my jewel; and if he be he's left more of his kidney. No; if
you must be a fool, be a fool with your eyes open! I tell you old
Ireland had her lesson thirty years back, and if you were Sarsfield
himself, and called on 'em to rise against the Saxon to-day, you'd not
find as many follow you as would take a sessions town!"

"You know a heap of things, Asgill," James McMurrough answered
disdainfully. But he looked his discomfiture.

"I do. And more by token, I know this!" Asgill retorted. He had risen
to depart, and the two stood with their faces close together. "This!"
he repeated, clapping one hand on the other. "If you're a fool, I'm a
bigger! By Heaven, I am! Or what would I be doing? Why, I'd be pressing
you into this, by the Lord, I would, in place of holding you back! And
then when the trouble came, as come it would, and you'd to quit, my
lad, and no choice but to make work for the hangman or beg a crust over
seas, and your sister 'd no more left than she stood up in, and small
choice either, it's then she'd be glad to take Luke Asgill, as she'll
barely look at now! Ay, my lad, I'd win her then, if it were but as the
price of saving your neck! There's naught she'd not do for you, and I'd
ask but herself."

James McMurrough stared at him, confounded. For Asgill spoke with a
bitterness as well as a vehemence that betrayed how little he cared for
the man he addressed--whether he swung or lived, begged or famished.
His tone, his manner, his black look, all made it plain that the scheme
he outlined was no sudden thought, but a plan long conceived, often
studied, and put aside with reluctance. For the listener it was as if,
the steam clearing away, he'd a glimpse of the burning pit of a
volcano, on the shelving side of which he stood. He shuddered, and his
countenance changed. A creature of small vanities and small vices,
utterly worthless, selfish, and cruel, but as weak as water, he quailed
before this glimpse of elemental passion, before this view of a soul
darker than his own. And it was with a poor affectation of defiance
that he made his answer.

"And what for, if it's as easy as you say, don't you do it?" he
stammered.

Asgill groaned. "Because--but there, you wouldn't understand--you
wouldn't understand! Still, if you must be knowing, there's ways of
winning would be worse than losing!"

The McMurrough's confidence began to return. "You're grown scrupulous,"
he sneered, half in jest, half in earnest.

Asgi