uck
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