ler would step in and steal votes from
both.

He showed not only that he knew every barony of the county, and every
estate and property, but that he had a clear insight into the different
localities where discontent prevailed, and places where there was something
more than discontent.

'It is down there,' said he significantly, 'that I can be useful. The man
that has had his foot in the dock, and only escaped having his head in the
noose, is never discredited in Ireland. Talk Parliament and parliamentary
tactics to the small shopkeepers in Moate, and leave me to talk treason to
the people in the bog.'

'But I mistake you and your friends greatly,' said Kearney, 'if these were
the tactics you always followed; I thought that you were the physical-force
party, who sneered at constitutionalism and only believed in the pike.'

'So we did, so long as we saw O'Connell and the lawyers working the game of
that grievance for their own advantage, and teaching the English Government
how to rule Ireland by a system of concession to _them_ and to _their_
friends. Now, however, we begin to perceive that to assault that heavy
bastion of Saxon intolerance, we must have spies in the enemy's fortress,
and for this we send in so many members to the Whig party. There are scores
of men who will aid us by their vote who would not risk a bone in our
cause. Theirs is a sort of subacute patriotism; but it has its use. It
smashes an Established Church, breaks down Protestant ascendency, destroys
the prestige of landed property, and will in time abrogate entail and
primogeniture, and many another fine thing; and in this way it clears the
ground for our operations, just as soldiers fell trees and level houses
lest they interfere with the range of heavy artillery.'

'So that the place you would assign me is that very honourable one you have
just called a "spy in the camp"?'

'By a figure I said that, Mr. Kearney; but you know well enough what I
meant was, that there's many a man will help us on the Treasury benches
that would not turn out on Tallaght; and we want both. I won't say,' added
he, after a pause, 'I'd not rather see you a leader in our ranks than
a Parliament man. I was bred a doctor, Mr. Kearney, and I must take
an illustration from my own art. To make a man susceptible of certain
remedies, you are often obliged to reduce his strength and weaken his
constitution. So it is here. To bring Ireland into a condition to be
bettered by Re