Like things of life within his heart did Memory's quick thoughts throng:
Louder and stronger swelled the strain, like a river in its course;
From his couch the Chieftain started,—"To horse!" he cried, "to horse!"
And proudly, like a warrior, waved his sword above his head:
One onward step—one gurgling gasp—and the Chief is of the Dead!
The harper changed his strain to grief: the Coronach was thine,
Who died, as thou hadst lived, a Man, oh mighty Geraldine!
[CAPTAIN ROCK.]
CHAPTER I. — THE WAKE.
The year 1822 was remarkable for being what in Ireland was called "A Whiteboy Year." Rents were only paid by compulsion. Tithes were not paid at all. Wages were low. The price of food was high. The middleman system had been on the increase, year after year, until the land and people were crushed under it. The priests from the altar, and O'Connell, from the tribune and through the press, earnestly argued the masses not to rebel, no matter how great the aggravation, how intense the despair, and the advice had great weight in most instances. Many causes combined to render the peasantry ripe for revolt.—As, on one side, there were not wanting men able and willing to act as leaders in any popular movement; so, on the other, there was no lack of Government spies to fan the flame, to cajole the peasantry into breaches of the law, and to betray those whom they thus had duped.