.

He looked at her strangely.

"And you cried over Ireland's sorrows?"

"As a child and as a woman," said Angela.

"And ye've gone about here tryin' to help them too, haven't ye?"

"I could do very little"

"Well, the spirit is there--and the heart is there. If they hadn't

liked YOU it's the sorry time maybe your brother would have."

He paused again, looking at her intently, whilst his fingers clutched

the coverlet convulsively as if to stifle a cry of pain.

"May I ask ye yer name?" he gasped.

"Angela," she said, almost in a whisper.

"Angela," he repeated. "Angela! It's well named ye are. It's the

ministering angel ye've been down here--to the people--and--to me."

"Don't talk any more now. Rest"

"REST, is it? With all the throuble in the wurrld beatin' in me brain

and throbbin' in me heart?"

"Try and sleep until the doctor comes to-night."

He lay back and closed his eyes.

Angela sat perfectly still.

In a few minutes he opened them again. There was a new light in his

eyes and a smile on his lips.

"Ye heard me speak, did ye?"

"Yes."

"Where were ye?"

"Above you, behind a bank of trees."

A playful smile played around his lips as he said: "It was a GOOD

speech, wasn't it?"

"I thought it wonderful," Angela answered.

"And what were yer feelings listenin' to a man urgin' the people

against yer own country?"

"I felt I wanted to stand beside you and echo everything you said."

"DID you?" and his eyes blazed and his voice rose.

"You spoke as some prophet, speaking in a wilderness of sorrow, trying

to bring them comfort."

He smiled whimsically, as he said, in a weary voice:

"I tried to bring them comfort and I got them broken heads and

buck-shot."

"It's only through suffering every GREAT cause triumphs," said Angela.

"Then the Irish should triumph some day. They've suffered enough, God

knows."

"They will," said Angela eagerly. "Oh, how I wish I'd been born a man

to throw in my lot with the weak! to bring comfort to sorrow, freedom

to the oppressed: joy to wretchedness. That is your mission. How I envy

you. I glory in what the future has in store for you, Live for it! Live

for it!"

"I will!" cried O'Connell. "Some day the yoke will be lifted from us.

God grant that mine will be the hand to help do it. God grant I am

alive to see it done. That day'll be worth living for--to wring

recognition from our enemies--to--to--to" he sank back weakly on the

pillow, his voice fainting to a whisper.

Angela brought him some water and helped him up while he drank it. She

smoothed back the shining hair--red, shot through gold--from his

forehead. He thanked her with a look. Suddenly he burst into tears. The

strain of the day had snapped his self-control at last. The floodgates

were opened. He sobbed and sobbed like some tired, hurt child. Angela

tried to comfort him. In a moment she was crying, too. He took her hand

and kissed it repeatedly, the tears falling on it as he did so.

"God bless ye! God bless ye!" he cried.

In that moment of self-revelation their hearts went out to each other.

Neither had known happiness nor love, nor faith in mankind.

In that one enlightening moment of emotion their hearts were laid bare

to each other. The great comedy of life between man and woman had begun.

From that moment their lives were linked together.

CHAPTER VIII

ANGELA IN SORE DISTRESS

Three days afterwards O'Connell was able to dress and move about his

room. He was weak from loss of blood and the confinement that an active

man resents. But his brain was clear and vivid. They had been three

wonderful days.

Angela had made them the most amazing in his life. The memory of those

hours spent with her he would carry to his grave.

She read to him and talked to him and lectured him and comforted him.

There were times when he thanked the Power that shapes our ends for

having given him this one supreme experience. The cadences of her voice

would haunt him through the years to come.

And in a little while he must leave it all. He must stand his trial

under the "Crimes Act" for speaking at a "Proclaimed" meeting.

Well, whatever his torture he knew he would come out better equipped

for the struggle. He had learned something of himself he had so far

never dreamed of in his bitter struggle with the handicap of his life.

He had something to live for now besides the call of his country--the

call of the HEART--the cry of beauty and truth and reverence.

Angela inspired him with all these. In the three days she ministered to

him she had opened up a vista he had hitherto never known. And now he

had to leave it and face his accusers, and be hectored and jeered at in

the mockery they called "trials." From the Court-House he would go to

the prison and from thence he would be sent back into the world with

the brand of the prison-cell upon him. As the thought of all this

passed through his mind, he never wavered. He would face it as he had

faced trouble all his life, with body knit for the struggle, and his

heart strong for the battle.

And back of it all the yearning that at the end she would be waiting

and watching for his return to the conflict for the great "Cause" to

which he had dedicated his life.

On the morning of the third day Mr. Roche, the resident magistrate, was

sent for by Nathaniel Kingsnorth. Mr. Roche found him firm and

determined, his back to the fireplace, in which a bright fire was

burning, although the month was July.

"Even the climate of Ireland rebels against the usual laws of nature!"

thought Kingsnorth, as he shivered and glanced at the steady, drenching

downpour that had lasted, practically, ever since he had set foot in

the wretched country.

The magistrate came forward and greeted him respectfully.

"Good morning, Mr. Roche," said Nathaniel, motioning him to sit down by

the fire.

"I've sent for you to remove this man O'Connell," added Nathaniel,

after a pause.

"Certainly--if he is well enough to be moved."

"The doctor, I understand, says that he is."

"Very well. I'll drive him down to the Court-House. The Court is

sitting now," said Roche, rising.

Kingsnorth stopped him with a gesture.

"I want you to understand it was against my express wishes that he was

ever brought into this house."

"Miss Kingsnorth told me, when I had arrested him, that you would

shelter him and go bail for him, if necessary," said Roche, in some

surprise.

"My sister does things under impulse that she often regrets afterwards.

This is one. I hope there is no, harm done?"

"None in the world," replied the magistrate. "On the contrary, the

people seem to have a much higher opinion of you, Mr. Kingsnorth, since

the occurrence," he added.

"Their opinion--good or bad--is a matter of complete indifference to

me. I am only anxious that the representatives of the government do not

suppose that, because, through mistaken ideas of charity, my sister

brought this man to my house, I in any way sanction his attitude and

his views!"

"I should not fear that, Mr. Kingsnorth. You have always been regarded

as a most loyal subject, sir," answered Roche.

"I am glad. What sentence is he likely to get?"

"It depends largely on his previous record."

"Will it be settled to-day?"

"If the jury bring in a verdict. Sometimes they are out all night on

these cases."

"A jury! Good God! A jury of Irishmen to try, an Irishman?"

"They're being trained gradually, sir."

"It should never be left to them in a country like this A judge should

have the power of condemning such bare-faced criminals, without trial."

"He'll be condemned," said Roche confidently.

"What jury will convict him if they all sympathise with him? Answer me

that?"

"That was one difficulty we had to face at first," Roche answered. "It

was hard, indeed, as you say, to get an Irishman convicted by an Irish

jury--especially the agitators. But we've changed that. We've made them

see that loyalty to the Throne is better than loyalty to a Fenian."

"How have they done it?"

"A little persuasion and some slight coercion, sir."

"I am glad of it. It would be a crime against justice for a man who

openly breaks the law not to be punished through being tried before a

jury of sympathisers."

"Few of them escape, Mr. Kingsnorth. Dublin Castle found the way. One

has to meet craft with craft and opposition with firmness. Under the

present government we've succeeded wonderfully." Roche smiled

pleasantly as he thought of the many convictions he had been

instrumental in procuring himself.

Kingsnorth seemed delighted also.

"Good," he said. "The condition of things here is a disgrace--mind you,

I'm not criticising the actions of the officials," he hastened to add.

The magistrate bowed.

Kingsnorth went on:

"But the attitude of the people, their views, their conduct, is

deplorable--opeless. I came here to see what I could do for them. I

even thought of spending a certain portion of each year here. But from

what I've heard it would be a waste of time and money."

"It is discouraging, at first sight, but we'll have a better state of

affairs presently. We must first stamp out the agitator. He is the

most potent handicap. Next are the priests. They are nearest to the

people. The real solution of the Irish difficulty would be to make the

whole nation Protestants."

"Could it be done?"

"It would take time--every big movement takes time." Roche paused,

looked shrewdly, at Kingsnorth and asked him:

"What do you intend doing with this estate?"

"I am in a quandary. I'm almost determined to put it in the market.

Sell it. Be rid of it. It has always been a source of annoyance to our

family. However, I'll settle nothing until I return to London. I'll go

in a few days--much sooner than I intended. This man being brought into

my house has annoyed and upset me."

"I'm sorry," said the magistrate. "Miss Kingsnorth was so insistent and

the fellow seemed in a bad way, otherwise I would never have allowed

it."

A servant came in response to Kingsnorth's ring and was sent with a

message to have the man O'Connell ready to accompany the magistrate as

quickly as possible. Over a glass of sherry and a cigar the two men

resumed their discussion.

"I wouldn't decide too hastily about disposing of the land. Although

there's always a good deal of discontent there is really very little

trouble here. In fact, until agitators like O'Connell came amongst us

we had everything pretty peaceful. We'll dispose of him in short order."

"Do. Do. Make an example of him."

"Trust us to do that," said Roche. After a moment he added: "To refer

again to selling the estate you would get very little for it. It can't

depreciate much more, and there is always the chance it may improve.

Some of the people are quite willing to work--"

"ARE they? They've not shown any willingness to me."

"Oh, no. They wouldn't."

"What? Not to their landlord?"

"You'd be the LAST they'd show it to. They're strange people in many

ways until you get to know them. Now there are many natural resources

that might be developed if some capital were put into them."

"My new steward discouraged me about doing that. He said it might be

ten years before I got a penny out."

"Your NEW steward?"

"Andrew McPherson."

"The lawyer?"

"Yes"

"He's a hard man, sir."

"The estate needs one."

"Burke understands the people."

"He sympathises with them. I don't want a man like that working for me.

I want loyalty to my interests The makeshift policy of Burke during my

father's lifetime helped to bring about this pretty state of things.

We'll see what firmness will do. New broom. Sweep the place clean. Rid

it of slovenly, ungrateful tenants. Clear away the tap-room orators. I

have a definite plan in my mind. If I decide NOT to sell I'll perfect

my plan in London and begin operations as soon as I'm satisfied it is

feasible and can be put upon a proper business basis. There's too much

sentiment in Ireland. That's been their ruin. _I_ am going to bring a

little common sense into play." Kingsnorth walked restlessly around the

room as he spoke. He stopped by the windows and beckoned the magistrate.

"There's your man on the drive. See?" and he pointed to where

O'Connell, with a soldier each side of him, was slowly moving down the

long avenue.

The door of the room opened and Angela came in hurriedly and went

straight to where the two men stood. There was the catch of a sob in

her voice as she spoke to the magistrate.

"Are you taking that poor wounded man to prison?"

"The doctor says he is well enough to be moved," replied Roche.

"You've not seen the doctor. I've just questioned him. He told me you

had not asked his opinion and that if you move him it will be without

his sanction."

Kingsnorth interrupted angrily: "Please don't interfere."

Angela turned on him: "So, it's YOU who are sending him to prison?"

"I am."

Angela appealed to the magistrate.

"Don't do this, I entreat you--don't do it."

"But I have no choice, Miss Kingsnorth."

"The man can scarcely walk," she pleaded.

"He will receive every attention, believe me, Miss Kingsnorth," Roche

replied.

Angela faced her brother again.

"If you let that wounded man go from this house to-day you will regret

it to the end of your life." Her face was dead-white; her breath was

coming thickly; her eyes were fastened in hatred on her brother's face.

"Kindly try and control yourself, Angela," Kingsnorth said sternly.

"You should consider my position a little more--"

"YOUR position? And what is HIS? You with EVERYTHING you want in

life--that man with NOTHING. He is being hounded to prison for what?

Pleading for his country! Is that a crime? He was shot down by

soldiers--for what? For showing something we English are always

boasting of feeling OURSELVES and resent any other nation feeling

it--patriotism!"

"Stop!" commanded Kingsnorth.

"If you take that sick, wretched man out of this house it will be a

crime--" began Angela.

Kingsnorth stopped her; he turned to the magistrate: "Kindly take the

man away."

Roche moved to the window.

Angela's heart sank. All her pleading was in vain. Her voice faltered

and broke:

"Very well. Then take him. Sentence him for doing something his own

countrymen will one day build a monument to him for doing. The moment

the prison-door closes behind him a thousand voices will cry 'Shame' on

you and your government, and a thousand new patriots will be enrolled.

And when he comes out from his torture he'll carry on the work of

hatred and vengeance against his tyrants. He will fight you to the last

ditch. You may torture his BODY, but you cannot break his HEART or

wither his spirit. They're beyond you. They're--they're--," she stopped

suddenly, as her voice rose to the breaking-point, and left the room.

The magistrate went down the drive. In a few moments O'Connell was on

his way to the Court-House, a closely guarded prisoner.

Angela, from her window, watched the men disappear. She buried her face

in her hands and moaned as she had not done since her mother left her

just a few years before. The girlhood in her was dead. She was a woman.

The one great note had come to her, transforming her whole nature--love.

And the man she loved was being carried away to the misery and

degradation of a convict.

Gradually the moans died away. The convulsive heaving of her breast

subsided. A little later, when her sister Monica came in search of her,

she found Angela in a dead faint.

By night she was in a fever.

CHAPTER IX

TWO LETTERS

Dublin, Ireland, Nov. 16th, 18--

Dear Lady of Mercy:

I have served my sentence. I am free. At first the horrible humiliation

of my treatment, of my surroundings, of the depths I had to sink to,

burned into me. Then the thought of you sustained me. Your gentle

voice: your beauty: your pity: your unbounded faith in me strengthened

my soul. All the degradation fell from me. They were but ignoble means

to a noble end. I was tortured that others might never know sorrow. I

was imprisoned that my countrymen might know liberty. And so the load

was lighter.

The memory of those three WONDERFUL days was so marvellous, so vivid,

that it shone like a star through the blackness of those TERRIBLE days.

You seem to have taken hold of my heart and my soul and my life.

Forgive me for writing this to you, but it seems that you are the only

one I've ever known who understands the main-springs of my nature, of

my hopes and my ambitions--indeed, of my very thoughts.

To-day I met the leader of my party. He greeted me warmly. At last I

have proved myself a worthy follower. They think it best I should leave

Ireland for a while. If I take active part at once I shall be arrested

again and sent for a longer sentence.

They have offered me the position of one of the speakers In a campaign

in America to raise funds for the "Cause." I must first see the Chief

in London. He sent a message, writing in the highest terms of my work

and expressing a wish to meet me. I wonder if it would be possible to

see you in London?

If I am sent to America it would speed my going to speak to you again.

If you feel that I ask too much, do not answer this and I will

understand.

Out of the fulness of my heart, from the depths of my soul, and with

the whole fervour of my being, I ask you to accept all the gratitude of

a heart filled to overflowing.

God bless and keep you.

Yours in homage and gratitude,

FRANK OWEN O'CONNELL.

London, Nov. 19th, 18--

My dear Mr. O'Connell:

I am glad indeed to have your letter and to know you are free again. I

have often thought of your misery during all these months and longed to

do something to assuage it. It is only when a friend is in need and all

avenues of help are closed to him that a woman realises how helpless

she is.

That they have not crushed your spirit does not surprise me. I was as

sure of that as I am that the sun is shining to-day. That you do not

work actively in Ireland at once is, I am sure, wise. Foolhardiness is

not courage.

In a little while the English government may realise how hopeless it is

to try and conquer a people who have liberty in their hearts. Then they

will abate the rigour of their unjust laws.

When that day comes you must return and take up the mission with

renewed strength and hope and stimulated by the added experience of

bitter suffering.

I should most certainly like to see you in London. I am staying with a

distant connection of the family. We go to the south of France in a few

weeks. I have been very ill--another reproach to the weakness of woman.

I am almost recovered now but far from strong. I have to lie still all

day. My only companions are my books and my thoughts.

Let me know when you expect to arrive in London. Come straight here.

I have so much to tell you, but the words halt as they come to my pen.

Looking forward to seeing you,

In all sincerity,

ANGELA KINGSNORTH.

CHAPTER X

O'CONNELL VISITS ANGELA IN LONDON

Nathaniel Kingsnorth stayed only, long enough in Ireland to permit of

Angela's recovery.

He only went into the sick-room once.

When Angela saw him come into the room she turned her back on him and

refused to speak to him.

For a moment a flush of pity for his young sister gave him a pang at

his heart. She looked so frail and worn, so desperately ill. After all

she was his sister, and again, had she not been punished? He was

willing to forget the foolhardy things she had done and the bitter

things she had said. Let bygones be bygones. He realised that he had

neglected her. He would do so no longer. Far from it. When they

returned to London all that would be remedied. He would take care of

her in every possible way. He felt a genuine thrill course through him

as he thought of his generosity.

To all of this Angela made no answer.

Stung by her silence, he left the room and sent for his other sister.

When Monica came he told her that whenever Angela wished to recognise

his magnanimity she could send for him. She would not find him

unforgiving.

To this Angela sent no reply.

When the fever had passed and she was stronger, arrangements were made

for the journey to London.

As Angela walked unsteadily to the carriage, leaning on the arm of the

nurse, Nathaniel came forward to assist her. She passed him without a

word. Nor did she speak to him once, nor answer any remark of his,

during the long journey on the train.

When they reached London she refused to go to the Kingsnorth house,

where her brother lived, but went at once to a distant cousin of her

mother's--Mrs. Wrexford--and made her home with her, as she had often

done before. She refused to hold any further communication with her

brother, despite the ministrations of her sister Monica and Mrs.

Wrexford.

Mrs. Wrexford was a gentle little white-capped widow whose only

happiness in life seemed to be in worrying over others' misfortunes.

She was on the board of various charitable organisations and was a busy

helper in the field of mercy. She worshipped Angela, as she had her

mother before her. That something serious had occurred between Angela

and her brother Mrs. Wrexford realised, but she could find out nothing

by questioning Angela. Every time she asked her anything relative to

her attitude Angela was silent.

One day she begged Mrs. Wrexford never to speak of her brother again.

Mrs. Wrexford respected her wishes and watched her and nursed her

through her convalescence with a tender solicitude.

When O'Connell's letter came, Angela showed it to Mrs. Wrexford,

together with her reply.

"Do you mind if I see him here?" Angela asked.

"What kind of man is he?"

"The kind that heroes are made of."

"He writes so strangely--may, one say unreservedly? Is he a gentleman?"

"In the real meaning of the word--yes."

"Of good family?"

"Not as we estimate goodness. His family were just simple peasants."

"Do you think it wise to see him?"

"I don't consider the wisdom. I only listen to my heart."

"Do you mean that you care for him?"

"I do."

"You--you love him?"

"So much of love as I can give is his."

"Oh, my dear!" cried Mrs. Wrexford, thoroughly alarmed.

"Don't be afraid," said Angela, quietly. "Our ways lie wide apart. He

is working for the biggest thing in life. His work IS his life. I am

nothing."

"But don't you think it would be indiscreet, dear, to have such a man

come here?"

"Why--indiscreet?"

"A man who has been in prison!" and Mrs. Wrexford shuddered at the

thought. She had seen and helped so many poor victims of the cruel

laws, and the memory of their drawn faces and evil eyes, and coarse

speech, flashed across her mind. She could not reconcile one coming

into her little home.

Angela answered her:

"Yes, he has been in prison, but the shame was for his persecutors--not

for him. Still, if you would rather I saw him somewhere else--"

"Oh no, my dear child. If you wish it--"

"I do. I just want to see him again, as he writes he does me. I want to

hear him speak again. I want to wish him 'God-speed' on his journey."

"Very, well, Angela," said the old lady. "As you wish."

A week afterwards O'Connell arrived in London. They met in Mrs.

Wrexford's little drawing-room in Mayfair.

They looked at each other for some moments without speaking. Both noted

the fresh lines of suffering in each other's faces. They had been

through the long valley of the shadow of sorrow since they had last

met. But O'Connell thought, as he looked at her, that all the suffering

he had gone through passed from him as some hideous dream. It was worth

it--these months of torture--just to be looking at her now. Worth the

long black nights--the labours in the heat of the day, with life's

outcasts around him; the taunts of his gaolers: worth all the infamy of

it--just to stand there looking at her.

She had taken his life in her two little hands.

He had bathed his soul all these months in the thought of her. He had

prayed night and day that he might see her standing near him just as

she was then: see the droop of her eye and the silk of her hair and

feel the touch of her hand and hear the exquisite tenderness of her

voice.

He stood mute before her.

She held out her hand and said simply

"Thank you for coming."

"It was good of you to let me," he answered hoarsely. "They have not

broken your spirit or your courage?"

"No," he replied tensely; "they are the stronger."

"I thought they would be," she said proudly.

All the while he was looking at the pale face and the thin transparency

of her hands.

"But you have suffered, too. You have been ill. Were you in--danger?"

His voice had a catch of fear in it as he asked the, to him, terrible

question.

"No. It was just a fever. It is past. I am a little weak--a little

tired. That will pass, too."

"If anything had happened to you--or ever should happen!" He buried his

face in his hands and moaned "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"

His body shook with the sobs he tried vainly to check. Angela put her

hand gently on his shoulder.

"Don't do that," she whispered.

He controlled himself with an effort.

"It will be over in a moment. Just a moment. I am sorry."

He suddenly knelt at her feet, his head bowed in reverence. "God help

me," he cried faintly, "I love you! I love you!"

She looked down at him, her face transfigured.

He loved her!

The beat of her heart spoke it! "He loves you!" the throbbing of her

brain shouted it: "He loves you!" the cry of her soul whispered it: "He

loves you!"

She stretched out her hands to him:

"My love is yours, just as yours is mine. Let us join our lives and

give them to the suffering and the oppressed."

He looked up at her in wonder.

"I daren't. Think what I am."

"You are the best that is in me. We are mates."

"A peasant! A beggar!"

"You are the noblest of the noble."

"A convict."

"Our Saviour was crucified so that His people should be redeemed. You

have given the pain of your body so that your people may be free."

"It wouldn't be fair to you," he pleaded.

"If you leave me it will be unfair to us both."

"Oh, my dear one! My dear one!"

He folded her in his arms:

"I'll give the best of my days to guard you and protect you and bring

you happiness."

"I am happy now," and her voice died to a whisper.

CHAPTER XI

KINGSNORTH IN DESPAIR

Three days afterwards Nathaniel Kingsnorth returned late at night from

a political banquet.

It had been a great evening. At last it seemed that life was about to

give him what he most wished for. His dearest ambitions were,

apparently, about to be realised.

He had been called on, as a staunch Conservative, to add his quota to

the already wonderful array of brilliant perorations of seasoned

statesmen and admirable speakers.

Kingsnorth had excelled himself.

Never had he spoken so powerfully.

Being one of the only men at the banquet who had enjoyed even a brief

glimpse of Ireland, he made the solution of the Irish question the main

topic of his speech. Speaking lucidly and earnestly, he placed before

them his panacea for Irish ills.

His hearers were enthralled.

When he sat down the cheering was prolonged. The Chancellor of the

Exchequer, an old friend of his late father, spoke most glowingly to

him and of him in his hearing. The junior Whip hinted at his contesting

a heat at a coming bye-election in the North of Ireland. A man with his

knowledge of Ireland--as he had shown that night--would be invaluable

to his party.

When he left the gathering he was in a condition of ecstasy. Lying

back, amid the cushions, during his long drive home, he closed his eyes

and pictured the future. His imagination ran riot. It took wings and

flew from height to height. He saw himself the leader of a party--"The

Kingsnorth Party!"--controlling his followers with a hand of iron, and

driving them to vote according to his judgment and his decree.

By the time he reached home he had entered the Cabinet and was being

spoken of as the probable Prime Minister. But for the sudden stopping

of the horses he might have attained that proud distinction.

The pleasant warmth of the entrance hall on this chill November night,

greeted him as a benignant welcome. He bummed a tune cheerfully as he

climbed the stairs, and was smiling genially when he entered the

massive study.

He poured out a liqueur and stood sipping it as he turned over the

letters brought by the night's post. One arrested him. It had been

delivered by hand, and was marked "Most Urgent." He lit a cigar and

tore open the envelope. As he read the letter every vestige of colour

left his face. He sank into a chair: the letter slipped from his

fingers. All his dreams had vanished in a moment. His house of cards

had toppled down. His ambitions were surely and positively destroyed at

one stroke. He mechanically picked up the letter and re-read it. Had it

been his death-sentence it could not have affected him more cruelly.

"Dear Nathaniel: I scarcely know how to write to you about what has

happened. I am afraid I am in some small measure to blame. Ten days ago

your sister showed me a letter from a man named O'Connell--[Kingsnorth

crushed the letter in his hand as he read the hated name--the name of

the man who had caused him so much discomfort during that unfortunate

visit to his estate in Ireland. How he blamed himself now for having

ever gone there. There was indeed a curse on it for the Kingsnorths. He

straightened out the crumpled piece of paper and read on]:--a man named

O'Connell--the man she nursed in your house in Ireland after he had

been shot by the soldiers. He was coming to England and wished to see

her. She asked my permission. I reasoned with her--but she was decided.

If I should not permit her to see him in my house she would meet him

elsewhere. It seemed better the meeting should be under my roof, so I

consented. I bitterly reproach myself now for not acquainting you with

the particulars. You might have succeeded in stopping what has

happened."

"Your sister and O'Connell were married this morning by special licence

and left this afternoon for Liverpool, en route to America."

"I cannot begin to tell you how much I deplore the unfortunate affair.

It will always be a lasting sorrow to me. I cannot write any more now.

My head is aching with the thought of what it will mean to you. Try not

to think too hardly of me and believe me."

"Always your affectionate cousin,"

"Mary Caroline Wrexford."

Kingsnorth's head sank on to his breast. Every bit of life left him.

Everything about his feet. Ashes. The laughing-stock of his friends.

Were Angela there at that moment he could have killed her.

The humiliation of it! The degradation of it! Married to that lawless

Irish agitator. The man now a member of his family! A cry of misery

broke from him, as he realised that the best years of his life were to

come and go fruitlessly. His career was ended. Despair lay heavy on his

soul.

CHAPTER XII

LOOKING FORWARD

Standing on the main deck of an Atlantic liner stood Angela and

O'Connell.

They were facing the future together.

Their faces were turned to the West.

The sun was sinking in a blaze of colour.

Their eyes lighted up with the joy of HOPE.

LOVE was in their hearts.

BOOK II

THE END OF THE ROMANCE

CHAPTER I

ANGELA'S CONFESSION

A year after the events in the preceding book took place O'Connell and

his young wife were living in a small; apartment in one of the poorer

sections of New York City.

The first few months in America had been glorious ones for them. Their

characters and natures unfolded to each other as some wonderful

paintings, each taking its own hues from the adoration of the other.

In company with a noted Irish organiser O'Connell had spoken in many of

the big cities of the United States and was everywhere hailed as a hero

and a martyr to English tyranny.

But he had one ever-present handicap--a drawback he had never felt

during the years of struggle preceding his marriage. His means were

indeed small. He tried to eke out a little income writing articles for

the newspapers and magazines. But the recompense was pitiful. He could

not bear, without a pang, to see Angela in the dingy surroundings that

he could barely afford to provide for her.

On her part Angela took nothing with her but a few jewels her mother

had left her, some clothes and very little money. The money soon

disappeared and then one by one the keepsakes of her mother were parted

with. But they never lost heart. Through it all they were happy. All

the poetry of O'Connell's nature came uppermost, leavened, as it was,

by the deep faith and veneration of his wife.

This strangely assorted fervent man and gentle woman seemed to have

solved the great mystery of happiness between two people.

But the poverty chafed O'Connell--not for himself, but for the frail,

loving, uncomplaining woman who had given her life into his care.

His active brain was continually trying to devise new ways of adding to

his meagre income. He multiplied his duties: he worked far into the

night when he could find a demand for his articles. But little by

little his sources of revenue failed him.

Some fresh and horrible Agrarian crimes in Ireland, for which the Home

Rule party were blamed, for a while turned the tide of sympathy against

his party. The order was sent out to discontinue meetings for the

purpose of collecting funds in America--funds the Irish-Americans had

been so cheerfully and plentifully bestowing on the "Cause." O'Connell

was recalled to Ireland. His work was highly commended.

Some day they would send him to the United States again as a Special

Pleader. At present he would be of greater value at home.

He was instructed to apply to the treasurer of the fund and

arrangements would be made for his passage back to Ireland.

He brought the news to Angela with a strange feeling of fear and

disappointment. He had built so much on making a wonderful career in

the great New World and returning home some day to Ireland with the

means of relieving some of her misery and with his wife guarded, as she

should be, from the possibility of want. And here was he going back to

Ireland as poor as he left it--though richer immeasurably in the love

of Angela. She was sitting perfectly still, her eyes on the floor, when

he entered the room. He came in so softly that she did not hear him. He

lifted her head and looked into her eyes. He noticed with certainty

what had been so far only a vague, ill-defined dread. Her face was

very, very pale and transparent. Her eyes were sunken and had a strange

brilliancy. She was much slighter end far more ethereal than on that

day when they stood the deck of the ship and turned their faces so

hopefully to the New World.

He felt a knife-like stab startle through his blood to his heart. His

breath caught.

Angela looked up at him, radiantly.

He kissed her and with mock cheerfulness he said, laughingly:

"Such news, me darlin'! Such wondherful news!"

"Good news, dear?"

"The best in the wurrld," and he choked a sob.

"I knew it would come! I knew it would. Tell me, dear."

"We're to go back--back to--back to Ireland. See--here are the orders,"

and he showed her the official letter.

She took it wonderingly and read it. Her hand dropped to her side. Her

head drooped into the same position he had found her in. In a moment he

was kneeling at her side:

"What is it, dear?"

"We can't go, Frank."

"We can't go? What are ye sayin', dear?"

"We can't go," she repeated, her body crumpled up limply in the chair.

"And why not, Angela? I know I can't take ye back as I brought ye here,

dear, if that's what ye mane. The luck's been against me. It's been

cruel hard against me. An' that thought is tearin' at me heart this

minnit."

"It isn't THAT, Frank," she said, faintly.

"Then what is it?"

"Oh," she cried, "I hoped it would be so different--so very different."

"What did ye think would be so different, dear? Our going back? Is that

what's throublin' ye?"

"No, Frank. Not that. I don't care how we go back so long as you are

with me." He pressed her hand. In a moment she went on: "But we can't

go. We can't go. Oh, my dear, my dear, can't you guess? Can't you

think?" She looked imploringly into his eyes.

A new wonder came into his. Could it be true? Could it? He took both

her hands and held them tightly and stood up, towering over her, and

trembling violently. "Is it--is it--?" he cried and stopped as if

afraid to complete the question.

She smiled a wan smile up at him and nodded her head as she answered:

"The union of our lives is to be complete. Our love is to be rewarded."

"A child is coming to us?" he whispered.

"It is," and her voice was hushed, too.

"Praise be to God! Praise be to His Holy Name," and O'Connell clasped

his hands in prayer.

In a little while she went on: "It was the telling you I wanted to be

so different. I wanted you, when you heard it, to be free of

care--happy. And I've waited from day to day hoping for the best--that

some good fortune would come to you."

He forced one of his old time, hearty laughs, but there was a hollow

ring in it:

"What is that yer sayin' at all? Wait for good fortune? Is there any

good fortune like what ye've just told me? Sure I'm ten times the

happier man since I came into this room." He put his arm around her and

sitting beside her drew her closely to him. "Listen, dear," he said,

"listen. We'll go back to the old country. Our child shall be born

where we first met. There'll be no danger. No one shall harm us with

that little life trembling in the balance--the little precious life. If

it's a girl-child she'll be the mother of her people; and if it be a

man-child he shall grow up to carry on his father's work. So

there--there--me darlin', we'll go back--we'll go back."

She shook her head feebly. "I can't," she said.

"Why not, dear?"

"I didn't want to tell you. But now you make me. Frank, dear, I am ill."

His heart almost stopped. "Ill? Oh, my darlin', what is it? Is it

serious? Tell me it isn't serious?" and his voice rang with a note of

agony.

"Oh, no, I don't think so. I saw the doctor to-day. He said I must be

careful--very careful until--until--our baby is born."

"An' ye kept it all to yerself, me brave one, me dear one. All right.

We won't go back. We'll stay here. I'll make them find me work. I'm

strong. I'm clever too and crafty, Angela. I'll wring it from this

hustling, city. I'll fight it and beat it. Me darlin' shall have

everything she wants. My little mother--my precious little mother."

He cradled her in his strong arms and together they sat for hours and

the pall of his poverty fell from them and they pictured the future

rose-white and crowned with gold--a future in which there were

THREE--the trinity one and undivided.

Presently she fell asleep in his arms. He raised his eyes to heaven and

prayed God to help him in his hour of striving. He prayed that the

little life sleeping so calmly in his arms would be spared him.

"Oh God! answer my prayer, I beseech you," he cried. Angela smiled

contentedly in her sleep and spoke his same. It seemed to O'Connell as

if his prayer had been heard and answered. He gathered the slight form

up in, his arms and carried her to her room and sat by her until dawn.

It was the first night for many weeks that she had slept through till

morning without starting out of her sleep in pain. This night she

slumbered like a child and a smile played on her lips as though her

dreams were happy ones.

CHAPTER II

A COMMUNICATION FROM NATHANIEL KINGSNORTH

The months that followed were the hardest in O'Connell's life. Strive

as he would he could find no really remunerative employment. He had no

special training. He knew no trade. His pen, though fluent, was not

cultured and lacked the glow of eloquence he had when speaking. He

worked in shops and in factories. He tried to report on newspapers. But

his lack of experience everywhere handicapped him. What he contrived to

earn during those months of struggle was all too little as the time

approached for the great event.

Angela was now entirely confined to her bed. She seemed to grow more

spirit-like every day. A terrible dread haunted O'Connell waking and

sleeping. He would start out of some terrible dream at night and listen

to her breathing. When he would hurry back at the close of some long,

disappointing day his heart would be hammering dully with fear for his

loved one.

As the months wore on his face became lined with care, and the bright

gold of his hair dimmed with streaks of silver. But he never faltered

or lost courage. He always felt he must win the fight now for existence

as he meant to win the greater conflict later--for liberty.

Angela, lying so still, through the long days, could only hope. She

felt so helpless. It was woman's weakness that brought men like

O'Connell to the edge of despair. And hers was not merely bodily

weakness but the mare poignant one of PRIDE. Was it fair to her

husband? Was it just? In England she had prosperous relatives. They

would not let her die in her misery. They could not let her baby come

into the world with poverty as its only inheritance. Till now she had

been unable to master her feeling of hatred and bitterness for her

brother Nathaniel; her intense dislike and contempt for her sister

Monica. From the time she left England she had not written to either of

them. Could she now? Something decided her.

One night O'Connell came back disheartened. Try as he would, he could

not conceal it. He was getting to the end of his courage. There was

insufficient work at the shop he had been working in for several weeks.

He had been told he need not come again.

Angela, lying motionless and white, tried to comfort him and give him

heart.

She made up her mind that night. The next day she wrote to her brother.

She could not bring herself to express one regret for what she had done

or said. On the contrary she made many references to her happiness with

the man she loved. She did write of the hardships they were passing

through. But they were only temporary. O'Connell was so clever--so

brilliant--he must win in the end. Only just now she was ill. She

needed help. She asked no gift--a loan--merely. They would pay it back

when the days of plenty came. She would not ask even this were it not

that she was not only ill, but the one great wonderful thing in the

world was to be vouchsafed her--motherhood. In the name of her unborn

baby she begged him to send an immediate response.

She asked a neighbour to post the letter so that O'Connell would not

know of her sacrifice. She waited anxiously for a reply.

Some considerable time afterwards--on the eve of her travail and when

things with O'Connell were at their worst--the answer came by cable.

She was alone when it came.

Her heart beat furiously as she opened it. Even if he only sent a

little it would be so welcome now when they were almost at the end. If

he had been generous how wonderful it would be for her to help the man

to whom nothing was too much to give her. The fact that her brother had

cabled strengthened the belief that he had hastened to come to her

rescue. She opened the cable and read it. Then she fell back on the

pillow with a low, faint moan.

When, hours later, O'Connell returned from a vain search for work he

found her senseless, with the cable in her fingers. He tried to recover

her without success. He sent a neighbour for a doctor. As he watched

the worn, patient face, his heart full to bursting, the thought flashed

through him--what could have happened to cause this collapse? He became

conscious of the cable he had found tightly clasped in her hand. He

picked it up and read it. It was very brief:

You have made your bed, lie in it.

Nathaniel Kingsnorth.

was all it said.

CHAPTER III

THE BIRTH OF PEG

Toward morning the doctor placed a little mite of humanity in

O'Connell's arms. He looked down at it in a stupor. It had really come

to pass. Their child--Angela's and his! A little baby-girl. The tiny

wail from this child, born of love and in sorrow, seemed to waken his

dull senses. He pressed the mite to him as the hot tears flowed down

his cheeks. A woman in one of the adjoining flats who had kindly

offered to help took the child away from him. The doctor led him to the

bedside. He looked down at his loved one. A glaze was over Angela's

eyes as she looked up at him. She tried to smile. All her suffering was

forgotten. She knew only pride and love. She was at peace. She raised

her hand, thin and transparent now, to O'Connell. He pressed it to his

lips.

She whispered:

"My baby. Bring me--my baby."

He took it from the woman and placed it in Angela's weak arms. She

kissed it again and again. The child wailed pitifully. The effort had

been too much for Angela's failing strength. Consciousness left her.

. . . . . . .

Just before sunrise she woke. O'Connell was sitting beside her. He had

never moved. The infant was sleeping on some blankets on the couch--the

woman watching her.

Angela motioned her husband to bend near to her. Her eyes shone with

unearthly brightness. He put his ear near her lips. Her voice was very,

very faint.

"Take--care--of--our--baby--Frank. I'm--I'm--leaving you.

God--help--you--and--keep--you--and bless you--for--your--love--of me."

She paused to take breath--then she whispered her leave-taking. The

words never left O'Connell's memory for all the days of all the years

that followed.

"My--last--words--dear--the--last--I'll--ever--speak--to--you.

I--I--love--you--with--all--my heart--and--my soul--HUSBAND!

Good--good-bye--Frank." She slipped from his arms and lay, lips parted,

eyes open, body still.

The struggle was over. She had gone where there are no petty

treacheries, no mean brutalities--where all stand alike before the

Throne to render an account of their stewardship.

The brave, gentle little heart was stilled forever.

BOOK III

PEG

CHAPTER I

PEG'S CHILDHOOD

And now Peg appears for the first time, and brings her radiant

presence, her roguish smile, her big, frank, soulful, blue eyes, her

dazzling red hair, her direct, honest and outspoken truth: her love of

all that is clean and pure and beautiful--Peg enters our pages and

turns what was a history of romance and drama into a Comedy, of Youth.

Peg--pure as a mountain lily, sweet as a fragrant rose, haunting as an

old melody--Peg o' our Hearts comes into our story, even as she entered

her father's life, as the Saviour of these pages, even as she was the

means of saving O'Connell.

And she did save her father.

It was the presence and the thought of the little motherless baby that

kept O'Connell's hand from destroying himself when his reason almost

left him after his wife's death. The memories of the days immediately

following the passing of Angela are too painful to dwell upon. They are

past. They are sacred in O'Connell's heart. They will be to the

historian. Thanks to some kindly Irishmen who heard of O'Connell's

plight he borrowed enough money to bury his dead wife and place a

tablet to her memory.

He sent a message to Kingsnorth telling him of his sister's death. He

neither expected nor did he receive an answer.

As soon as it was possible he returned to Ireland and threw himself

once again heart and soul into working for the "Cause." He realised his

only hope of keeping his balance was to work. He went back to the

little village he was born in and it was Father Cahill's hands that

poured the baptismal waters on O'Connell's and Angela's baby and it was

Father Cahill's voice that read the baptismal service.

She was christened Margaret.

Angela, one night, when it was nearing her time, begged him if it were

a girl to christen her Margaret after her mother, since all the best in

Angela came from her mother.

O'Connell would have liked to have named the mite "Angela." But his

dead wife's wishes were paramount So Margaret the baby was christened.

It was too distinguished a name and too long for such a little bundle

of pink and white humanity. It did not seem to fit her. So, "Peg" she

was named and "Peg" she remained for the rest of her life.

When she was old enough to go with him O'Connell took Peg everywhere.

He seemed to bear a charmed life when she was with him.

Peg's earliest memories are of the village where she was baptised and

where her father was born. Her little will was law to everyone who came

in contact with her. She ruled her little court with a hand of iron.

Many were the dire predictions of the rod O'Connell was making for his

own back in giving the little mite her own way in everything.

But O'Connell's only happiness was in Peg and he neither heard nor

cared about any criticism that may have been levelled at him for his

fond, and, perhaps, foolish care of her.

Looming large in Peg's memories in after life are her father showing

her St. Kernan's Hill, and pointing out the mount on which he stood and

spoke that day, whilst her mother, hidden by that dense mass of trees,

saw every movement and heard every word. From there he took her to "The

Gap" and pointed out the windows of the room in which he was nursed for

those three blessed days.

It eased his mind to talk to the child of Angela and always he pictured

her as the poet writes in verse of the passion of his life: as the

painter puts on canvas the features that make life worth the living for

him.

Those memories were very clear in little Peg's mind.

Then somehow her childish thoughts all seemed to run to Home Rule--to

love of Ireland and hatred of England--to thinking all that was good of

Irishmen and all that was bad of Englishmen.

"Why do yez hate the English so much, father?" she asked O'Connell

once, looking up at him with a puzzled look in her big blue eyes, and

the most adorable brogue coming fresh from her tongue.

"Why do yez hate them?" she repeated.

"I've good cause to, Peg me darlin'," he answered, and a deep frown

gathered on his brow.

"Sure wasn't me mother English?" Peg asked.

"She was."

"Then WHY do yez hate the English?"

"It 'ud take a long time to tell ye that, Peggy. Some day I will.

There's many a reason why the Irish hate the English, and many a good

reason too. But there's one why you and I should hate them, and hate

them with all the bittherness that's in us."

"And what is it?" said Peg curiously.

"I'll tell ye. When yer mother and I were almost starvin', and she

lyin' on a bed of sickness, she wrote to an Englishman and asked him to

assist her. An' this is the reply she got: 'Ye've made yer bed; lie in

it.' That was the answer she got the day before you were born, and she

died givin' ye life. And by the same token the man that wrote that

shameful message to a dyin' woman was her own brother."

"Her own brother, yer tellin' me?" asked Peg wrathfully.

"I am, Peg. Her own brother, I'm tellin' ye."

"It's bad luck that man'll have all his life!" said Peg fiercely. "To

write me mother that--and she dyin'! Faith I'd like to see him some

day--just meet him--and tell him--" she stopped, her little fingers

clenched into a miniature fist. The hot colour was in her cheeks and

she stamped her small foot in actual rage. "I'd like to meet him some

day," she muttered.

"I hope ye never will, Peg," said her father solemnly. "And," he added,

"don't let us ever talk of it again, me darlin'!"

And she never did. But she often thought of the incident and the memory

of that brutal message was stamped vividly on her little brain.

The greatest excitements of her young life were going with her father

to hear him speak. She made the most extraordinary collection of scraps

of the speeches she had heard her father make for Home Rule. While he

would be speaking she would listen intently, her lips apart, her little

body tense with excitement, her little heart beating like a trip-hammer.

When they applauded him she would laugh gleefully and clap her little

hands together: if they interrupted him she would turn savagely upon

them. She became known all over the countryside as "O'Connell's Peg."

"Sure O'Connell's not the same man at all, at all, since he came back

with that little bit of a red-headed child," said a man to Father

Cahill one day.

"God is good, Flaherty," replied the priest. "He sent O'Connell a baby

to take him up nearer to Himself. Ye're right. He's NOT the same man.

It's the good Catholic he is again as he was as a boy. An' it's I'm

thankful for that same."

Father Cahill smiled happily. He was much older, but though the figure

was a little bent and the hair thinner, and the remainder of it

snow-white, the same sturdy spirit was in the old man.

"They're like boy and girl together, that's what they are," said

Flaherty with a tone of regret in his voice. "He seems as much of a

child as she is when he's with her," he added.

"Every good man has somethin' of the child left in him, me son.

O'Connell was goin' in the way of darkness until a woman's hand guided

him and gave him that little baby to hold on to his heart strings."

"Sure Peg's the light o' his life, that's what she is," grumbled

Flaherty. "It's small chance we ever have of broken heads an' soldiers

firin' on us, an' all, through O'Connell, since that child's laid hands

on him." Flaherty sighed. "Them was grand days and all," he said.

"They were wicked days, Flaherty," said the priest severely; "and it's

surprised I am that a God-fearin' man like yerself should wish them

back."

"There are times when I do, Father, the Lord forgive me. A fight lets

the bad blood out of ye. Sure it was a pike or a gun O'Connell 'ud

shouldher in the ould days, and no one to say him nay, and we all

following him like the Colonel of a regiment--an' proud to do it, too.

But now it's only the soft words we get from him."

"A child's hand shall guide," said the priest. Then he added:

"It has guided him. Whenever ye get them wicked thoughts about

shouldherin' a gun and flashin' a pike, come round to confession,

Flaherty, and it's the good penance I'll give ye to dhrive the devil's

temptation away from ye."

"I will that, Father Cahill," said Flaherty, hurriedly, and the men

went their different ways.

O'Connell did everything for Peg since she was an infant. His were the

only hands to tend the little body, to wash her and dress her, and tie

up her little shoe-laces, and sit beside her in her childish

sicknesses. He taught her to read and to write and to pray. As she grew

bigger he taught her the little he knew of music and the great deal he

knew of poetry. He instilled a love of verse into her little mind. He

never tired of reading her Tom Moore and teaching her his melodies. He

would make her learn them and she would stand up solemnly and recite or

sing them, her quaint little brogue giving them an added music.

O'Connell and Peg were inseparable.

One wonderful year came to Peg when she was about fourteen.

O'Connell had become recognised as a masterly exponent of the

particular form of Land Act that would most benefit Ireland.

It was proposed that he should lecture right through the country,

wherever they would let him, and awaken amongst the more violent Irish,

the recognition that legislative means were surer of securing the end

in view, than the more violent ones of fifteen years before.

The brutality of the Coercion Act had been moderated and already the

agricultural and dairy produce of the country had developed so

remarkably that the terrible misery of by-gone days, when the

potato-crop would fail, had been practically eliminated, or at least in

many districts mitigated.

O'Connell accepted the proposition.

Through the country he went speaking in every village he passed

through, and sometimes giving several lectures in the big cities. His

mode of travelling was in a cart. He would speak from the back of it,

Peg sitting at his feet, now watching him, again looking eagerly and

intently at the strange faces before her.

They were marvellous days, travelling, sometimes, under a golden sun

through the glistening fields: or pushing on at night under a great

green-and-white moon. Peg would sit beside her father as he drove and

he would tell her little folk-stories, or sing wild snatches of songs

of the days of the Rebellion; or quote lines ringing with the great

Irish confidence in the triumph of Justice:

"Lo the path we tread

By our martyred dead

Has been trodden 'mid bane and blessing,

But unconquered still

Is the steadfast will

And the faith they died confessing."

Or at night he would croon from Moore:

"When the drowsy world is dreaming, love,

Then awake--the heavens look bright, my dear,

'Tis never too late for delight, my dear,

And the best of all ways

To lengthen our days

Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!"

When storms would come she would cower down in the bottom of the cart

and cry and pray. Storms terrified her. It seemed as if all the anger

of the heavens were levelled at her. She would cry and moan pitifully

whilst O'Connell would try to soothe her and tell her that neither God

nor man would harm her--no one would touch his "Peg o' my Heart."

After one of those scenes he would sit and brood. Angela had always

been afraid of storms, and in the child's terror his beloved wife would

rise up before him and the big tears would drop silently down his

cheeks.

Peg crept out once when the storm had cleared and the sky was bright

with stars. Her father did not hear her. His thoughts were bridging

over the years and once more Angela was beside him.

Peg touched him timidly and peered up into his face. She thought his

cheeks were wet. But that could not be. She had never seen her father

cry.

"What are ye thinkin' about, father?" she whispered. His voice broke.

He did not want her to see his emotion. He answered with a half-laugh,

half-sob:

"Thinkin' about, is it? It's ashamed I am of ye to be frightened by a

few little flashes of lightnin' and the beautiful, grand thundher that

always kapes it company. It's ashamed I am of ye--that's what I am!" He

spoke almost roughly to hide his emotion and he furtively wiped the

tears from his face so that she should not see them.

"It's not the lightnin' I'm afraid of, father," said Peg solemnly.

"It's the thundher. It shrivels me up, that's what it does."

"The thundher, is it? Sure that's only the bluff the storm puts up when

the rale harm is done by the lightnin's flash. There is no harm in the

thundher at all. And remember, after all, it's the will of God."

Peg thought a moment:

"It always sounds just as if He were lookin' down at us and firin' off

cannons at us because He's angry with us."

O'Connell said nothing. Presently he felt her small hand creep into his:

"Father," said Peg; "are yez ralely ashamed of me when I'm frightened

like that?"

O'Connell was afraid to unbend lest he broke down altogether. So he

continued in a voice of mock severity:

"I am that--when ye cry and moan about what God has been good enough to

send us."

"Is it a coward I am for bein' afraid, father?" said Peg, her lips

quivering.

"That's what ye are, Peg," replied O'Connell with Spartan severity.

"Then I'll never be one again, father! Never again," and her eyes

filled up.

He suddenly took her in his arms and pressed her to him and rocked her

as though she were still a baby, and his voice trembled and was full of

pity as he said:

"Ye can't help it, acushla. Ye can't help it. Ye're NOT a coward, my

own brave little Peg. It's yer mother in ye. She could never bear a

thunder-storm without fear, and she was the bravest woman that ever

lived Bad luck to me for sayin' a cross word to ye."

Suddenly poor little Peg burst out crying and buried her face on her

father's breast and sobbed and sobbed as though her heart would break.

"Ssh! Ssh! There--there, me darlin'," cried O'Connell, now thoroughly

alarmed at the depth of feeling the child had loosened from her pent-up

emotion, "ye mustn't cry--ye mustn't. See it's laughin' I am! Laughin',

that's what I'm doin'."

And he laughed loudly while his heart ached, and he told her stories

until she forgot her tears and laughed too. And that night as he

watched her fall off to sleep he knelt down in the straw and prayed:

"Oh, kape her always like she is now--always just a sweet, innocent,

pure little creature. Kape the mother in her always, dear Lord, so that

she may grow in Your likeness and join my poor, dear Angela in the end.

Amen."

Those were indeed glorious days for Peg. She never forgot them in after

life.

Waking in the freshness of the early morning, making their frugal

breakfast, feeding the faithful old horse and then starting off through

the emerald green for another new and wonderful day, to spread the

light of the "Cause."

O'Connell had changed very much since the days of St. Kernan's Hill. As

was foreshadowed earlier, he no longer urged violence. He had come

under the influence of the more temperate men of the party, and was

content to win by legislative means, what Ireland had failed to

accomplish wholly by conflict. Although no one recognised more

thoroughly than O'Connell what a large part the determined attitude of

the Irish party, in resisting the English laws, depriving them of the

right of free speech, and of meeting to spread light amongst the

ignorant, had played in wringing some measure of recognition and of

tolerance from the bitter narrowness of the English ministers.

What changed O'Connell more particularly was the action of a band of

so-called "Patriots" who operated in many parts of Ireland--maiming

cattle, ruining crops, injuring peaceable farmers, who did not do their

bidding and shooting at landlords and prominent people connected with

the government.

Crime is not a means to honourable victory and O'Connell was ashamed of

the miscreants who blackened the fair name of his country by their

ruthless and despicable methods.

He avoided the possibility of imprisonment again for the sake of Peg.

What would befall her if he were taken from her?

The continual thought that preyed upon him was that he would have

nothing to leave her when his call came. Do what he would he could make

but little money--and when he had a small surplus he would spend it on

Peg--a shawl to keep her warm, or a ribbon to give a gleam of colour to

the drab little clothes.

On great occasions he would buy her a new dress, and then Peg was the

proudest little child in the whole of Ireland.

Every year, on the anniversary of her mother's death, O'Connell had a

Mass said for the repose of Angela's soul, and he would kneel beside

Peg through the service, and be silent for the rest of the day. One

year he had candles, blessed by the Archbishop, lit on our Lady's altar

and he stayed long after the service was over. He sent Peg home. But,

although Peg obeyed him, partially, by leaving the church, she kept

watch outside until her father came out. He was wiping his eyes as he

saw her. He pretended to be very angry.

"Didn't I tell ye to go home?"

"Ye did, father."

"Then why didn't ye obey me?"

"Sure an' what would I be doin' at home, all alone, without you? Don't

be cross with me, father."

He took her hand and they walked home in silence. He had been crying

and Peg could not understand it. She had never seen him do such a thing

before and it worried her. It did not seem right that a MAN should cry.

It seemed a weakness--and that her father, of all men, should do it--he

who was not afraid of anything nor anyone--it was wholly unaccountable

to her.

When they reached home Peg busied herself about her father, trying to

make him comfortable, furtively watching him all the while. When she

had put him in an easy chair, and brought him his slippers, and built

up the fire, she sat down on a little stool by his side. After a long

silence she stroked the back of his hand and then gave him a little

tug. He looked down at her.

"What is it, Peg?"

"Was my mother very beautiful, father?"

"The most beautiful woman that ever lived in all the wurrld, Peg."

"She looks beautiful in the picture ye have of her."

From the inside pocket of his coat he drew out a little

beautifully-painted miniature. The frame had long since been worn and

frayed. O'Connell looked at the face and his eyes shone:

"The man that painted it couldn't put the soul of her into it. That he

couldn't. Not the soul of her."

"Am I like her, at all, father?" asked Peg wistfully.

"Sometimes ye are, dear: very like."

After a little pause Peg said:

"Ye loved her very much, father, didn't ye?"

He nodded. "I loved her with all the heart of me and all the strength

of me."

Peg sat quiet for some minutes: then she asked him a question very

quietly and hung in suspense on his answer:

"Do ye love me as much as ye loved her, father?"

"It's different, Peg--quite, quite different."

"Why is it?" She waited He did not answer.

"Sure, love is love whether ye feel it for a woman or a child," she

persisted.

O'Connell remained silent.

"Did ye love her betther than ye love me, father?"

Her soul was in her great blue eyes as she waited excitedly for the

answer to that, to her, momentous question.

"Why do ye ask me that?" said O'Connell.

"Because I always feel a little sharp pain right through my heart

whenever ye talk about me mother. Ye see, father, I've thought all

these years that I was the one ye really loved--"

"Ye're the only one I have in the wurrld, Peg."

"And ye don't love her memory betther than ye do me?"

O'Connell put both of his arms around her.

"Yer mother is with the Saints, Peg, and here are you by me side. Sure

there's room in me heart for the memory of her and the love of you."

She breathed a little sigh of satisfaction and nestled onto her

father's shoulder. The little fit of childish jealousy of her dead

mother's place in her father's heart passed.

She wanted no one to share her father's affection with her. She gave

him all of hers. She needed all of his.

When Peg was eighteen years old and they were living in Dublin,

O'Connell was offered quite a good position in New York. It appealed to

him. The additional money would make things easier for Peg. She was

almost a woman now, and he wanted her to get the finishing touches of

education that would prepare her for a position in the world if she met

the man she felt she could marry. Whenever he would speak of marriage

Peg would laugh scornfully:

"Who would I be of AFTHER marryin' I'd like to know? Where in the

wurrld would I find a man like you?"

And no coaxing would make her carry on the discussion or consider its

possibility.

It still harassed him to think he had so little to leave her if

anything happened to him. The offer to go to America seemed

providential. Her mother was buried there. He would take Peg to her

grave.

Peg grew very thoughtful at the idea of leaving Ireland. All her little

likes and dislikes--her impulsive affections and hot hatreds were all

bound up in that country. She dreaded the prospect of meeting a number

of new people.

Still it was for her father's good, so she turned a brave face to it

and said:

"Sure it is the finest thing in the wurrld for both of us."

But the night before they left Ireland she sat by the little window in

her bed-room until daylight looking back through all the years of her

short life.

It seemed as if she were cutting off all that beautiful golden period.

She would never again know the free, careless, happy-go-lucky,

living-from-day-to-day existence, that she had loved so much.

It was a pale, wistful, tired little Peg that joined her father at

breakfast next morning.

His heart was heavy, too. But he laughed and joked and sang and said

how glad they ought to be--going to that wonderful new country, and by

the way the country Peg was born in, too! And then he laughed again and

said how FINE SHE looked and how WELL HE felt and that it seemed as if

it were God's hand in it all. And Peg pretended to cheer up, and they

acted their parts right to the end--until the last line of land

disappeared and they were headed for America. Then they separated and

went to their little cabins to think of all that had been. And every

day they kept up the little deception with each other until they

reached America.

They were cheerless days at first for O'Connell. Everything reminded

him of his first landing twenty years before with his young wife--both

so full of hope, with the future stretching out like some wonderful

panorama before them. He returns twenty years older to begin the fight

again--this time for his daughter.

His wife was buried at a little Catholic cemetery a few miles outside

New York City. There he took Peg one day and they put flowers on the

little mound of earth and knelt awhile in prayer. Beneath that earth

lay not only his wife's remains, but O'Connell's early hopes and

ambitions were buried with her.

Neither spoke either going to or returning from the cemetery.

O'Connell's heart was too full. Peg knew what was passing through his

mind and sat with her hands folded in her lap--silent. But her little

brain was busy thinking back.

Peg had much to think of during the early days following her arrival in

New York. At first the city awed her with its huge buildings and

ceaseless whirl of activity and noise. She longed to be back in her own

little green, beautiful country.

O'Connell was away during those first days until late apt night.

He found a school for Peg. She did not want to go to it, but just to

please her father she agreed. She lasted in it just one week. They

laughed at her brogue and teased and tormented her for her absolute

lack of knowledge. Peg put up with that just as long as she could. Then

one day she opened out on them and astonished them. They could not have

been more amazed had a bomb exploded in their midst. The little,

timid-looking, open-eyed, Titian-haired girl was a veritable virago.

She attacked and belittled, and mimicked and berated them. They had

talked of her BROGUE! They should listen to their own nasal utterances,

that sounded as if they were speaking with their noses and not with

their tongues! Even the teacher did not go unscathed. She came in for

an onslaught, too. That closed Peg's career as a New York student.

Her father arranged his work so that he could be with her at certain

periods of the day, and outlined her studies from his own slender stock

of knowledge. He even hired a little piano for her and followed up what

he had begun years before in Ireland--imbuing her with a thorough

acquaintance with Moore and his delightful melodies.

One wonderful day they had an addition to their small family. A little,

wiry-haired, scrubby, melancholy Irish terrier followed O'Connell for

miles. He tried to drive him away. The dog would turn and run for a few

seconds and the moment O'Connell would take his eyes off him he would

run along and catch him up and wag his over-long tail and look up at

O'Connell with his sad eyes. The dog followed him all the way home and

when O'Connell opened the door he ran in. O'Connell Had not the heart

to turn him out, so he poured out some milk and broke up some dry

biscuits for him and then played with him until Peg came home. She

liked the little dog at once and then and there O'Connell adopted him

and gave him to Peg. He said the dog's face had a look of Michael

Quinlan, the Fenian. So "Michael" he was named and he took his place in

the little home. He became Peg's boon companion. They romped together

like children, and they talked to each other and understood each other.

"Michael" had an eloquent tail, an expressive bark and a pair of eyes

that told more than speech.

The days flowed quietly on, O'Connell apparently satisfied with his

lot. But to Peg's sharp eye all was not well with him. There was a

settled melancholy about him whenever she surprised him thinking alone.

She thought he was fretting for Ireland and their happy days together

and so said nothing.

He was really worrying over Peg's future. He had such a small amount of

money put by, and working on a salary it would be long before he could

save enough to leave Peg sufficient to carry her on for a while if

"anything happened." There was always that "if anything happened!"

running in his mind.

One day the chance of solving the whole difficulty of Peg's future was

placed in his hands. But the means were so distasteful to him that he

hesitated about even telling her.

He came in unexpectedly in the early afternoon of that day and found a

letter waiting for him with an English postmark. Peg had eyed it

curiously off and on for hours. She had turned it over and over in her

fingers and looked at the curious, angular writing, and felt a little

cold shiver run up and down her as she found herself wondering who

could be writing to her father from England.

When O'Connell walked in and picked the letter up she watched him

excitedly. She felt, for some strange reason, that they were going to

reach a crisis in their lives when the seal was broken and the contents

disclosed. Superstition was strong--in Peg, and all that day she had

been nervous without reason, and excited without cause.

O'Connell read the letter through twice--slowly the first time, quickly

the second. A look of bewilderment came across his face as he sat down

and stared at the letter in his hand.

"Who is it from, at all?" asked Peg very quietly, though she was

trembling all through her body.

Her father said nothing.

Presently he read it through again.

"It's from England, father, isn't it?" queried Peg, pale as a ghost.

"Yes, Peg," answered her father and his voice sounded hollow and

spiritless.

"I didn't know ye had friends in England?" said Peg, eyeing the letter.

"I haven't," replied her father.

"Then who is it from?" insisted Peg, now all impatience and with a

strange fear tugging at her heart.

O'Connell looked up at her as she stood there staring down at him, her

big eyes wide open and her lips parted. He took both of her hands in

one of his and held them all crushed together for what seemed to Peg to

be a long, long while. She hardly breathed. She knew something was

going to happen to them both.

At last O'Connell spoke and his voice trembled and broke:

"Peg, do ye remember one mornin', years and years ago, when I was goin'

to speak in County Mayo, an' we started in the cart at dawn, an' we

thravelled for miles and miles an' we came to a great big crossing

where the roads divided an' there was no sign post an' we asked each

other which one we should take an' we couldn't make up our minds an' I

left it to you an' ye picked a road an' it brought us out safe and

thrue at the spot we were making for? Do you remember it, Peg?"

"Faith I do, father. I remember it well. Ye called me yer little guide

and said ye'd follow my road the rest of yer life. An' it's many's the

laugh we had when I'd take ye wrong sometimes afterwards." She paused.

"What makes ye think of that just now, father?"

He did not answer.

"Is it on account o' that letther?" she persisted.

"It is, Peg." He spoke with difficulty as if the words hurt him to

speak. "We've got to a great big crossin'-place again where the roads

branch off an' I don't know which one to take."

"Are ye goin' to lave it to me again, father?" said Peg.

"That's what I can't make up me mind about, dear--for it may be that

ye'll go down one road and me down the other."

"No, father," Peg cried passionately, "that we won't. Whatever the road

we'll thravel it together."

"I'll think it out by meself, Peg. Lave me for a while--alone. I want

to think it out by meself--alone."

"If it's separation ye're thinkin' of, make up yer mind to one

thing--that I'LL never lave YOU. Never."

"Take 'MICHAEL' out for a spell and come back in half an hour and in

the meanwhile I'll bate it all out in me mind."

She bent down and straightened the furrows in his forehead with the

tips of her fingers, and kissed him and then whistled to the wistful

"MICHAEL" and together they went running down the street toward the

little patch of green where the children played, and amongst whom

"MICHAEL" was a prime favourite.

Sitting, his head in his hands, his eyes staring into the past,

O'Connell was facing the second great tragedy of his life.

CHAPTER II

WE MEET AN OLD FRIEND AFTER MANY YEARS

While O'Connell sat there in that little room in New York trying to

decide Peg's fate, a man, who had played some considerable part in

O'Connell's life, lay, in a splendidly furnished room in a mansion in

the West End of London--dying.

Nathaniel Kingsnorth's twenty years of loneliness and desolation were

coming to an end. What an empty, arid stretch of time those years

seemed to him as he feebly looked back on them!

After the tragedy of his sister's reckless marriage he deserted public

life entirely and shut himself away in his country-house--except for a

few weeks in London occasionally when his presence was required on one

or other of the Boards of which he was a director.

The Irish estate--which brought about all his misfortunes--he disposed

of at a ridiculously low figure. He said he would accept any bid,

however small, so that he could sever all connection with the hated

village.

From the day of Angela's elopement he neither saw nor wrote to any

member of his family.

His other sister, Mrs. Chichester, wrote to him from time to

time--telling him one time of the birth of a boy: two years later of

the advent of a girl.

Kingsnorth did not answer any of her letters.

In no way dismayed, Mrs. Chichester continued to write periodically.

She wrote him when her son Alaric went to school and also when he went

to college. Alaric seemed to absorb most of her interest. He was

evidently her favourite child. She wrote more seldom of her daughter

Ethel, and when she did happen to refer to her she dwelt principally on

her beauty and her accomplishments. Five years before, an envelope in

deep mourning came to Kingsnorth, and on opening it he found a letter

from his sister acquainting him with the melancholy news that Mr.

Chichester had ended a life of usefulness at the English bar and had

died, leaving the family quite comfortably off.

Kingsnorth telegraphed his condolences and left instructions for a

suitable wreath to be sent to the funeral. But he did not attend it.

Nor did he at any time express the slightest wish to see his sister nor

did he encourage any suggestion on her part to visit him.

When he was stricken with an illness, from which no hope of recovery

was held out to him, he at once began to put his affairs in order, and

his lawyer spent days with him drawing up statements of his last wishes

for the disposition of his fortune.

With death stretching out its hand to snatch him from a life he had

enjoyed so little, his thoughts, coloured with the fancies of a tired,

sick brain, kept turning constantly, to his dead sister Angela.

From time to time down through the years he had a softened, gentle

remembrance of her. When the news of her death came, furious and

unrelenting as he had been toward her, her passing softened it. Had he

known in time he would have insisted on her burial in the Kingsnorth

vault. But she had already been interred in New York before the news of

her death reached him.

The one bitter hatred of his life had been against the man who had

taken his sister in marriage and in so doing had killed all possibility

of Kingsnorth succeeding in his political and social aspirations.

He heard vaguely of a daughter.

He took no interest in the news.

Now, however, the remembrance of his treatment of Angela burnt into

him. He especially repented of that merciless cable: "You have made

your bed; lie in it." It haunted him through the long hours of his slow

and painful illness. Had he helped her she might have been alive

to-day, and those bitter reflections that ate into him night and day

might have been replaced by gentler ones and so make his end the more

peaceful.

He thought of Angela's child and wondered if she were like his poor

dead sister. The wish to see the child became an obsession with him.

One morning, after a restless, feverish night, he sent for his lawyer

and told him to at once institute inquiries--find out if the child was

still living, and if so--where.

This his lawyer did. He located O'Connell in New York, through a friend

of his in the Irish party, and found that the child was living with him

in rather poor circumstances. He communicated the result of his

inquiries to Kingsnorth. That day a letter was sent to O'Connell asking

him to allow his child to visit her dying uncle. O'Connell was to cable

at Kingsnorth's expense and if he would consent the money for the

expenses of the journey would be cabled immediately. The girl was to

start at once, as Mr. Kingsnorth had very little longer to live.

When the letter had gone Kingsnorth drew a breath of relief. He longed

to see the child. He would have to wait impatiently for the reply.

Perhaps the man whom he had hated all his life would refuse his

request. If he did, well, he would make some provision in his will for

her--in memory of his dead sister.

The next day he altered his entire will and made Margaret O'Connell a

special legacy. Ten days late a cable came:

I consent to my daughter's visiting you.

FRANK OWEN O'CONNELL.

The lawyer cabled at once making all arrangements through their bankers

in New York for Miss O'Connell's journey.

That night Kingsnorth slept without being disturbed. He awoke refreshed

in the morning. It was the first kindly action he had done for many

years.

How much had he robbed himself of all his life, if by doing so little

he was repaid so much!

CHAPTER III

PEG LEAVES HER FATHER FOR THE FIRST TIME

O'Connell had a hard struggle with Peg before she would consent to

leave him. She met all his arguments with counter-arguments. Nothing

would move her for hours.

"Why should I go to a man I have never seen and hate the name of?"

"He's your uncle, Peg."

"It's a fine uncle he's been to me all me life. And it was a grand way

he threated me mother when she was starvin'."

"He wants to do somethin' for ye now, Peg."

"I'll not go to him."

"Now listen, dear; it's little I'll have to lave ye when I'm gone,"

pleaded O'Connell.

"I'll not listen to any talk at all about yer goin'. Yer a great strong

healthy man--that's what ye are. What are ye talkin' about? What's got

into yer head about goin'?"

"The time must come, some day, Peg."

"All right, we'll know how to face it when it does. But we're not goin'

out all the way to meet it," said Peg, resolutely.

"It's very few advantages I've been able to give ye, me darlin'," and

O'Connell took up the argument again.

"Advantages or no advantages, what can anybody be more than be happy?

Answer me that? An' sure it's happy I've been with you. Now, why should

ye want to dhrive it all away from me?"

To these unanswerable reasons O'Connell would remain silent for a

while, only to take up the cudgels again. He realised what it would

mean to Peg to go to London to have the value of education and of

gentle surroundings. He knew her heart was loyal to him: nothing

strangers might teach her would ever alter that. And he felt he owed it

to her to give her this chance of seeing the great world. HE would

never be able to do it for her. Much as he hated the name of Kingsnorth

he acknowledged the fact that he had made an offer O'Connell had no

real right to refuse.

He finally persuaded Peg that it was the wise thing: the right thing:

and the thing he wished for the most.

"I don't care whether it's wise or right," said poor Peg, beaten at

last, "but if you wish it--" and she broke off.

"I do wish it, Peg."

"Ye'll turn me away from ye, eh?"

"No, Peg. Ye'll come back to me a fine lady."

"I'd like to see anybody thry THAT with me. A lady, indeed! Ye love me

as I am. I don't want to be any different."

"But ye'll go?"

"If ye say so."

"Then it's all settled?"

"I suppose it is."

"Good, me darlin'. Ye'll never regret it" O'Connell said this with a

cheery laugh, though his heart was aching at the thought of being

separated from her.

Peg looked at him reproachfully. Then she said:

"It's surprised I am at ye turnin' me away from ye to go into a

stuck-up old man's house that threated me mother the way he did."

And so the discussion ended.

For the next few days Peg was busy preparing herself for the journey

and buying little things for her scanty equipment. Then the cable came

to the effect that a passage was reserved for her and money was waiting

at a banker's for her expenses. This Peg obstinately refused to touch.

She didn't want anything except what her father gave her.

When the morning of her departure came, poor Peg woke with a heavy

heart. It was their first parting, and she was miserable.

O'Connell, on the contrary, seemed full of life and high spirits. He

laughed at her and joked with her and made a little bundle of some

things that would not go in her bag--and that he had kept for her to

the last minute. They were a rosary that had been his mother's, a

prayer-book Father Cahill gave him the day he was confirmed, and lastly

the little miniature of Angela. It wrung his heart to part with it, but

he wanted Peg to have it near her, especially as she was going amongst

the relations of the dead woman. All through this O'Connell showed not

a trace of emotion before Peg. He kept telling her there was nothing to

be sad about. It was all going to be for her good.

When the time came to go, the strange pair made their way down to the

ship--the tall, erect, splendid-looking man and the little red-haired

girl in her simple black suit and her little black hat, with red

flowers to brighten it.

O'Connell went aboard with her, and an odd couple they looked on the

saloon-deck, with Peg holding on to "Michael"--much to the amusement of

the passengers, the visitors and the stewards.

Poor, staunch, loyal, honest, true little Peg, going alone to--what?

Leaving the one human being she cared for and worshipped--her playmate,

counsellor, friend and father--all in one!

O'Connell never dropped his high spirits all the time they were

together on board the ship. He went aboard with a laugh and when the

bell rang for all visitors to go ashore he said good-bye to Peg with a

laugh--while poor Peg's heart felt like a stone in her breast. She

stood sobbing up against the rail of the saloon deck as the ship swung

clear. She was looking for her father through the mists of tears that

blinded her.

Just as the boat slowly swept past the end of the dock she saw him

right at the last post so that he could watch the boat uninterruptedly

until it was out of sight. He was crying himself now--crying like a

child, and as the boat swung away he called up, "My little Peg! Peg o'

my Heart!" How she longed to get off that ship and go back to him! They

stood waving to each other as long as they remained in sight.

While the ship ploughed her way toward England with little Peg on

board, the man whom she was crossing the Atlantic to meet died quietly

one morning with no one near him.

The nurse found Mr. Kingsnorth smiling peacefully as though asleep. He

had been dead several hours.

Near him on the table was a cable despatch from New York:

My daughter sailed on the Mauretania to-day at ten o'clock.

FRANK OWEN O'CONNELL.

BOOK IV

PEG IN ENGLAND

CHAPTER I

THE CHICHESTER FAMILY

Mrs. Chichester--whom we last saw under extremely distressing

circumstances in Ireland--now enters prominently into the story. She

was leading a secluded and charming existence in an old and picturesque

villa at Scarboro, in the north of England. Although her husband had

been dead for several years, she still clung to the outward symbols of

mourning. It added a softness to the patrician line of her features and

a touch of distinction to her manner and poise. She had an illustrious

example of a life-long sorrow, and, being ever loyal, Mrs. Chichester

retained the weeds of widowhood and the crepe of affliction ever

present.

She was proud indeed of her two children--about whom she had written so

glowingly to her brother Nathaniel.

Alaric was the elder. In him Mrs. Chichester took the greater pride. He

was so nearly being great--even from infancy--that he continually kept

his mother in a condition of expectant wonder. He was NEARLY brilliant

at school: at college he ALMOST got his degree. He JUST MISSED his

"blue" at cricket, and but for an unfortunate ball dribbling over the

net at a critical moment in the semi-final of the tennis championships,

he MIGHT have won the cup. He was quite philosophic about it, though,

and never appeared to reproach fate for treating him so shabbily.

He was always NEARLY doing something, and kept Mrs. Chichester in a

lively condition of trusting hope and occasional disappointment. She

knew he would "ARRIVE" some day--come into his own: then all these

half-rewarded efforts would be invaluable in the building of his

character.

Her daughter, Ethel, on the other hand, was the exact antithesis to

Alaric. She had never shown the slightest interest in anything since

she had first looked up at the man of medicine who ushered her into the

world. She regarded everything about her with the greatest complacency.

She was never surprised or angry, or pleased, or depressed. Sorrow

never seemed to affect her--nor joy make her smile. She looked on life

as a gentle brook down whose current she was perfectly content to drift

undisturbed. At least, that was the effect created in Mrs. Chichester's

mind. She never thought it possible there might be latent possibilities

in her impassive daughter.

While her mother admired Ethel's lofty attitude of indifference toward

the world--a manner that bespoke the aristocrat--she secretly chafed at

her daughter's lack of enthusiasm.

How different to Alaric--always full of nearly new ideas: always about

to do something. Alaric kept those around him on the alert--no one ever

really knew what he would do next. On the other hand, Ethel depressed

by her stolid content with everything about her. Every one knew what

she would do--or thought they did.

Mrs. Chichester had long since abandoned any further attempt to

interest her brother Nathaniel in the children.

Angela's wretched marriage had upset everything,--driven Nathaniel to

be a recluse and to close his doors on near and distant relatives.

Angela's death the following year did not relieve the situation. If

anything, it intensified it, since she left a baby that, naturally,

none of the family could possibly take the slightest notice of--nor

interest in.

It was tacitly agreed never to speak of the unfortunate incident,

especially before the children. It was such a terrible example for

Ethel, and so discouraging to the eager and ambitious Alaric.

Consequently Angela's name was never spoken inside of Regal Villa.

And so the Chichester family pursued an even course, only varied by

Alaric's sudden and DEFINITE decisions to enter either public life, or

athletics, or the army, or the world of art--it was really extremely

hard for so well-equipped a young man to decide to limit himself to any

one particular pursuit. Consequently he put off the final choice from

day to day.

Suddenly a most untoward incident happened. Alaric, returning from a

long walk, alone--during which he had ALMOST decided to become a

doctor--walked in through the windows from the garden into the

living-room and found his mother in tears, an open letter in her hand.

This was most unusual. Mrs. Chichester was not wont to give vent to

open emotion. It shows a lack of breeding. So she always suppressed it.

It seemed to grow inwards. To find her weeping--and almost

audibly--impressed Alaric that something of more than usual importance

had occurred.

"Hello, Mater!" he cried cheerfully, though his looks belied the

buoyancy of his tone. "Hullo! what's the matter? What's up?"

At the same moment Ethel came in through the door.

It was 11:30, and at precisely that time every morning Ethel practised

for half an hour on the piano. Not that she had the slightest interest

in music, but it helped the morning so much. She would look forward to

it for an hour before, and think of it for an hour afterwards--and then

it was lunch-time. It practically filled out the entire morning.

Mrs. Chichester looked up as her beloved children came toward her--and

REAL tears were in her eyes, and a REAL note of alarm was in her voice:

"Oh Ethel! Oh Alaric!"

Alaric was at her side in a moment. He was genuinely alarmed.

Ethel moved slowly across, thinking, vaguely, that something must have

disagreed with her mother.

"What is it, mater?" cried Alaric.

"Mother!" said Ethel, with as nearly a tone of emotion as she could

feel.

"We're ruined!" sobbed Mrs. Chichester.

"Nonsense!" said the bewildered son.

"Really?" asked the placid daughter.

"Our bank has failed! Every penny your poor father left me was in it,"

wailed Mrs. Chichester. "We've nothing. Nothing. We're beggars."

A horrible fear for a moment gripped Alaric--the dread of poverty. He

shivered! Suppose such a thing should really happen? Then he dismissed

it with a shrug of his shoulders. How perfectly absurd! Poverty,

indeed! The Chichesters beggars? Such nonsense! He turned to his mother

and found her holding out a letter and a newspaper. He took them both

and read them with mingled amazement and disgust. First the headline of

the newspaper caught his eye:

"Failure of Gifford's Bank."

Then he looked at the letter:

"Gifford's Bank suspended business yesterday!" Back his eye travelled

to the paper: "Gifford's Bank has closed its doors!" He was quite

unable, at first, to grasp the full significance of the contents of

that letter and newspaper. He turned to Ethel:

"Eh?" he gasped.

"Pity," she murmured, trying to find a particular piece of music

amongst the mass on the piano.

"We're ruined!" reiterated Mrs. Chichester.

Then the real meaning of those cryptic headlines and the business-like

letter broke in on Alaric. All the Chichester blood was roused in him.

"Now that's what I call a downright, rotten, blackguardly shame--a

BLACKGUARDLY SHAME!" His voice rose in tones as it increased in

intensity until it almost reached a shriek.

Something was expected of him. At any rate indignation. Well, he was

certainly indignant.

"Closed its doors, indeed!" he went on. "Why should it close its doors?

That's what I want to know! Why--should--it?" and he glared at the

unoffending letter and the non-committal newspaper.

He looked at Ethel, who was surreptitiously concealing a yawn, and was

apparently quite undisturbed by the appalling news.

He found no inspiration there.

Back he went to his mother for support.

"What RIGHT have banks to fail? There should be a law against it. They

should be made to open their doors and keep 'em open. That's what we

give 'em our money for--so that we can take it out again when we want

it."

Poor Mrs. Chichester shook her head sadly.

"Everything gone," she moaned. "Ruined! and at my age!"

"Nice kettle of fish," was all Alaric could think of. He was

momentarily stunned. He turned once more to Ethel. He never relied on

her very much, but at this particular crisis he would like to have some

expression of opinion, however slight--from her.

"I say, Ethel, it's a nice kettle of fish all o-boilin', eh?"

"Shame!" she said quietly, as she found the particular movement of

Grieg she had been looking for. She loved Grieg. He fitted into all her

moods. She played everything he composed exactly the same. She seemed

to think it soothed her. She would play some now and soothe her mother

and Alaric.

She began an impassioned movement which she played evenly and

correctly, and without any unseemly force. Alaric cried out

distractedly: "For goodness' sake stop that, Ethel! Haven't you got any

feelings? Can't you see how upset the mater is? And I am? Stop it.

There's a dear! Let's put our backs into this thing and thrash it all

out. Have a little family meetin', as it were."

Poor Mrs. Chichester repeated, as though it were some refrain: "Ruined!

At my age!"

Alaric sat on the edge of her chair and put his arm around her shoulder

and tried to comfort her.

"Don't you worry, mater," he said. "Don't worry. I'll go down and tell

'em what I think of 'em--exactly what I think of 'em. They can't play

the fool with me. I should think NOT, indeed. Listen, mater. You've got

a SON, thank God, and one no BANK can take any liberties with. What we

put in there we've got to have out. That's all I can say. We've simply

got to have it out. There! I've said it!"

Alaric rose, and drawing himself up to his full five feet six inches of

manhood glared malignantly at some imaginary bank officials. His whole

nature was roused. The future of the family depended on him. They would

not depend in vain. He looked at Ethel, who was trying to make the best

of the business by smiling agreeably on them both.

"It's bankrupt!" wailed Mrs. Chichester.

"Failed!" suggested Ethel, cheerfully.

"We're beggars," continued the mother. "I must live on charity for the

rest of my life. The guest of relations I've hated the sight of and who

have hated me. It's dreadful! Dreadful!"

All Alaric's first glow of manly enthusiasm began to cool.

"Don't you think we'll get anything?" By accident he turned to Ethel.

She smiled meaninglessly and said for the first time with any real note

of conviction:

"Nothing!"

Alaric sat down gloomily beside his mother.

"I always thought bank directors were BLIGHTERS. Good Lord, what a

mess!" He looked the picture of misery. "What's to become of Ethel,

mater?"

"Whoever shelters me must shelter Ethel as well," replied the mother

sadly. "But it's hard--at my age--to be--sheltered."

Alaric looked at Ethel, and a feeling of pity came over him. It was

distinctly to his credit--since his own wrongs occupied most of his

attention. But after all HE could buffet the world and wring a living

out of it. All he had to do was to make up his mind which walk in life

to choose. He was fortunate.

But Ethel, reared from infancy in the environment of independence: it

would come very hard and bitter on her.

Alaric just touched Ethel's hand, and with as much feeling as he could

muster, he said: "Shockin' tough, old girl."

Ethel shook her head almost determinedly and said, somewhat

enigmatically, and FOR HER, heatedly:

"NO!"

"No?" asked Alaric. "No--what?"

"Charity!" said Ethel.

"Cold-blooded word," and Alaric shuddered. "What will you do, Ethel?"

"Work."

"At what?"

"Teach."

"TEACH? Who in the wide world can YOU teach?"

"Children."

Alaric laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, come, that's rich! Eh, mater? Fancy

Ethel teachin' grubby little brats their A B C's! Tush!"

"Must!" said Ethel, quite unmoved.

"A CHICHESTER TEACH?" said Alaric, in disgust.

"Settled!" from Ethel, and she swept her finger slowly across the piano.

"Very well," said Alaric, determinedly: "I'll work, too." Mrs.

Chichester looked up pleadingly.

Alaric went on: "I'll put my hand to the plough. The more I think of it

the keener I am to begin. From to-day I'll be a workin' man."

At this Ethel laughed a queer, little, odd, supercilious note, summed

up in a single word: "Ha!" There was nothing mirthful in it. There was

no reproach in it. It was just an expression of her honest feeling at

the bare suggestion of her brother WORKING.

Alaric turned quickly to her:

"And may I ask WHY that 'Ha!'? WHY, I ask you? There's nothing I

couldn't do if I were really put to it--not a single thing. Is there,

mater?"

His mother looked up proudly at him.

"I know that, dear. But it's dreadful to think of YOU--WORKING."

"Not at all," said Alaric, "I'm just tingling all over at the thought

of it. The only reason I haven't so far is because I've never had to.

But now that I have, I'll just buckle on my armour, so to speak, and

astonish you all."

Again came that deadly, cold, unsympathetic "Ha!" from Ethel.

"Please don't laugh in that cheerless way, Ethel. It goes all down my

spine. Jerry's always tellin' me I ought to do something--that the

world is for the worker--and all that. He's right, and I'm goin' to

show him." He suddenly picked up the paper and looked at the date.

"What's to-day? The FIRST? Yes, so it is. June the first. Jerry's

comin' to-day--all his family, too. They've taken 'Noel's Folly' on the

hill. He's sure to look in here. Couldn't be better. He's the cove to

turn to in a case like this."

Jarvis, a white-haired, dignified butler who had served the family man

and boy, came in at this juncture with a visiting card on a salver.

Alaric picked it up and glanced at it. He gave an expression of disgust

and flung the card back on the salver.

"Christian Brent."

For the first time Ethel showed more than a passing gleam of interest.

She stopped strumming the piano and stood up, very erect and very still.

Mrs. Chichester rose too: "I can't see any one," she said imperatively.

"Nor I," added Alaric. "I'm all strung up." He turned to Jarvis. "Tell

Mr. Brent we're very sorry, but--"

"I'LL see him," interrupted Ethel, almost animatedly. "Bring Mr. Brent

here, Jarvis."

As Jarvis went in search of Mr. Brent, Mrs. Chichester went up the

great stairs: "My head is throbbing. I'll go to my room."

"Don't you worry, mater," consoled Alaric. "Leave everything to me.

I'll thrash the whole thing out--absolutely thrash it out."

As Mrs. Chichester disappeared, Alaric turned to his calm sister, who,

strangely enough, was showing some signs of life and interest.

"Awful business, Ethel, eh?"

"Pretty bad."

"Really goin' to teach?"

"Yes."

"Right! I'll find somethin', too. Very likely a doctor. We'll pull

through somehow."

Ethel made a motion toward the door as though to stop any further

conversation.

"Mr. Brent's coming," she said, almost impatiently.

Alaric started for the windows leading into the garden.

"Jolly good of you to let him bore you. I hate the sight of the beggar,

myself. Always looks to me like the first conspirator at a play."

The door opened, and Jarvis entered and ushered in "Mr. Brent." Alaric

hurried into the garden.