ght, they went under the shade of fine trees which reached their
branches over the road from the demesne in which they grew.

"The big house in there," said Hope, "belongs to one of the landlord
families of this county. It has been their's for generations. On the
lawn in front of that house a company of Volunteers used to meet for
drill. The owner of the house, the lord of the soil, was their captain.
In those days we had all Ireland united--the landlords, the merchants,
and the farming people. Now it is not so. Our landlords won then what
they wanted--freedom and power. They have ruled Ireland since 1782.
The merchants and manufacturers also won what they chiefly wanted--the
opportunity of fair and free trade. They have grown rich, and are every
year growing richer. They bid fair to make Ireland a great commercial
nation--what she ought to be, the link between the Old World and the
New. But both the landlords and the traders have been selfish. Having
gained the object of their desires, they are unwilling to share
either power or riches with the people. They have refused to consider
reasonable measures of reform. They have goaded and harried us
until----"

He ceased speaking and sighed.

"But," he went on, "they will not be able to keep either their power or
their riches. In refusing to trust the people they are ensuring their
own doom. They forget that there is a power greater than theirs--that
England is continually on the watch to win back again her sovereignty
over Ireland. Our upper class and our middle class are too jealous of
their privileges to share them with us. They will give England the
opportunity she wants. Then Ireland will be brought into the old
subjection, and her advance towards prosperity will be checked again as
it was checked before. She will become a country of haughty
squireens--the most contemptible class of all, men of blackened honour
and broken faith, men proud, but with nothing to be proud of--and of
ruined traders; a land of ill-cultivated fields and ruined mills; a
nation crushed by her conqueror."

Neal listened attentively. It was curious that the fear to which James
Hope gave expression was the very same which he had heard from Lord
Dun-severic. Each dreaded England. Each saw that out of the turmoil of
contemporary politics would come the restoration of the English power
over Ireland. But Lord Dunseveric blamed the schemes of the United
Irishmen. James Hope blamed the selfishness of