"Moy oye!" said Richard, intensifying his favourite invocation in his surprise, "but what's wrong with Ireland?"
The position wanted but the touch of opposition. Larry rather well bet Richard that there was plenty wrong with her! Penal laws! Persecution! Saxon despots grinding their heels into a down-trodden people! Revolution! Liberation! Larry had a tongue that was hung loosely in his head and was a quick servant to his brain.
"Of course I know we're rather young—well, you're nearly fourteen, Richard, and I'm thirteen and three months, that's not so awfully young. Anyway, everything's got to have a beginning——" He glowed upon his audience of six, his fair hair in a shock, his eyes and his cheeks in a blaze, and one, at least, of that audience caught fire.
The Revolutionary or Reformer, who hesitates at becoming a bore, is unworthy of his high office; and Larry, like most of his class, required but little encouragement. He produced a large book, old and shabby, the green and gold of its covers stained and faded, but still of impressive aspect.
"There are heaps of them, and they're all jolly good. It's rather hard to choose——" began the Revolutionary with a shade of nervousness. Then he again met Christian's eyes, shining and compelling, and took heart from them.
"Well, there's 'Fontenoy,' of course that's a ripper—Well, I don't know what you'll all think, but I think this is a jolly good one," he said with a renewal of defiance, and began to read, at first hurriedly, but gathering confidence and excitement as he went on:
"Did they dare, did they dare, to slay Owen Roe O'Neill?
Yes, they slew with poison, him they feared to meet with steel.
May God wither up their hearts! May their blood cease to flow!
May they walk in living death, who poisoned Owen Roe!