"'Whether by evolution the world has advanced, or whether, indeed, the lessons of that Nazarene, whom our soldiers crucified, are bearing celestial fruit, who knows! But surely our Rome, with all its power, all its splendor, all its heroic men and stately women; its victories in the field, its pageants in the Imperial City on the days when, returning from a conquest, our chieftians were laurel-crowned; our art, our eloquence—all, were nothing compared with this song of songs. It started at first where the sullen waves wash against Plymouth Rock; it swelled in volume while the deep woods gave place to smiling fields; over mountain and desert it rolled in full tones and only ceases, at last, where the roar of the deep sea, breaking outside the Golden Gate, or meeting in everlasting anger the Oregon upon her stormy bar, gives notice that the pioneer must halt at last in his westward march.'
"As he ceased to speak the melody was heard again, sweeter, clearer and fuller than before. My guest faded away before me and I awoke. In all the air there was no sound save the deep respirations of the hoisting engine in the Norcross works, and the murmur of the winds, as on slow beating wings they floated up over the Divide and swept on, out over the desert."
The verdict of the Club was that if old Scipio talked in that strain he had softened down immensely since the days when he was setting his legions in array against the swarthy hosts of the mighty Carthagenian.
After a while Corrigan spoke: "You native Americans," he said, "at least the majority of yees, do not half appreciate your country. I was but a lad whin, after a winter of half starvation, in the care of an uncle, I lift Ireland in an English imigrant ship. One mornin' as me uncle and meself were watchin' from the deck a sail rose out of the say directly in our path. It grew larger and larger, in a little while the hull appeared, and soon after we could discern that it was a frigate. The wind was off her beam, blowing fresh; every sail was crowded on, and as her black beak rose and fell with the says, I thought her more beautiful than the smile of the sunlight on the hills of Kildare. Half careened as she was under the pressure on her sails, but still resolutely rushing on, she made a pictur' of courage which has shone before me eyes a thousand times since, when me heart has been heavy. She drew quite near, and as she swung upon her tack her flag was dipped in salute. Then me uncle bent and said: 'Barney, lad, mark will that flag! That is an Amirican ship of war.'
"Great God! Child that I was, I think in that moment I knew how the young mother feels, when in the curtained dimness of her room, she half fainting, hears the blissful whisper that unto her is born a son.
"There was the ensign of the land which held all joy in thought for us; which to us opened the gates of hope; that wondrous land in the air of which the pallid cheek of Want grows rosy red and Irish hearts cast off hereditary dispair.
"I rushed forward, where thray hundred imigrants were listlessly lounging about the deck, and, in mad excitement, shouted: 'See! See! It is the Amirican flag!' Just then the sunlight caught in its folds and turned it to gold.
"O, but thin there was a transformation sane. Ivery person on that deck sprang up and shouted. Men waved their hats and women embraced each other, and with a mighty 'All Hail' those Irish imigrants—Irish no longer, but henceforth forever to be Amiricans—greeted that flag. In response the marines manned the yards, and off to us across the wathers came the first ringing Amirican chare that we had iver heard. We answered back with a yell like that which might have been awakened at Babel. It was not a disciplined chare, but simply a wild cry of joy, and it was none the less hearty that over us swung haughtily the red cross of St. George.
"You native Amiricans are like spiled children, that niver having known an unsatisfied want, surfeit on dainties."
Corrigan relapsed into silence, but his eyes were glistening and there was a tremble about his lips. His mind was still in the burial place, where "memory was calling up its dead."