ory 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 ou