re, he 's the very man to hurl his gauntlet, and
tell 'm, Parliament, so long as you are parliamentary, which means the
speaking of our minds, but if you won't have it, then-and it 's on your
heads before Europe and the two Americas. We're dying like a nun that 'd
be out of her cloister, we're panting like the wife who hears of her
husband coming home to her from the field of honour, for that young man.
And there he is; or there he seems to be; but he's dead: and the
fisherman off the west coast after dreaming of a magical haul, gets more
fish than disappointment in comparison with us when we cast the net for
Philip. Bring tears of vexation at the emptiness we pull back for our
pains. Oh, Phil! and to think of your youth! We had you then. At least we
had your heart. And we should have had the length and strength of you,
only for a woman fatal to us as the daughter of Rhys ap Tudor, the
beautiful Nesta:--and beautiful she was to match the mother of the curses
trooping over to Ireland under Strongbow, that I'll grant you. But she
reined you in when you were a real warhorse ramping and snorting flame
from your nostrils, challenging any other to a race for Ireland; ay, a
Cuchullin you were, Philip, Culann's chain-bound: but she unmanned you.
She soaked the woman into you and squeezed the hero out of you. All for
Adiante! or a country left to slavery! that's the tale. And what are you
now? A paltry captain of hussars on the General's staff! One O'Donnell in
a thousand! And what is she?--you needn't frown, Phil; I'm her relative
by marriage, and she 's a lady. More than that, she shot a dart or two
into my breast in those days, she did, I'll own it: I had the catch of
the breath that warns us of convulsions. She was the morning star for
beauty, between night and day, and the best colour of both. Welshmen and
Irishmen and Englishmen tumbled into the pit, which seeing her was, and
there we jostled for a glimpse quite companionably; we were too hungry
for quarrelling; and to say, I was one of 'm, is a title to subsequent
friendship. True; only mark me, Philip, and you, Patrick: they say she
has married a prince, and I say no; she's took to herself a husband in
her cradle; she's married ambition. I tell you, and this prince of hers
is only a step she has taken, and if he chases her first mate from her
bosom, he'll prove himself cleverer than she, and I dare him to the
trial. For she's that fiery dragon, a beautiful woman with brains