“Ye're right, my son, so far. What signifies fifteen thousand pounds when the feelings of an ancient family are outraged?”
“But I can't understand how those men had power to take the land, if you did not wish to give it to them, for their railway and their hotel.”
“It's more of the oppression, my son—more of the thrampling of our counthry into the dust. I rejected their offers with scorn at first; but I found out that they could get power from the oppressors of our counthry to buy every foot of the ground at the price put on it by a man they call an arbithrator—so between thraitors and arbithrators I knew I couldn't hold out. With tears in my eyes I signed the papers, and now all the land from the mouth of Suangorm to Innishdermot is in the hands of the English company—all but the castle—thank God they couldn't wrest that from me. If you'd only been by me, Standish, I would have held out against them all; but think of the desolate old man sitting amongst the ruins of his home and the tyrants with the gold—I could do nothing.”
“And then you came out here. Well, father, I'm glad to see you, and Colonel Gerald will be so too, and—Daireen.”
“Aye,” said The Macnamara. “Daireen is here too. And have you been talking to the lovely daughter of the Geralds, my boy? Have you been confessing all you confessed to me, on that bright day at Innishdermot? Have you——”
“Look here, father,” said Standish sternly; “you must never allude to anything that you forced me to say then. It was a dream of mine, and now it is past.”
“You can hold your head higher than that now, my boy,” said The Macnamara proudly. “You're not a beggar now, Standish; money's in the family.”
“As if money could make any difference,” said Standish.
“It makes all the difference in the world, my boy,” said The Macnamara; but suddenly recollecting his principles, he added, “That is, to some people; but a Macnamara without a penny might aspire to the hand of the noblest in the land. Oh, here she comes—the bright snowdhrop of Glenmara—the arbutus-berry of Craig-Innish; and her father too—oh, why did he turn to the Saxons?”
The Macnamara, Prince of Innishdermot, Chief of the Islands and Lakes, and King of all Munster, was standing with his son in the coffee-room of the hotel, having just come ashore from the steamer that had brought him out to the Cape. The patriot had actually left his land for the first time in his life, and had proceeded to the colony in search of his son, and he found his son waiting for him at the dock gates.