on the verge
of deciding to do what the priest wished. Walking day by day along the
shore or through the fields, he came to think that life might very
well be spent without ambitious or extended hopes in quiet toil and
unexciting pleasures. What held him back was the recollection, which
never ceased to haunt him, of his father's prophecy. The thought of
the great fight, declared to be imminent, stirred in him an emotion so
strong that the peace and monotony he half desired became impossible.
He never made it clear to himself that he either believed or disbelieved
the prediction. He certainly did not expect to see an actual gathering
of armed men, or that Ireland was to be the scene of a battle like those
in South Africa. But there was in him a conviction that Ireland was
awakening out of a long sleep, was stretching her limbs in preparation
for activity. He felt the quiver of a national strenuousness which was
already shaking loose the knots of the old binding-ropes of prejudice
and cowardice. It seemed to him that bone was coming to dry bone, and
that sooner or later--very soon, it was likely--one would breathe on
these, and they would live. That contest should come out of such a
renaissance was inevitable. But what contest? Against whom was the new
Ireland to fight, and who was truly on her side? Here was the puzzle,
insoluble but insistent. It would not let him rest, recurring to his
mind with each fresh recollection of his father's prophecy.

It was while he was wearying himself with this perplexity that he got
a letter from Augusta Goold. It was characteristic of her that she had
written no word of sympathy when she heard of his father's death, and
now, when a letter did come, it contained no allusion to Hyacinth's
affairs. She told him with evident delight that she had enlisted no less
than ten recruits for the Boer army. She had collected sufficient money
to equip them and pay their travelling expenses. It was arranged that
they were to proceed to Paris, and there join a body of volunteers
organized by a French officer, a certain Pierre de Villeneuve, about
whom Miss Goold was enthusiastic. She was in communication with an
Irishman who seemed likely to be a suitable captain for her little band,
and she wanted Hyacinth back in Dublin to help her.

'You know,' she wrote, 'the people I have round me here. Poor old Grealy
is quite impracticable, though he means well. He talks about nothing
but the Fianna and Finn M