far east of Tralee as it stands
west--glory be to God for it!--I'm thinking he'd say that word, and
there'd be no penny for you, and no marriage for her, but you'd both be
hat in hand to him!"

McMurrough's face showed a shade paler through the dusk.

"What would you have me do?" he muttered.

"Quit this fooling, this plan of a rising, and give him no handle.
That, any way."

"But that won't rid us of him?" McMurrough said, in a low voice.

"True for you. And I'll be thinking about that same. If it is to be
done, it's best done soon--I'm with you there. He's no footing yet, and
if he vanished 'twould be no more than if he'd never come. See the
light below? There! It's gone. Well, that way he'd go, and little more
talk, if 'twere well plotted."

"But how?" The McMurrough asked nervously.

"I will consider," Asgill answered.

CHAPTER VIII

AN AFTER-DINNER GAME

Easiness, the failing of the old-world Irishman, had been Uncle Ulick's
bane through life. It was easiness which had induced him to condone a
baseness in his nephew which he would have been the first to condemn in
a stranger. And again it was easiness which had beguiled him into
standing idle while the brother's influence was creeping like
strangling ivy over the girl's generous nature; while her best
instincts were being withered by ridicule, her generosity abused by
meanness, and her sense of right blunted by such acts of lawlessness as
the seizure of the smuggling vessel. He feared, if he did not know,
that things were going ill. He saw the blighting shadow of Asgill begin
to darken the scene. He believed that The McMurrough, unable to raise
money on the estate--since he had no title--was passing under Asgill's
control. And still he had not raised his voice.

But, above all, it was easiness which had induced Uncle Ulick to
countenance in Flavia those romantic notions, now fast developing into
full-blown plans, which he, who had seen the world in his youth, should
have blasted; which he, who could recall the humiliation of Boyne Water
and the horrors of '90, he, who knew somewhat, if only a little, of the
strength of England and the weakness of Ireland, should have been the
first to nip in the bud.

He had not nipped them. Instead, he had allowed the reckless patriotism
of the young O'Beirnes, the predatory instincts of O'Sullivan Og, the
simulated enthusiasm--for simulated he knew it to be--of the young
McMurrough to guide the politics of