'In France.'
'Where will you plant it?'
'In the Crown of Great Britain.'
'God be with you then, and with us all,' Thomas concluded; 'and now a glass all round to the health of the new member.'
The pledge was gravely accepted, each one raising his beaker and saying: 'To the diffusion of light!' ere he drained its contents and replaced it on the table bottom upwards.
'Now, gentlemen,' pursued Thomas. 'We have serious business before us. Theobald will be away a year at least before help can come, and it is his wish that we should without delay prepare to graft the military upon our civil functions. With arms and ammunition Tone will provide us if he can, but they will be of little service unless we know how to use them. In the halcyon days of the Volunteers every Irishman was a soldier. Let us show that the martial spirit of our ancient kings, which then for awhile revived, is not quite dead in us.'
'I will never consent to bloodshed,' shuddered young Robert. 'Internecine strife is too horrible!'
'You have been sworn in by your own desire,' returned his brother, sternly, 'and your first duty is blind obedience. It is Tone's conviction that we must fight, and fight we will when the time comes--to the death! In revolutions there is nothing certain but blood. The march of the captives is through a Red Sea. After forty years of seeking new abodes, which of those who lead them shall touch the Promised Land? Lord Clare shows us his cards, and a pretty hand it is. Sirr is organising his paid spies into a battalion who are to dwell at the Castle like pampered pets. It is hard to believe that Irishmen will be so base. These informers are to lie perdu until wanted--are to worm themselves into the confidence of suspected persons, to eat of their bread and salt, to nurse their little ones upon their knees, and then, upon a signal, to give them over to the hangman.'
'But the Viceroy!' cried Cassidy in indignation. 'Lord Camden is a man of honour who would never consent to such a plan!'
Thomas Emmett shook his head mournfully.