'Major Sirr's banditti,' the undergraduate went on, so soon as the bottle, being empty, could be laid down, 'have taken on them a new function. They arrogate to themselves now a right of paying domiciliary visits without search-warrants, of forcing open a person's door whensoever the outrage may suit their whim. A year ago they wormed their way into Trinity, and by an accident we were unable to rouse the college.'

'Arrah, thin,' grumbled Cassidy, 'will ye always be pitching my big shoulder sand empty head in my teeth? I was sorry for my awkwardness, and that's enough.'

'But at that time they were right to take us, if they could; for in truth we were conspiring--a red-letter day in my memory, the day I took the oath! Hearken to this, all of you! You know Tim Flanagan, of Ormond's Quay, whose lady--God rest her soul!--was brought to bed a week ago? She died, so did the child, last night; and Tim, gone wild with sorrow, threw himself on the floor beside the corpse, refusing to be comforted. There came a knocking at his warehouse entry; it was barred, and the men away. His sister, from a window, desired to know what was wanted. Sirr answered that he was come to search the house--for what, in the Lord's name? Gunpowder cannot be bought. The sister offered money if they would respect their grief, but not enough. In the warehouses nothing compromising was found, of course. The room where the corpse lay was to be searched also. They battered in the door of the guarded chamber, but recoiled in a fright, for Tim stood with a threatening glare of madness beside his young wife, a knife clutched in his right hand. They fled, these myrmidons who disregarded an agony of soul which a savage would respect; and Tim knelt down there and then, with his appalled sister, swearing, on the blue lips of her who was gone before, an eternal enmity against the Castle tyrants.'

There was a long silence, during which Curran hung his head, while the brow of his junior darkened, and honest Phil, his goggle-eyed henchman, poured claret in his master's lap instead of into his glass.

'It is horrible!' sighed Cassidy, and swore a string of oaths. 'Tim Flanagan had fought shy of the society,' he shouted, 'but now would surely join it. His was but one case out of many. The wickedness of those in power would surely drive all Ireland to take the oath, and then the sons of the soil would rise as one man and hunt the tyrants into the Channel.'

Mr. Curran shook his rough head.

'They are working for a purpose, as Robert says,' he remarked; 'a wicked purpose, which aims at our eternal slavery. Instead of sowing seeds of wholesome trees, beneath which our children may seek shelter, they cherish poisonous roots, with the intent to squat like witches in a plantation of nightshade. You will never hunt them into the Channel. Do you know that they are flooding the island with troops--disciplined troops, who will part your ill-trained myriads like water? I see their aim, though they would fain hide it till the fruit is ripe. They will goad us by insidious outrage to despair, then stamp on us with an overwhelming force, and, when we are faint and bleeding, will tie us, gagged and chained, to the car of England for evermore.'

'What do you mean?' Terence inquired sternly.

'I mean,' responded his chief, 'that when we are ground into the dust, they will sweep us from the list of nations. Cobwebs will gather round the locks of our senate-house; our exchange will be silent as the tomb, our docks empty, our quays deserted. England will swallow us body and soul; will devour our liberty, and with it our existence.'

'Never!' bawled impetuous Cassidy. 'We will die first, if it's thrue what he says, and he's more wise than I. We are men, aren't we, who can die but once? Shall we lie down to be whipped, like dancing-dogs? There's no going back, except for cowards, boys! All must fall in, or be disgraced. What say you, Master Crosbie, will you sit by and see Ould Erin sold?'