Three days afterwards O'Connell was able to dress and move about his room. He was weak from loss of blood and the confinement that an active man resents. But his brain was clear and vivid. They had been three wonderful days.
Angela had made them the most amazing in his life. The memory of those hours spent with her he would carry to his grave.
She read to him and talked to him and lectured him and comforted him. There were times when he thanked the Power that shapes our ends for having given him this one supreme experience. The cadences of her voice would haunt him through the years to come.
And in a little while he must leave it all. He must stand his trial under the "Crimes Act" for speaking at a "Proclaimed" meeting.
Well, whatever his torture he knew he would come out better equipped for the struggle. He had learned something of himself he had so far never dreamed of in his bitter struggle with the handicap of his life. He had something to live for now besides the call of his country—the call of the HEART—the cry of beauty and truth and reverence.
Angela inspired him with all these. In the three days she ministered to him she had opened up a vista he had hitherto never known. And now he had to leave it and face his accusers, and be hectored and jeered at in the mockery they called "trials." From the Court-House he would go to the prison and from thence he would be sent back into the world with the brand of the prison-cell upon him. As the thought of all this passed through his mind, he never wavered. He would face it as he had faced trouble all his life, with body knit for the struggle, and his heart strong for the battle.
And back of it all the yearning that at the end she would be waiting and watching for his return to the conflict for the great "Cause" to which he had dedicated his life.
On the morning of the third day Mr. Roche, the resident magistrate, was sent for by Nathaniel Kingsnorth. Mr. Roche found him firm and determined, his back to the fireplace, in which a bright fire was burning, although the month was July.
"Even the climate of Ireland rebels against the usual laws of nature!" thought Kingsnorth, as he shivered and glanced at the steady, drenching downpour that had lasted, practically, ever since he had set foot in the wretched country.
The magistrate came forward and greeted him respectfully.