the house and to bring it to the
verge of a crisis. The younger generation and their kin, the Sullivans,
the Mahoneys, the O'Beirnes, bred in this remote corner, leading a wild
and almost barbarous life, deriving such sparks of culture as reached
them from foreign sources and through channels wilder than their life,
were no judges of their own weakness or of the power opposed to them.
But he was. He knew, and had known, that it became him, as the Nestor
of the party, to point out the folly of their plans. Instead, he had
bowed to the prevailing feeling. For--be it his excuse--he, too, was
Irish! He, too, felt his heart too large for his bosom when he dwelt on
his country's wrongs. On him, too, though he knew that successful
rebellion was out of the question, Flavia's generous indignation, her
youth, her enthusiasm, wrought powerfully. And at times, in moments of
irritation, he, too, saw red, and dreamed of a last struggle for
freedom.

At this point, at a moment when the crisis, grown visible, could no
longer be masked, had arrived John Sullivan, a man of experience. His
very aspect sobered Uncle Ulick's mind. The latter saw that only a
blacker and more hopeless night could follow the day of vengeance of
which he dreamt; and he sat this evening--while Asgill talked on the
hill with The McMurrough--he sat this evening by the light of the
peat-fire, and was sore troubled. Was it, or was it not, too late? He
occupied the great chair in which Sir Michael had so often conned his
Scudery of winter evenings; but though he filled the chair, he knew
that he had neither the will nor the mastery of its old owner. If it
had not passed already, the thing might easily pass beyond his staying.
Meanwhile, Flavia sat on a stool on the farther side of the
blaze--until supper was on the board they used no other light--brooding
bitterly over the loss of her mare; and he knew that that incident
would not make things more easy. For here was tyranny brought to an
every-day level; oppression that pricked to the quick! The Saxons, who
had risen for a mere poundage against their anointed king, did not
scruple to make slaves, ay, real slaves, of a sister and a more ancient
people! But the cup was full and running over, and they should rue it!
A short day and they would find opposed to them the wrath, the fury,
the despair of a united people and an ancient faith. Something like
this Flavia had been saying to him.

Then silence had fallen. And n