ver doubt
it. What am I here but a discontented idle lout crooning over the empty
glories of our isle of Saints! You feel them, Pat. Phil's all for his
British army, his capabilities of British light cavalry. Write me the
history of the Enniskillens. I'll read it. Aha, my boy, when they 're
off at the charge! And you'll oblige me with the tale of Fontenoy. Why,
Phil has an opportunity stretching forth a hand to him now more than
halfway that comes to a young Irishman but once in a century: backed by
the entire body of the priesthood of Ireland too! and if only he was a
quarter as full of the old country as you and I, his hair would stand up
in fire for the splendid gallop at our head that's proposed to him. His
country's gathered up like a crested billow to roll him into Parliament;
and I say, let him be there, 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 da